Ding Junhui 10, John Higgins 8

Ding Junhui last night won snooker's UK Championship, the second most important ranking tournament in the game. It was by no means a classic match, with much scrappy play and a profusion of errors, but nonetheless Ding can be very pleased with his performance and his title is certainly well deserved. It is only his fourth ranking event win, the last having been the Northern Ireland Trophy back in 2006, but as he is only 22 years old he has plenty of time to build on this collection!

Ding seemed a much more confident, well-rounded player around the table than he has been in recent years. He has previously tended to become demotivated very rapidly after making mistakes, to hang his head down and in some cases to seemingly give up completely. However, he appears to have matured immensely and now remains very level-headed, refusing to beat himself up over every slip and instead concentrating on enjoying his snooker. This change in attitude has made him a much more dangerous opponent, as John Higgins discovered last night.

The run of the balls was not especially conducive to big breaks, normally one of the mainstays of Ding’s game, and indeed it was Higgins who made the only century of the match, an excellent 115 in frame 17. However, Ding responded to this by ratcheting up his safety play to a new level, doing everything he could to make life even more difficult for the beleaguered Scotsman. With neither player willing to take chances on long pots many of the frames were drawn-out, tactical affairs, and although Ding always looked to be the stronger player the scoreline was pretty even right up until the very end.

In fact, it could be argued that the final scoreline was rather flattering to John Higgins, who was playing at the far below his best. He often looked uncomfortable round the table and made some terrible misses, completely unexpected from a player of his calibre. The bungled brown in frame 15, which allowed Ding to move within two frames of victory, is likely to haunt him till the end of his days. It is likely that exhaustion from his epic 9-8 victory over Ronnie O'Sullivan the day before contributed to Higgins' lack of form, and although he will obviously be disappointed at his loss he shouldn't worry himself unduly. He is still provisional world number one, and with a lead of 7705 points over his closest rival it is highly unlikely that anyone will catch up with him over the rest of the season.

Indeed, if anyone has something to worry about it is new UK Champion Ding Junhui. In addition to the £100,000 prize-money he has been awarded with his body weight in Pukka Pies. With 69 kg of pie lard stacked up in his fridge he's going to have to exercise like mad or he’ll turn up at the Masters in January looking like Stephen Lee...

World's smallest snowman

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory have made the world's smallest snowman, just 10 microns across.

Watch the video and be amazed!

Death of a bookshop: the combined perils of Amazon and private equity

The Borders chain of bookshops is in administration. The shops are being stripped of not just the books but also the shelves, magazine racks, chairs and desks; everything is being sold to leave only an empty, soulless shell. This is rather depressing. There are few enough bookshops on high streets as it is, and with the closure of Borders what is left? There are indeed still plenty of branches of Waterstones, busily expending all their energy promoting the latest celebrity ‘auto’biography and mass-market TV tie-ins. Always in the midst of a closing-down sale but never actually quite getting round to shutting, The Works trundles ever onwards with its emphasis on low price and even lower quality. WH Smith's doesn't really count and Foyle's and Blackwell's chains are too small to really be noticeable; a smattering of independents try hard but invariably struggle. In short, the book industry is in a bit of a crisis.

Why is this? People still buy books and there are more and more published every year. Around 118,000 books were published in 2007 in the UK (according to a Nielsen Book report); admittedly most of these will have sunk without trace, but sufficient were sold to net the book trade around £3 billion (according to their Publishers Association). However, more and more of these books are being sold at heavily discounted prices in supermarkets and at Amazon, bypassing dedicated bookshops and drastically reducing the income that authors and publishers receive for their work. Being an online retailer Amazon can obviously offer low prices due to its lack of overheads, and with its vast warehouses it can afford to stock even very obscure books. Supermarkets on the other hand will concentrate on a small handful of surefire bestsellers (think Dan Brown and Katie Price) and will use their great clout to arrange it so that they pay the publishers mere pence for each copy sold. Proper bookshops just can't compete.

