Update: Arthur rescued
Possibly a bit peeved after spending Christmas at the cattery, Arthur has gone AWOL for a couple of days. He’s already missed terribly and New Year celebrations are off as we leaflet the area.

Scouting for him earlier we were dismayed to discover that a (no doubt well meaning) fool living in flats on the other side of Chorlton Brook to us has left the remains of Christmas dinner (a large and so far largely untouched turkey carcass) out for the animals. And so plentiful food combined with mild weather might lead him to believe he can make it on his own. Hopefully the forecast big freeze will materialise and he’ll realise what side his bread is buttered.

Meanwhile if you see a small three legged, tabby and white cat please email.

As you’d expect he’s micro chipped and PetLog has informed vets, rescue centres et cetera in a thirty mile radius.

However, our informed guess is that he’s lying low in areas adjacent to Chorlton Brook, which provides fine hunting grounds (as well as easy access to the previously mentioned turkey dinner). On this map the brook is marked out by the line of trees stretching from Claude Road on the left to Barlow Moor Road on the right. So he’s most likely to be spotted in the vicinity of Rainbow Close, Claude Road, South Drive, Oak House Drive or Anchorside Close. The turkey and other meats have been left out in gardens to the flats in the centre of the picture, off Claude Road, just north of the brook.

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This last man on Earth sci-fi makes for an excellent showcase for Will Smith’s athleticism, but promises more and so ultmiately disappoints as it never rises above simple action flic.
Take with Nachos cheese & salsa for a veg-out 6 out of 10.
Director: Francis Lawrence……Starring: Will Smith
Ocean’s Eleven……The Darjeeling Limited

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Driving back from my parents into a congested M6, happily free from Christmas television, Katharine insisted that the To the Manor Born Christmas special was at least three hours long. I agreed that it felt like five, but insisted it was a mere one hour and was proved right (if only it had been on ITV, then we’d have had some ads to spare us the tedium).

We wondered what Alexander Armstrong was doing, apart from looking bored. Armstrong’s a talented man, but here he played the role of disinterested observer, asking silly questions to make sure the slower witted viewers kept up (or more likely caught up after dozing off). If creator Peter Spence had anything about him, he’d have used Armstrong to inject (in the way clever kids films and pantomimes do) a different, subtle humour aimed over the heads of his usual audience at those he must have known were watching under sufferance with reminiscing parents.

And yet a comedy that apparently anticipated the tension between the countryside establishment (in the form of the aristocratic Audrey fforbes-Hamilton) and the supermarkets (caricatured as Richard DeVere, a slimy businessman who actually worked for his wealth), sounds like something that might have had an edge. But as Peter Spence makes clear, that apparent prescience was accidental. And that includes the stuff about DeVere being born Bedrich Polouvicki, that is of East European stock and so the lowest of the low.

Sadly Peter Spence did have a go at appearing cleverer than he is and attempt the politics thing, opening the episode with lengthy scene setting monologues that could easily have been written as party political broadcasts on behalf of the Countryside Alliance. Surely, even the most loopy pro-hunting nutter would have preferred Spence to have cracked a couple of jokes instead.

Life after To the Manor Born has clearly not been so kind to Peter Spence, a mediocre writer who has had no other hits. But a career writing propaganda for the UKIP or the Tories clearly beckons.

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Not being superstitious, for me Christmas is a time for family centred party and the hero is Father Christmas. I like to think of this guy on my tree as a Coca-cola Santa, although he does look a touch Russian.

For Tony Blair I guess it will be rather different; his first Christmas as a Catholic. But probably not his first Catholic Christmas. His conversion has certainly upset some, with poor old Ann Widdecombe apparently criticising the pope for letting him in; but she’s not even qualified to be a humble parish priest.

Blair was right to fear being labelled a nutter and the religious are keen to fight this aggressive secularism, but the problem with religious politicians isn’t so much their irrational beliefs.

The problem is that religion is too easily mistaken for morality. It removes the need to think for yourself and hampers originality. Faith is somewhere to retreat when things get tough.

It’s far better to have a go at working things out for yourself, than to buy a moral code off the shelf.

I guess that’s my Christmas thought for the year. Have fun!