973 days ago
One imagines that those writers at the Guardian who are not vegetarian eat only the finest organic ethically reared and killed meat. Price does not matter for members of the well paid metropolitan liberal elite. But what about poor people?
3774 days ago
When I record my videos each week you are meant to email me to say “Tom you have lost weight – well done!” I should not have to prompt anyone (especially the Mrs). But I have lost weight. Well I can’t measure it since, as I noted two years ago, there are virtually no scales in the whole of Greece but I can do the trouser test!
At my shameful 19 stone 6 pounds peak my waist was a disgraceful 44 inches. At my fighting weight (hooker for London Irish Wild Geese) I was a 32 inch waist. Two years ago in Greece I almost got down to 32 inches. I was within spitting distance.
Back in the UK – and blaming the Mrs for leading me astray - my waist expanded again. On leaving I was in 36 inch jeans and they felt tight. Within a few days my Ireland rugby shorts (from a post London Irish age) were so obviously falling down that they had to be retired. But they do not really count – they come from a plump (Clontarf veterans) era.
However, as their replacement – red swimming shorts - went from tight to comfortably loose I tried the trouser test.
3939 days ago
Across twitter there is anger and condemnation of a Danish zoo for killing Marius the two year old giraffe. Pictures of his body, hacked to pieces, as it prepares to go to the Lion cage are everywhere. An animal loving nation is outraged and we are all urged to sign an online petition. Bugger off: The Danes were correct.
Zoos exist primarily to preserve endangered species. As a secondary measure they give entertainment and education to folks who will never see exotic animals in the wild. But they all have limited resources in terms of space and money.
Marius did not come from an endangered species and moreover there was evidence of in-breeding so his gene bank hardly served a useful purpose. Nor is there a shortage of giraffe’s in zoos across the planet or in this Danish establishment. Meanwhile, lions need food and it may surprise some of our de-sensitized fellow citizens who think that meat comes from Tesco’s and does not involve animals being killed on farms, but lions are not vegetarians. Lions eat meat. And so to feed the Danish lions an animal somewhere has to be killed.
If it was not Marcus the giraffe (humanised with his human name) it would have been Cornelius the cow, or Cedric the sheep. If you want to keep lions in zoos you have to kill other animals. That is just a fact of life. Faced with a lack of space in the giraffe enclosure and lions who refused the vegetarian meals sent in by well-meaning “animal lovers” in Britain, there was only one sensible option.
Perhaps those on twitter might let us know what they think lions eat in the wild? Tofu? Broccoli? Grass?