In the case of Borders such increased competition wasn't the only problem. It only arrived in the UK twelve years ago, back then part of the huge bookstore chain in the USA. In 2007 however, it was sold off to a private equity firm called Risk Capital Partners before being sold again earlier this year. Alarm bells start to ring whenever private equity becomes involved with a business, as where private equity appears doom is sure to swiftly follow. These companies seem to operate according to the following formula:

1. Borrow a huge amount of money at low interest rates.
2. Use this to buy a profitable business.
3. Asset-strip the business, selling off everything in sight and thus making megabucks to be paid in bonuses, dividends etc.
4. Watch company disintegrate into bankruptcy as it is saddled by huge debt and now bereft of any means of repaying it.
5. Run away.
6. Pick another profitable business, and repeat.

Against such rampant greed, Borders didn't have a hope in hell.

I went to the Borders branch in Kingston upon Thames yesterday and I must confess I bought all the books I could carry. Many others were doing likewise. The poor staff, all about to lose their jobs, were working extremely hard to keep everything under control. Incidentally, they only found out that their company was going into administration when they heard it on the evening news; such is the calibre of the upper echelons of management that they chose to communicate nothing to those actually doing all the work. It must be rather stressful to be a Borders employees right now. I was therefore shocked and rather disgusted by the behaviour of one fellow customer who decided to kick up a huge fuss.

She had apparently phoned in to reserve a book about a week beforehand and had yesterday come in to collect it, by which time it had not surprisingly gone AWOL. Instead of accepting this as inevitable in a shop with an air of barely-contained chaos and where all the stock had to be got rid of as soon as possible, she got very annoyed and demanded some form of compensation. Somehow, the soon-to-be-unemployed staff managed to be extremely polite to her, even when it became apparent that she couldn't even remember what the book was called and began to rant on about the much-diminished nature of the children's selection. I think if I had been in charge, she would have got a slap!

The Giant’s Chair of Natsworthy and Jay's Grave

When walking on the eastern edge of Dartmoor a few weeks ago we came across a chair. Not just any old chair, but a huge, wooden chair staring out onto the moor, devoid of any explanation or seeming purpose. It was far too big to sit on, and in any case it had no seat to speak of, being essentially just a frame. We attempted to climb it regardless, but were scuppered due to lack of rope and other equipment. Bemused, we wondered ‘why is it here?’ What role could it have, being both pointless and unusable, but at the same time really rather good? And with that question, the answer became obvious: it must be art.

The chair has apparently been gracing the field just off a footpath not too far from Hameldown Tor (SX724800 or thereabouts) since late 2006, erected on private land by artist Henry Bruce. 6 m high, it is made from untreated oak obtained locally and was constructed using traditional methods. Unfortunately, planning permission was not obtained before it was built, leaving its future precarious. Retrospective permission was eventually granted but only for a period of three years, up until March 2009, after which point it was supposed to be dismantled. A handful of people with no sense of fun complained, accusing it of making the moor into a theme park and over-running the footpath with traffic. Luckily, the chair was still there in November, so fingers crossed it will remain intact for some time.

About a kilometre or so east from the giant’s chair lies a much more famous Dartmoor landmark: the grave of Kitty Jay, the story behind which is rather sad. Supposedly in the late 18th century an orphaned baby girl was taken to the Poor House at Newton Abbot, where she was raised and given her name. When old enough to work she was sent to a farm near Manaton where she laboured long and hard both in the house and out in the fields; a tough, lonely and miserable existence for which she would have received very few rewards. When still in her teens she fell in love with a man on the farm, possibly the farmer's son or possibly a hired hand, by whom she became pregnant. Back in the 1700s this was seen as a terrible crime, but one for which all the blame was laid on the woman. Kitty was therefore thrown out of the farm in disgrace, left alone with no prospects and nowhere to go. The sense of shame and thoughts of her bleak future were too much for her to bear, and so tragically she hung herself in a local barn.

There was a huge stigma attached to the act of suicide and so people who died in this way were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground. Kitty was therefore interred at a crossroads, a site chosen so that if her spirit arose it would not know which way to turn, and so would be unable to either make its way to heaven or to return to haunt the living who were the cause of its great pain. This practice of burying suicides at crossroads was an old tradition that continued until 1823, after which point the bodies were finally admitted to churchyards.

