Arthur’s been making the most of the spring weather, coming home with feathers in his whiskers and staying in just long enough for a few Temptations (chicken & cheese) before hopping off to resume the hunt.

I don’t approve of his torturing and murdering small creatures for fun. But Arthur’s not capable of developing a moral code and is, therefore, incapable of immorality. He’s driven by an instinct to hunt and kill; satisfying that makes him happy.

He’s also an obligate carnivore, which makes a nonsense of this Vegetable Felix. There’s a tendency for posh cat foods to include vegetables. Critter once had some with peas; he spat them out in disgust.
This posted via mobile via Flickr and so not so closely proofread. Click the pic to see it large (there’s an ‘all-sizes’ tab for really large).

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There’s something exciting about this modest row of shops. Somehow it sums up Manchester today. We’re in Whalley Range, inner city Manchester on the up thanks to its proximity to Chorlton.

At one end is Booze & Food, a fairly ordinary off licence cum cornershop, that could just as easily be called Booze & Fags. At the other is Palmiro, universally recognised as one of the country’s best Italian restaurants (no pizza/pasta buffets here).

When Palmiro opened this was pure urban wilderness, some of these shops were closed. But people travel from far and wide to eat here.

Then came the Hilary Step, Whalley Range’s first pub (this place’s vice is prostitution; The Whalley is in Brook’s Bar) arrived, then the Jam Street Cafe. Fast food, laundry and car parts somehow add to what makes it all special.
This posted via mobile via Flickr and so not so closely proofread. Click the pic to see it large (there’s an ‘all-sizes’ tab for really large).

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The year may only be a third of the way through, but I reckon 13 (Tzameti), by first time Georgian director Géla Babluani, will be hard to beat as its best film. As I said at the time it’s a near perfect thriller.

What was also obvious at the time was that this was film destined to be remade by Hollywood. And so it has come to pass. Fortunately, Babluani will have a hand in it. At the time we joked that they’d put Tom Hanks in the leading role… buy it (don’t rent, you’ll want to keep) to see why that would be so funny.

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Guardian business editor Deborah Hargreaves has been apologising for big business a fair bit lately. On Monday she questioned the EU’s motivation in pursuing Microsoft and on Tuesday asked us to give Tesco a break.

‘It must be better to run one operating system that does everything rather than have to bolt on many extra additions from rivals,’ she says in defence of Microsoft.

It’s scary that a business editor can be so naïve. Conceding that Microsoft, ‘can be accused of stifling innovation,’ simply isn’t good enough. Microsoft hasn’t innovated in the PC market this decade. And there’s no reason why it should. Research and development is a costly business and with ninety per cent of the market in the bag, it’s hard to justify major investment. Instead, Microsoft merely fire fights with endless security patches and quick fixes. The next generation of Windows is two years late, with more delay probable, but it doesn’t really matter to shareholders as the bottom line is currently unaffected.

Tesco is a different matter; they’re not yet a monopolist. I’m lucky enough to live in suburb famed for its innovative local shops; but they’re special because they’re so unlike the corner shops we’re supposed to mourn. Operating in a highly competitive market, Tesco makes so much money because people choose them, not because they have no choice. Should they get big enough to start behaving like Microsoft, we’ll have to break them up.

But I’m with Marx on this one. The more petite bourgeois shopkeepers go to the wall the better.