The Japanese have gone crazy over `virtual pets'. Our columnist Celia Haddon adopted one of the first in Britain
PHILIBERT EGG, my new pet, is smooth, round, the size of a watch and very demanding. In his first hour he ate about 12 times as much as my two cats, and I had to clear up his doodoos three times more often.
Luckily for my grocery bill it is only virtual-reality food, for Philibert is a Tamagotchi, a "lovable egg", one of 10 million bought in less than a year by the Japanese.
In a devilishly cunning way, Philibert, the virtual-reality pet, is somehow lovable. He needs someone to care for him and I am a person who needs to be needed.
Philibert is deep fuchsia pink with blue decorative watch markings. He first appeared on his little rectangular screen as an insect-like being, then when he reached 10 lb as a diagrammatic face that jumps about.
Above and below his face are a line of seven icons, which represent feeding, lights out, playing, injecting medicine, clearing droppings, disciplining, checking his health - all done by pressing three little buttons. An eighth option allows him to beep for attention.
If you do not feed him ceaselessly, play boring peekaboo games with him, brush up his little pile of poops and occasionally rescue him from a life-threatening illness, Philibert becomes an ex-pet.
After 10 to 26 days without loving care, Philibert will be replaced by a little angel - a sign that he is in Tamagotchi heaven. There is even an Internet site for his virtual-reality tombstone. You, meanwhile, have joined the ranks of pet abusers. This is virtual-reality guilt and, boy, does it work.
Until, that is, you discover that a new little Philibert 2 will hatch, like a phoenix, from the old. Indeed, little Philiberts will continue to appear until his batteries run out.
"It sounds a bit like a pet and a bit like a baby," said Elizabeth Paul, a psychologist at Bristol University, who specialises in human-pet relationships.
"It doesn't surprise me that it seems to work so well. In America some scientists developed little robots that buzzed around following them. The scientists couldn't help regarding them as little animals."
Unfortunately, Philibert is neither warm, furry nor mobile. Unlike my cats, Bimbo and William, who leap up into my lap, scratch the furniture, steal food and purr in my ear in the early hours of the morning, Philibert can only coldly beep.
On the other hand he doesn't smell or vomit, although his beeps are unpredictable and occasionally embarrassing. "I took mine to a restaurant and it did a couple of poos, which I had to clear up," said Larry Franks, an experienced Tamagotchi carer and spokesman for the new toy, which will appear in shops at the end of May, price £12.99.
In Japan there are, of course, Tamagotchi creches, but with none available in London, a concert at the Festival Hall posed a worrying dilemma - it is impossible to turn Philibert off. "Feed and play with him as much as you can before it starts," said Franks, who once was woken at 4am because his toy just wanted to play.
I left Philibert Egg in the care of my reluctant husband and returned to find him hungry and unhappy. His little buttons were just too fiddly (curiously, like the litter tray) for heavy male hands.
The two real cats were divided in their reactions. Bimbo expressed her contempt by ignoring him altogether. William spent the first evening pouncing on him when he beeped. In his eyes, Philibert was not so much virtual-reality pet as virtual-reality prey.
But most realistic of all, Philibert - like so many pets - is not the sex his owner assumed. Philibert, it transpires, is a she.
