THE NEW KITTENS!

It may be warm & sunny but dont forget we could be sliding into a double-dip recession and I have just broken into my last fiver, the reasons to be miserable multiply by the minute.
In times of recent bleakness, for many there was one guaranteed remedy - the web's millions of pictures of adorable cats; mother cats hugging their babies, kittens on slides, tiny, little, cute kittens falling asleep in teacups and so many LOLcats.
Somehow it seemed impossible to stay in a bad mood when there were pictures of kittens stuck in hamster balls out there. Yet somehow, with riots, rising unemployment, strikes and protests, comedy kittens are wearing thin.
Enter baby owls. Online, people are increasingly posting cute pictures and footage of owls instead - being stroked, in little hoods, in glasses, looking quizzical, and even in santa hats. But why owls? Perhaps because owlet features are similar to those of kittens, only the birds are more vulnerable looking, inspiring a greater nurturing instinct in us. Or because their eyes are even bigger than kittens' - the worse life becomes, the bigger we need the eyes of our cute animals to be.