The headstone that is now in place was not erected at the time of Kitty's death, but rather several decades later, in 1860 or thereabouts. At this time a group of men, aware of the legend and curious as to its veracity, did some digging at the crossroads and discovered the skeletal remains of a young woman. Assuming that these were indeed the bones of Kitty they placed them in a coffin, reburied them and marked the site with blocks of granite.

The grave has ever since been associated with unusual occurrences. A spectral figure has reportedly been spotted on multiple occasions, although there is disagreement as to whether this is the ghost of Kitty Jay herself, or that of her guilty lover. The grave is also always adorned with fresh flowers, usually yellow, but apparently no one has any idea who puts them there. It is a popular spot to visit however, and when we passed we saw not just flowers but also coins placed neatly atop it.

Both of these interesting spots can be visited as part of a fairly long circular walk taking in the surrounding tors. Starting in the village of Widecombe in the Moor, the walk first proceeds along the Two Moors Way as it heads northwards over the gently-rising hill of Hamel Down. After standing on as many tops as you care to, head down by the edge of the wood to the road at Natsworthy. From here, take the footpath east which leads past both the chair and Jay's grave, then stroll up onto Hayne Down, enjoying the impressive natural sculpture that is Bowerman's Nose. Next, make your way down for a brief walk along a road heading south, then stroll up onto Hound Tor, an irritatingly busy place, but one which boasts plenty of good rocks for scrambling on. Head south east through the ruins of a mediaeval settlement, pop down into the valley and then ascend up onto the group of hills crowned by Haytor Rocks. There are multiple car parks within sight of this tor, meaning it has been colonised by climbers, but one would imagine that when the weather is less than fair these will rapidly disperse. The next tors to take in are Saddle Tor, Rippon Tor across the road, and finally the twin tops of Top Tor and Pil Tor. From here bust your way downhill to the west, taking care not to end up waist-deep in bog, then at the edge of access land rejoin the road and stroll back into Widecombe, which will provide you with both tea and beer. I have sketched out the route below; my drawing skills leave a lot to be desired but hopefully it gives the general gist of way to go.

UK Championship Snooker in Telford this week

Rejoice! for this week there is snooker on the telly. This will almost certainly mean that the productivity of snooker fans such as myself will plummet, either due to putting work aside and succumbing to the delights of the red button or, if no television is available, by clicking ‘refresh’ every 30 seconds on the BBC sport website. Especially keen souls who are adept at multitasking and have both television and computer available will have one table showing on the TV and the other being displayed live on the internet (whilst this method definitely has its benefits, the aural cacophony produced by two conflicting commentary streams can be a tad confusing). Alas the BBC is only filming two of the four tables in action in the opening stages of the championship, precluding those with multiple computers from being surrounded by snooker on all four sides.

Of course, the best way to watch the snooker is to actually go to Telford International Centre and see it for real. Compared with most other ways of spending a day off it works out pretty cheaply, although the relative economy of the ticket prices can be wiped out if, like us, you live about 150 miles away and thus have to expend a good proportion of a tank of petrol getting there and back. Some may baulk at the thought of travelling for many hours to a big shed in an unremarkable Midlands town to essentially sit on their arses all day watching some blokes use big sticks to move some balls around on a table, but more enlightened souls will realise that this is in fact a splendid use of time and that any small hardships are well worth overcoming.

The snooker world is a small one, and as such it all feels quite friendly and inclusive. The referees and occasionally players will quite happily stroll through the crowds of Pukka Pie-eating punters, and the opening BBC segments are filmed with John Parrott, Steve Davis and the smiley Hazel Irvine standing mere metres from the queue to get into the arena. The spectators don't seem to fit any particular stereotype: male and female, young and old, every stratum of society is represented, all sat next to each other on not-particularly-comfortable plastic seats. As an example of the audience’s diversity, but universal enthusiasm for the game, there was one verging-on-goth-looking teenage girl (by no means a stereotypical snooker fan) who could not help herself from crying out excitedly "Oh my God, that's Jan Verhaas!" as the tall Dutch umpire walked past her in the corridor.

