Mired in January doldrums, a bug that won’t go away, an inability to get ahead on work thanks to that bug - this is the perfect kind of film to watch in the evening (after a visit to my tax person). Nothing too deep here, highly entertaining, somewhat nifty special effects, child actors who are not annoying, set in a place where I used to live (Seattle).

Dinner was the leftover beef stew from last week. The meat was more than tender, the potatoes all melty in a tomatoey broth. A big spoon, a big bowl.

Now you might think that this would be news only if the owner were French, for example. In which case, the owner would ignore the cat.

In this case, the cat belongs to a Chinese grandmother, who claims it can say ‘Laolao’, which means grandmother in the dialect of its owner.

It also can say ‘gan sha ne’, which translates to ‘What are you doing?’ Can a cat make the hard ‘g’ sound? Could we see a video, please?

How many cats in the world are asking their non-Chinese owners, ‘What are you doing?’ You have to admit that gan sha ne is probably a lot easier for a cat to say than ‘What are you doing?’ or ‘Where is my food?’