Is binned cat just the tip of the iceberg?

The story of the week has to be Mary Bale - the woman who threw a cat in a bin. The reaction has been mental.

Lola, the cat concerned has been all over the telly being showered with gifts, doing photo shoots and interviews and hosting "chat" shows.

Fair enough, who the hell puts a cat in a bin? But it's all a very dangerous precedent that I can only see ending in tears. One of two things is likely to happen…

The first scenario is that we will now be subjected to a flurry of copycat incidents and the nation's wheelie bins will quickly fill with  unsuspecting felines as ne'er-do-wells and vagabonds grab the closest kitty to hand just to get their desperate mug on the box.

The second possibility is a lot more gruesome. Stop to think for a minute. Just because this is the first video of a cat being thrown away doesn't mean it is the first time it has happened. Mary Bale may have thrown dozens of cats in bins all over her neighbourhood. 

Worse still, it could be a cult hobby, similar to in Fight club or Hostel, where thousands of cat-binners worldwide organise night-time binathons to fuel their dastardly addiction.

I'll do some thorough research and get back to you but, in the mean time, next time you see a "missing cat" poster, it'd probably pay to check the surrounding wheelie bins. 

Shrink

Shrink is my sort of movie. Every character is racked with problems, some more obvious than others, better still they are all high-flying businessmen or film stars, so as everyday folk we can revel in their demise.

 

From the off, however, it is clear that lead character Henry Carter (played by Kevin Spacey) is not just struggling with a few demons – he is going through hell.  Carter is the shrink around whom Hollywood heroes hover when their world comes crashing down and, ironically, he doesn't give a shit.

Unshaven and ravaged by pot-smoking, he awakens on the sofa, or by the pool, seemingly anywhere except his bed, and a telling glance towards his room indicates somebody may be missing.

It's a familiar plot; man helps other people for a living, refusing to acknowledge his own more-serious problems but it doesn't hamper our intrigue. 

Unlike modern Hollywood epics or fast-paced action thrillers, the characters' development is a gradual process. 

Patrick (Dallas Roberts) is a neurotic bigwig, comical in his paranoia but tragic in his reliance upon nasally ingested pick-me-ups. Jack Holden (Robin Williams) is a "functioning alcoholic" scared to settle into his marriage and Kate is a thirtysomething struggling with her public perception.

Director Jonas Pate effectively gives the audience the role of "shrink", flicking between patients revealing more about the subject and their problems during each "session" we have with them. 

As the group of struggling stars begin to cross paths, their character traits weave a net with which they drag each other down but, when Carter's friends and family confront him about his spiralling addictions, his heartfelt and desperate reaction indicates the psychologist is harbouring bigger problems than most.

In his hi-octane world of star names and endless come-downs, catharsis comes in the form of two innocent youngsters; Jemma is a film fanatic, forced unwillingly into Carter's Hollywood hubbub and Jeremy is a desperate screen writer, bent on crowbarring his way in.

Neither have fame or fortune but their arrival in the troubled world of harrowed has-beens could be enough to save everybody concerned.

Are domestic farm animals just pig iron?

Fervent farmer Jimmy Doherty was on the box last night. Championing the evolution of the pig from curious wild hogsworth to the domesticated bacon machine we know today.

Pigs have apparently been bred for farming for over 9000 years; the meatiest and most docile continually chosen to reproduce generation after generation of slightly more efficient fodder.

Having spent ten minutes watching the wild pigs trotting effortlessly over moorland and through the undergrowth, unaffected by the farming industry's selective breeding program, it wasn't rocket science to wrk out that these are incredibly intelligent, explorative beings - full of energy and actually pretty gracious.

Back at the farm, a fully grown domestic porker is wheeled out for a feed and the contrast is pretty horrible. This thing's head is the size of it's oversized arse and, as a result of forced evolution, its rotund mass looks way too much weight for its dainty legs to bear as it staggers lazily about the paddock.

It seemed a bit barbaric that mankind could have so much impact upon another species' development. British farm pigs may well be treated properly and lead a life without pain but that doesn't stop the fact that they live their lives in a body that nature hadn't intended for them.

Mr Doherty and his farmer friend also conducted an experiment to prove the pigs' intelligence; hiding onion, raisins, apple and chestnuts under some turf and marvelling at the fact that the pigs ate everything except the onion.

"Here, pig, are three perfectly edible foodstuffs available in all good supermarkets, and one raw vegetable, which would you like?"

Sorry, but if I gave Jimmy Doherty the same four ingredients, I expect he too would turn his nose up at the raw onion. The experiment did at least demonstrate the animal's remarkable sense of smell. 

I bet the pig in question wished his more-mobile ancestors had used that sense of smell in conjunction with their supposed intelligence 9000 years ago to work out when the farmers were coming.

Insulting intelligence

On a packed bus home from work, I can hear the girl in front getting ever angrier as she vents her anger towards her boyfriend about the mass of schoolchildren sat further up. 

These kids aren't exactly causing any problems. Just having a conversation. Albeit a loud one. Anyway, as the girl in front's anger subsides, she quietens down and the youngsters' chat is audible to the whole bus. 

"My carbon footprint is way smaller than yours," says one of them. No joke. And the reply, equally astonishing, comes "No, because we do our recycling properly at home, which counts against it."

I'm genuinely shocked. Not that kids are having a meaningful conversation but, well, yeah, that kids are having a meaningful conversation. These lads must be twelve or so, an age at which my extra-curricular conversation consisted of computer games, football and television, with the odd swear word thrown in just to expand my vocabulary. 

Anyway, the conversation continues touching upon global warming and even air pollution, by which point the rest of the bus has fallen silent and total strangers are exchanging 'is this for real?' glances. 

The latest subject leads the whole group to decide to walk to school the following week instead of getting driven and I'm starting to think that maybe modern schools aren't as bad as people say and that maybe this group of mature and responsible urban youths may be councillors in the making. 

Then, one of them refuses to walk to school because he lives too far and it'll probably rain, to which his mate turns round and shouts, "Aww, you don't want to walk? That's ok, because you're a dirty f**king polluting tw*t!"...

...And every adult on the bus breathes a collective sigh of relief that some things will never change.