A man who confessed his crime to his cats did not realise he was being bugged and was later caught. David Henton was suspected of battering his partner Joyce Sutton to death but as the police had no proof they decided to bug his house. Mr Heston was recorded saying “I had to something about it. I hit my Joyce” say the prosecution. It just goes to show you never know who is listening.

I seem to have done a lot of shopping in this years sales although I haven’t actually spent a great a deal of money. I have been taking advantage of a lot of coupons and special offers I have either been emailed or have found online. Recently I have also found quite a lot of special offers that would useful for Valentines Day such as 1-800 flowers coupons. They have a good range of gourmet food gifts for Valentines Day which would make a slightly unusual present. I also found some Perfumania coupons that offer money off of shipping if you are sending within the US.

I have never really associated wine with China but apparently China is now one of the largest wine producers, in fact it’s the sixth largest wine producing country according to this article. The article looks at Chateau Changyu, a vineyard near Beijing that produces red and white wine as well as Icewine and brandy and whilst a few years ago the wines were not thought good enough for European standards it appears some wine connoisseurs are now getting rather excited about them. The wines cited in the article seem a little expensive but there are some recommendations at the end that are a little more affordable. Whilst I doubt I will be finding Chinese wine in my local supermarket just yet, I am going to try my best to track some down, and as always if I manage to find a bottle, the review will be here.

I read this article today that suggests the recent increase in food cost has added around £750 to the average family’s shopping bill. The article is based upon official figures that show wholesale food prices have risen by 7.4% in the past 12 months, that’s more than three times the rate of inflation. According to the Office of National Statistics the increase in wholesale prices has meant the average consumer pays 12% more for their basket of shopping. I wonder how much truth there is in this. Personally I have noticed that prices of certain products have been creeping up but I have not really noticed a difference in my monthly shopping bill. This may be because I tend to do all of my shopping online and have a fairly strict budget. If I notice the basket total starting to creep up, then I tend to go back and remove any non essential items. Likewise if I find I am well within my budget, because for example I have saved money on special offers, then I will browse around and add a few luxury items that I wouldn’t usually be able to afford. I would be interested to know whether anyone else has noticed any substantial increases in food prices and how this has affected you.

Quiche is one thing I can never get enough of, especially if it is cheese, egg and bacon. I cooked my first quiche in the new oven the other day. As you can see from the picture it turned out quite well but as usual it didn’t last very long.

Wildcats will be reintroduced back into the wild in an effort to save the species. There are currently thought be only a few hundred wildcats left in the wild in Scotland but some experts predict these remaining cats could die out within a decade.  This project which is led by the Aspinal Foundation will start by boosting numbers in thinly populated areas of Scotland and if successful will go on to reintroduce the cats to areas from which they have disappeared. It is hoped that eventually wildcats will be introduced to areas of England and Wales where they have not been found since the 18th century

I read this article today that suggests that expensive wine really does taste better. The article looks at new research which shows higher prices make people enjoy the product more. The research is based upon a study done on 20 subjects who were told they would be sampling a range of different Cabernet Sauvignons. The different wines were identified by price but some of the glasses were the same wine labelled with two different prices. One wine was labelled as costing £2.50 and £22.50 and the other was labelled as costing £5 and £45. The subjects were asked to report on how much they liked the wines with researchers looking at changes in their brain activity during the exercise. The results of the research were that the cortex became more activated by the expensive wines as opposed to their cheaper alternatives. The same test was later carried out without putting price tags on the glasses of wine. This second test had no reported differences between the wines.

I have been watching Hugh’s Chicken Run on Channel 4 with interest. The programme follows celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall as he tries to educate the people in Axminster about the poor treatment of cheap chickens. He particularly highlights special offers that give you two chickens for five pounds, effectively a £2.50 chicken and shows how these chickens are raised and slaughtered within a 30 day period. Personally before I watched the programme I already brought free range chicken, mainly because I find it has more flavour to it. I was however, interested to see that many people shown on the programme did not know where their chickens came from and how they were reared. Judging by the shelves at my local supermarket many people have watched the programme and have been affected by it. The section with two chickens for £5 was completely full of chicken when I visited the store today. In contrast there were no organic or free range chickens to be found at all, the shelf was empty. I also noticed that people buying chicken were carefully reading the labels and in many cases putting the cheap chicken back and walking away without buying it. It’s interesting that a television programme has so much influence. I do wonder, however, whether these new converts to free range chicken will still be buying it six months later.

I got a new phone for Christmas a MDA Vario III on a contract with T-Mobile and have been learning how to use it. It has lots of cool features such as mobile versions Outlook, Internet Explorer, Word and Excel as well as a tilting qwerty keyboard. It also has Bluetooth and a 3 mega pixel camera. So far I have found the phone very easy to use and it’s great to be able to see all of my email whilst I’m away from my computer. It certainly makes it a lot easier to keep track of everything and I can use time that would usually be wasted to catch up on a bit of work. Another advantage is that as a new customer and having my phone on a web and walk contract I now get free access to over 1,200 WiFi hotspots, that’s according to this article.

It is now four years ago today since my cat Merlin died and despite the time that has elapsed, I still miss him. Merlin’s death was particularly traumatic because he was only nine months old when he died. It happened at about five a clock in the evening when I heard the sound of a cat coming through the cat flap. This was not unusual, nor was the crying sound Merlin made as he laid on the floor. What was unusual was the fact that he didn’t run towards me and jump on my lap as he usually would. Initially I assumed that Merlin had been playing with bees again and had got himself stung which was a common occurrence.

On picking him up to look for the bee sting, however, there was no sign of one. I set Merlin back on the floor and it was then that I realised he couldn’t stand up. Merlin’s back legs and lower body simply lay limply on the floor. In a panic I ran outside to start the car whilst Rory phoned around looking for an emergency vet. There was no response at all from my car so Rory phoned our friend Owen who immediately set out to come and get us, so we could rush Merlin to the vet. Despite our best efforts Merlin got weaker and weaker on the short drive to the vets surgery and when we arrived he died.

Coming back without Merlin was a shock; although his injuries were severe I had assumed everything would be fine as long as we could get him to the vet quickly. We still don’t know what happened but it is most likely that Merlin had been hit by a car and managed to crawl home. Later we made the heart breaking discovery that there were claw marks all around the path outside the house and on the gate where Merlin had dragged himself home to where he felt safe and where he knew he would find help. I still wonder whether we could have done any more to help him although I’m fairly sure his injuries were too severe, but I can’t help feeling guilty that he died in such pain and I could do nothing.

As most pet owners know losing a much loved pet is like losing a member of the family and this was very much the case with Merlin. Not only did I have to deal with my huge sense of loss but Merlin’s sister Willow spent every day looking for him and crying. It was for Willow mainly that I took on two rescue cats Norman and Ornery (now called Oliver and Oscar). For me taking on those two cats made Merlin’s death more bearable because they so were so badly in need of a loving home. Willow accepted the new cats into her home and they are now one big happy family.

Merlin was such a distinctive personality. He had a very affectionate nature but was also fiercely independent. He was extremely naughty and would swat you with his paw whenever you walked past him. Above all Merlin was full of life and that is how I like to remember him.