Denis the cat is star turn at Charisma Games

TWO GIRLS from the nearby school were wandering down our road the other day, looking perplexed. One asked me if I knew anything about a black and white cat which had been found in their science lab.

"Is he quiet and very friendly?" I asked. "Yes," she said. "That's Denis. He lives over there," I told them. Denis has only been on this earth for, at most, five months. But in that time he has engaged the attention and goodwill of an extraordinary number of human beings.

Soon after our conversation the girls returned, carrying Denis back to his home . He wasn't struggling. He appeared to be enjoying the view. And suddenly there was no mistaking this central fact - Denis had charisma. People looked out for him, looked after him, wanted to know him. Charisma. When you find it, you recognise it. But what is it?

Often you gain a clearer sense of this phenomenon by experiencing its absence. I'm thinking of Rick Astley, of Melinda Messenger. Or, in the sporting realm, Howard Wilkinson.

I still remember a radio interview conducted with Wilkinson after Manchester United's unexpected defeat had left his team, Leeds United, as the 1992 League champions. The surprise certainly seemed to tell on Wilkinson, who was at home digesting his Sunday lunch when the telephone call came. His response at this high point of achievement was, to put it kindly, muddled.

Perhaps it was the heady brew of success which overwhelmed him. Success often forms a part of someone's charisma. But it is not central to it. Bjorn Borg, five times a Wimbledon winner, had all the charisma of an emptied Hoover bag. Even in defeat, John McEnroe was five times more fascinating.

Why? Perhaps unpredictability has something to do with it. There is something compelling about those who may wrongfoot us at any moment. McEnroe's surly loutishness was relieved by glimpses of natural charm, like lances of sunlight through heavy cloud.

It was the same with Stan Smith and Ilie Nastase in the 1972 Wimbledon final. In victory, Smith demonstrated determination, application, strength, faith - almost everything, in fact, except the charisma which shone in abundance on the other side of the net.

The cartoon carried by the Daily Mirror before the 1988 Olympics, depicting Seb Coe as a thoroughbred and Peter Elliott as a carthorse, was crude and insulting. Elliott was a middle distance runner of top class - Olympic silver medallist, Commonwealth champion, a man of integrity and huge courage. But he could have run round the world before he ever gained charisma.

New Zealand's John Walker, Olympic 1500m champion and the first man to beat 3min 50sec for the mile like Elliott, was a Good Bloke. Coe never was. He had an aloofness, an otherness, which set him apart. There was mystery in him.

Soon after I had started reporting on athletics, the late and much lamented Cliff Temple introduced me to the double Olympic champion after a grand prix meeting in Zurich. Coe, coming towards the end of his career by then, was persuaded to have not just one, but two small glasses of beer with us.

With the great man's permission, I taped part of our conversation, which ranged over a wide variety of topics and gossip. Finally, as he backed into the lift, Coe said separate good nights to us both, and, just before the doors closed, wished me well on my new paper.

It was a class act. And when I came to transcribe the tape, my admiration of Coe increased still further. His conversation turned out to be a masterpiece of equivocation, cancelling itself out like an equation. On sensitive topics, no names were mentioned, everything was `understood'. And after two hours of conversation, Coe was no less of a mystery than he had been before he opened his mouth. A natural-born politician. And charismatic? Yes.

Michael Johnson, Olympic legend? Not a glimmer. For all his awesome ability, his quiet intelligence, and, even occasionally, wry humour, not a glimmer. Yet Ato Boldon, a sprinter who has still to fulfil his potential, has been a gold medallist in the Charisma Games for years. Ask him anything - he can't resist answering. And the conversation could go anywhere.

In the end, you've either got it, or you haven't. Here comes Denis again. This time, apparently, he's been in the language laboratory. The cat obviously doesn't realise that charisma is a language that everybody understands.