This morning the forecourt is empty – save for a skip containing a few oily spare parts, a broken chair and some lever-arch files – and even the giant leaping silvery jaguar has been removed from its pillar. The showroom interior is now a spotless, cavernous void with a simple A4 notice stuck to the window stating the location of the nearest alternative Jaguar dealership.

It must have been planned like a secret military operation. No hint of its demise beforehand. No ‘Closing Down Sale’ signs. Alas no desperate entreaty to help clear the stock at knock-down prices. Not even a gradual scaling back of their operation. Yesterday, 30-odd luxury vehicles for sale. Today, an anonymous chrome and glass building set in an expanse of block paving leaving no clue as to the identity of its former merchandise.

I imagine that, if and when market forces dictate that a dealership must go, the Jaguar brand is best protected by such ‘sudden death’ closures. But whilst I understand the reasoning, and admire the meticulous swiftness of this transformation, I am left a little shocked and saddened. The dire economic climate is well known, so in that sense the closure of a high-end vehicle showroom is understood. But it has surprised and disturbed me more than I would have expected.

Have you ever asked for a quick look in the kitchen before taking your seat? Or do you assume that environmental health inspectors keep a close eye on every establishment?

Perhaps you judge by front-of-house appearance, or rely on reviews by food critics and members of the public. A bit indirect?

A more objective source of information is the Food Standards Agency, which is an independent British Government department set up by an Act of Parliament in 2000 to protect the public’s health and consumer interests in relation to food. They publish an online database of food hygiene ratings for restaurants, pubs, cafés, takeaways, hotels and other places you eat, as well as supermarkets and other food shops. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland there is the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme, and a similar Food Hygiene Information Scheme in Scotland.

Premises are allocated a food hygiene rating from 5 (very good) to 0 (urgent improvement necessary). A rating shows you how well the business is meeting the requirements of food hygiene law. It gives you an idea of what’s going on in the kitchen, or behind closed doors, so you can choose where you eat or buy food.

Note that a restaurant can be rated ’0′ and still carry on serving customers. So it does not necessarily mean that there is an imminent risk to customers’ health. This is simultaneously reassuring and disturbing in a ‘glass half empty/glass half full’ kind of way.

Here’s an example. There’s a restaurant in Stockport which consistently receives rave reviews. Damson on Heaton Moor Road is rated Number 1 of 94 restaurants reviewed on tripadvisor.co.uk. Have a guess what its Food Hygiene Rating is, and then click here to see if you were right.

OK they don’t pay you straight away. In fact it’s fair to say there is some hassle involved. But it might also give you first hand experience of the Stanford experiment forty years on.

Heaton Moor Medical Centre

It’s outside a health centre and appears to be a manhole cover dedicated to a nurse who worked there for a year. Now, on the one hand it’s touching that her passing is marked for posterity. She evidently was missed – presumably by her colleagues – and I can only assume that her death came unexpectedly soon after taking up her new post. In publishing this photograph I have no wish to make light of others’ loss or to be disrespectful to her memory.

It just strikes me as somewhat unfortunate that an item of galvanized drainage furniture was chosen as a symbolic tribute to this person’s life.

When comparing things, we are deciding if they differ from each other. Not to or than each other.

Well, I could go on. But who would believe me? If I went on to describe it as weighing two and a half kilos, wired in, and rented to us by the State-owned post and telephone monopoly people would think I was making it up.

So I won’t mention that it didn’t even have a screen, for that would be unimaginable.

Strange idea in the 21st century, really. Television broadcast by satellite from the other side of the globe has become commonplace. So what was it like paying £15 to watch something that wasn’t quite a film, and wasn’t quite like being at a live performance?

It did feel a bit detached – almost voyeuristic. We in Manchester were witnessing something, more than directly engaging in the performance. The audience in London applauded but we did not. There was raucous laughter at the NT – and a few muffled guffaws in Manchester.

We had a better view than those in the theatre’s cheap seats. The camerawork was sophisticated, mixing close-ups with wide angle views and audience shots. It was not just a static projection of the entire stage as I had feared it might be. We also got a backstage tour in the interval, conducted by Emma Freud.

And what of the play itself? A five-star performance from the truly talented James Corden, supported by a very strong cast – including a skiffle band. It’s a farce based on Goldoni’s Servant of Two Masters written in 1743, brought up-to-date (actually to 1963) by Richard Bean. The script is sparkling, the slapstick comedy timed to perfection.

I’m really glad I went, and just a bit sorry that I didn’t clap at the end. It transfers to the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End from 8 November, with the original cast. Go and see it!

I think it’s now time to purge the English language of other gender distinguishing words. Let’s stop saying ‘he’ and ‘she’. Let’s just choose one and dump the other. ‘He gave birth’ sounds strange now, but at one time, so did ‘She is an actor’.

This dangerous and illegal practice exploits the fact that the victim cannot stop in time to avoid hitting the vehicle in front. In other words, it can only succeed when the victim is driving in an unsafe manner. As Rule 126 of The Official Highway Code says:

Drive at a speed that will allow you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear.

If all motorists obeyed this rule perhaps there would be no incidents of ‘crash for cash’.