My antipathy...

towards cats is boundless. Cats shit and piss in my plant pots. Cats give me asthma.

In the 1874 Alexander Graham Bell et al were developing a transducer to make sound from electrical impulses. With some success they used the tympanic mechanism from a human cadaver to generate noise. Years later two psychologists achieved better results with cats. First removing the cat's brain then wiring its ears produced an early MP3 device or so insists Jonathan Sterne. Accompanying the EMTY-CAT format streaming through kitty heads clamped to the skull also came the urge to shit in plant pots and piss on babies heads. Early baby netting was not the familiar white gossamer but instead a heavy gauze designed to repel streams of fetid urine. Netting became a de rigueur barrier since the wearer of these pioneering devices was unlikely to hear the shocked parent cry out.

Batteries the size of a modern fridge hampered mobility until the market leader began giving away urchins free with every device. However, innovation could not overcome the product's main handicap which is the cat heads limited shelf life. In winter this period might be measured in hours during summer they could rot off the ears before the satisfied customer even reached the till. Much thought was given to refrigeration as a preservative despite increasing the likelihood of death to the wearer from over-cooling. Some suggested the answer might lie in a smaller battery but the threat of an urchin strike stopped that line of enquiry.

Empty cat to MP3, who'd have thought?