There was a Horizon episode on BBC 2 last night about a scientific study that tracked 50 pet cats in a village with GPS, cat cams and fixed-mount wildlife cameras. I'm not a cat servitor myself - I only provide holiday cover when my sister is on leave - but I found it remarkably interesting to see what the cats got up to when no-one was watching. There were even a couple of laugh out loud moments :)
It's on BBC iPlayer here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b02xcvhw/Horizon_20122013_The_Secret_Life_of_the_Cat/ There's a second episode tonight called "Little Cat Diaries" which will be looking more closely at the cats who stood out in the first episode. Here's the iPlayer listing for that one:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b02xcng8/Horizon_20122013_Little_Cat_Diaries/No direct link to disability here, but I've noticed the ongoing comment about the comfort and enjoyment people get from their cats when disability stuff gets particularly problematic, so I thought some of you might enjoy the programme too.
On a related note, does anyone else find that Horizon feels "dumbed down" in comparision to 10 or 20 years ago? I used to be an avid viewer as a 10-15 year old - I remember watching an episode about Voyager 2 in 1986 - but now I get frustrated with what I see as a lack of detail.
The only episodes I watch these days are the ones where the footage seems likely to hold my interest no matter what, although I'm happy to say that I found a lot of the verbal content in the cat episode to be a useful complement to the visuals.
The problem is, I'm not sure if the programme has been simplified, or if I've just outgrown it as an adult engineer with an interest in science, or even both at once. Or maybe I've just turned into a science snob :)
Edited to add the second Horizon cat episode.
