It’s all about synchronicity, isn’t it? As one door closes, another opens, and Animal Hospital came along.”How exactly did you get the job, Rolf? “Well, they had this new producer, and it was her first job, and she said to her production team: `Give me a list of anyone in showbiz with an interest in animals.’ And my name was on that list, because I’d written Rolf’s Book of Personality Cats and when she saw my name she said, or so I’ve been told: `That’s the man I want.’ The production team then said: `What, the bloke who does the silly songs?’ And she said `Yes I trust him’.” And that’s another thing about Rolf. For all those years I’d had the children’s interests at heart, and then the powers that be didn’t want to know any more.” Rolf! Do I detect a certain note of bitterness here? “Oh no. Still, Penny is coming round nicely and being wrapped in bubblewrap to keep warm Rolf does the wrapping. There are tears in his eyes.Certainly, there were times when it looked as if Rolf’s career had all but gone down the tubes, and no more so than in 1993, when his popular children’s TV show, Rolf’s Cartoon Club, was axed after six years He was totally devastated by this, yes “I thought that was it The end. “Gabriel,” she says, “will you have a look at my cat’s bladder now?” Gabriel rushes off The funniest sorts of things seem to interest vets. “My grandma will go berserk.” Gabriel, as it happens, isn’t that keen on hamsters, either.

The trouble with hamsters, he says, is that they are very bitey, and when they nip your finger, your whole hand can shoot up, taking the hamster with it, until it spins off and explodes against a wall He has lost quite a few hamsters this way, he says Still, he is very tender with Penny. And he might even be as good with his hands as Jeremy, actually. Are you married, Gabriel? “Um, no.” Don’t you think Jeremy’s had his stab at the News of the World column, and it’s time for you to have a go? “Well, erm.” A nurse comes up. This turns out to be Penny, a hamster who, being an intelligent little thing, fell off a table on to the edge of a chair and has all but ripped her back legs off Penny needs anaesthetising and splintering and bandaging I’m not so keen on hamsters, frankly. I had one as a kid, but she was horrid with yellow, bitey teeth, and was also mean, so when, one morning, I came down and my mother said, “Darling, I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but Ernestina seems to have died…”, I was so upset that I did a little celebratory jig before saying: “Could I have a Mousetrap game with a diving board that actually works instead? And some clackers as well?”The vet in charge is Gabriel Hagard who, I must say, is very cute And excited His picture is going to be in TV Quick this week.

He not only recently headlined Glastonbury, but was voted the most popular act there ever. He scored a chart success with his own, jolly, sing-a-long version of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”, although his follow-up – an album covering all the great rock anthems – might not have been so wise. “Honky Tonk Woman” (“which, apparently, is about prostitutes!”) done to the woop- bloop-blop of a wobbleboard does, yes, somehow lose a little something in translation. Still, I wonder, naturally, if Robert Plant plans to cover, say, “Two Little Boys” or even “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport” Rolf says he doesn’t think so. “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport” was, of course, Rolf’s first great hit in this country.

It went to number two, and “I was poised for it to go to number one, but then Presley slipped in. That’s Elvis Presley, by the way”.Anyway, we have to break off now Rolf has to be filmed with the first patient of the day. “I like stuff I can recognise, actually.” Do you like the Spice Girls? “I don’t know much about them, actually.” Rolf! Where have you been? “Oh, doing my own thing – ha-cha- cha-ha-cha-cha-ha-cha-cha.”He has had a great and deserved comeback as of late. What happened to all those paintings? He says, because of fire regulations at the time, they had to be done on a certain kind of board, which was scraped from one week to the next It turns out he has never sold a painting.