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.

It’s free from Bike Hub thanks to a voluntary bike industry levy.

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.

I like learning about science and technology. Tomorrow’s World was a weekly favourite, although thirty five years later tomorrow has truly been and gone and we’re still waiting for most of the products featured in prototype on that programme.

By today’s standards it was a pedestrian show and was, inevitably, rather superficial in explaining the workings of some new device. But for people who – like me – are fascinated by gadgets and want to know what they look like inside it was an exciting half-hour treat.

Modern documentaries are mostly big-budget productions sprinkled with CGI and featuring glamorous all-too-prominent presenters. Often they seem like documentaries about the presenters. Sober explanations and descriptions have given way to comments of the ‘Oh wow! That’s amazing’ variety.

There is however, a series which exemplifies how an educational programme should be put together. The Canadian produced How It’s Made has one simple, clear objective. To show how everyday objects are manufactured.

I know, I know. For many people that sounds like a yawn fest. For them there are plenty of TV singing competitions and ballroom dancing shows. Me? I want to know exactly how contact lenses, violins and garage doors are produced.

Not just me, clearly, for over 230 episodes have been made so far and shown around the world. A key feature of the format is the absence of an on-screen presenter or any talking heads so that it can easily be adapted for different countries simply by changing the narration voiceover. In the UK it’s done by soap actor Tony Hirst.

What’s also missing are any other sounds – apart from a selection of rather cheesy background music tracks which become comfortingly familiar the more you watch the series. In fact the rigid adherence to a predictable, simple format is a major part of How It’s Made‘s appeal.

A brief introduction tells the viewer which four items will be featured. The finished products are somewhat bizarrely shown on a rotating display stand against an unrelated background such as an old warehouse or unidentified urban scene.

Then we’re straight into the first item with a gently throbbing bass guitar riff. Fifty tonne presses might come down on steel blanks with a shower of sparks, but the viewer is spared all the heat, smells and noise of the factory as Tony’s soothing explanation and that hypnotic background music provide a soothing buffer.

At the end of each episode we are reminded of the four products featured – usually with a weak pun or two. And that’s it! Classic nerdy entertainment in a structured no-frills format.

The David Fincher version is of course a remake of Niels Arden Oplev’s original 2009 version in Swedish, which I saw first. I couldn’t remember much about it, except for one grisly scene, but that says more about my memory than the quality of the original. Both are excellent films, and if anything the Fincher version has the edge. Each scene is infused with a richness of detail and both Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara turn in powerful, convincing performances.

There’s the odd plot-hole, but these are easily forgiven in a movie which although not always easy to watch is excellently made and eminently enjoyable.

Davies creates rich, sepia scenes of ’50′s Britain at least as evocative and depressing as those in 10 Rillington Place. Rachel Weisz does an outstanding job – in more than one sense. For whilst her performance is convincing as the camera lingers on her beautiful tortured expression, the film’s backdrop is an array of caricatures sprinkled with scenes of ludicrous sentimentality with an often intrusive soundtrack. I’m thinking of the sing-song in the boozer, and the London underground during the Blitz both of which are almost pastiche.

Weisz’s lover is supposed to be a self-centred cad, but is too one-dimensional to be either a convincing villain or the object of her lust. Simon Russell Beale has a better time of it as the pained and repressed cuckold.

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