YOU know when you know you've got to tell someone something but you just don't know how?

When you know there's no escaping it, that it has to be done, but still you can't bring yourself to say the words that are sticking so firmly in your throat?

I ask because I find myself in such a situation today and I'm not quite sure what to do. I can't decide which way to jump, you could say.

You see, I've something terrible to tell you and I don't for the life of me know how to do it, so abruptly, so clinically, in print.

I feel like I should really pick up the 'phone in a quick call to break the news but unless I'm going to send BT shares soaring through the City roof it's got to be now or never I'm afraid.

That said, never sounds good to me.

If the truth be known, I'd really rather not tell you this and I have considered banging on about people who openly sing the wrong words to songs instead.

For instance, I've been singing "faulty air" instead of "salty air" loudly to the Groove Armada all week and in particular when I was jet washing my car and performing a few subtle dance moves at the garage on Tuesday afternoon.

Then there's my mate who thinks Kate Bush is going "Keep running up that hill, with no bra on" in that song, when she is actually "Running up that hill, with no problem", thank you very much.

But no!

I couldn't live with myself If I allowed this to digress.

There's no escaping the horrible truth I'm afraid and it's got to be done.

I've got to tell you.

Only let me take shelter behind these sandbags first and give me a minute to unravel the inner wrangle with my conscience that has me temporarily tongue tied. You see, the problem is I just don't know how to tell you something that makes me look so bad.

And it's like I have an angel on one shoulder going "Tell them, you've got to" while the devil on the other side is going "No, tell them about your dad and Paul Young and how he sings 'Every time you go away you take a piece of meat with you' instead or how that bloke was grooving to Mark Morrison's Return of the Man and not Mack on the bus."

But I can't. There's nothing else for it. I'm just going to come out and say it. All right?

The cat's died.

There, I've done it -- and, I'm sorry, but it's not my fault. Honestly. I didn't want it dead, I just wanted it off my windowsill and out of my life. That's all.

Please don't hate me.

All I can tell you is that I saw it Sunday afternoon sat on the pavement but by the time I went into the kebab shop for my supper at 11pm it had been taken by the RSPCA.

My neighbours spotted me through the window and burst in to tell me the news.

They said it was my fault and I've felt terrible ever since.

I keep thinking if only I'd taken it in, maybe it wouldn't have become another accident statistic on East Lancashire's notorious Grane Road.

It only wanted to be friends, for someone to love it and let it bask in the spring sunshine on the windowsill -- but, no, what did I do? I wrote about it being a devil cat for thousands of East Lancashire people to read.

The cat branded a joke, humiliated and cast aside as an unwanted untouchable in front of its friends. I really don't think we can rule out suicide, do you?

I feel terrible. I mean, you don't think it did hurl itself in front of a car rather than face me and my neighbours, do you?

Thing is, everyone I have seen has mentioned last Friday's column and asked if I have found it a home or if it is still there. They think I'm having a sick joke when they hear what has happened since then.

And then there's all the e-mails that have arrived from concerned readers and owners searching for lost cats all week, though one did advise me to use a three-litre pump-action Super Soaker water rifle on it, I must admit.

I'm glad I didn't go down that particular road anyway.

You see! I liked it really. I just hope it knows that, you know.