Once seated to watch the game, the atmosphere becomes electric in spite of the fact that watching snooker mostly involves being very, very quiet. There are of course bursts of applause after good shots, sharp intakes of breath as the cue ball teeters on the edge of a pocket, and cries of 'Come on Ronnie!' whenever the great man takes to the stage. There are also now, thanks to the ingenious little over-ear radios that allow spectators to listen to the commentary, rumbles of laughter/groans in response to the poor jokes being cracked by, for example, John Virgo and Dennis Taylor.

Other aspects which cannot be properly appreciated unless there 'in the flesh' include the wonderful clunk as the cue strikes the white ball, the click as it collides with its target and the thump as the object ball falls into the pocket. It is also possible to better eyeball the weird and wonderful expressions pulled by the players in response to events in the frame, with Ronnie O'Sullivan in particular being amusingly rubber-faced. Other entertaining players include Mark Selby, who looks positively daemonic as he bends down to eye up a shot, John Higgins who grimaces as though under intense strain and Neil Robertson who is wont to stick his tongue out every time he plays a shot he isn't completely happy with. Stephen Hendry, however, provides poor value in this aspect of the game as he just looks bloody miserable the whole time.

So, if you can get away with it, go to Telford this week! If not, at least enjoy it on the BBC. The second session this afternoon of the match between Mark Selby and Stephen Hendry should be a cracker if yesterday was anything to go by, and this evening Ronnie, ripe from his victory over Matthew Stevens, takes on Peter Ebdon. I'm not going to be getting much work done.

Birdseed: a universal foodstuff?

Most creatures are quite specialised in what they will eat, carving out a niche based upon a particular foodstuff in a particular habitat, becoming perfectly adapted via the evolutionary process. However, if the evidence from our garden is anything to go by, many animals will quite happily cast aside millennia of specialisation in order to gorge upon Haith’s Original Wildbird Food. As the name would suggest, this feast of seeds and grains has been concocted with wild birds in mind; small, busy birds like blue tits and robins and chaffinches. It was not, it is safe to say, designed for cats, deer and foxes.

Haith's Wildbird Food: manna from heaven?

Why then do these three in particular go crazy for it? Deer at least are herbivores, and so seed isn't too much of a stretch from their usual diet of leaves, twigs, fungi and the like; foxes are omnivorous, although most of their diet is made up of invertebrates; but domestic cats are carnivores through and through. Their bodies just aren't designed to deal with nuts and seeds. What is it then about birdseed that is just so good?

One possibility is that the cats are simply pretending to eat the seed, lurking around the vicinity of the feeder in the hopes of ensnaring an unwary bird. Or it could be that the seed, having often been kept in garages or warehouses where small rodents abound, smells irresistibly of mice. However, a lot of the time the cats do seem to be genuinely eating the seed, fully concentrated on gobbling it up and as such blissfully aware of what is going on around them. And I have heard tell that dogs will lap the stuff up also.

One factor that may well play a role is the huge amount of energy packed into the tiny seeds. For example, sunflower seeds provide a whopping 6.5 kilocalories per gram (compared to 5.0 kcal / g in custard creams and a measly 0.3 kcal / g in carrots). When it's cold outside and food is scarce, this is not to be sniffed at, providing one has a digestive system that allows it to be absorbed. The ruminant stomachs of deer will certainly be fine, and that of the fox will have a good bash, but cats? They simply don't have the right kind of teeth to even get started on the process.

Perhaps cats are simply not very bright. This is certainly the case for one of ours, and indeed it is she who seems to chomp down the birdseed most voraciously. Or perhaps they are simply economically savvy: after all, Haith’s sunflower seeds for birds cost around £2 per kilogram whereas those designed for human use from Julian Graves come to an astonishing £7 per kilogram. It would thus seem that people should start munching on the birdseed too!