BBC NEWS – UK – Crafty sheep conquer cattle grids:

“Hungry sheep on the Yorkshire moors have taught themselves to roll 8ft (3m) across hoof-proof metal cattle grids”

And people call sheep stupid. Guess this shows them, doesn’t it? Actually, I have to confess I’ve never really been an ardent defender of sheep’s reputations. Perhaps I am even guilty of thinking them a little slow.

Did you know that pigs are very intelligent? I saw a documentary about that a while ago, and I was so amazed that I proceeded to tell everyone about it. I haven’t really stopped, but it’s been becoming increasingly difficult to find people who don’t know already. I guess it raises tricky questions about inconsistencies in my meat-eating-ness. (I know that’s not a word, but it’s the only one that fits. English is an evolving language, and this is the cutting-edge…)

I’d feel a little uncomfortable eating a dog, for example, but pigs out perform them in a lot of intelligence tests. Is intelligence the way to judge it though? I mean, I’d hardly feel happier eating a human with a lower IQ, would I? There are many people I wouldn’t mind spit-roasting (many, many people), but the demographic of the ‘crisp them slowy over hot coals’ group probably wouldn’t show any significant trend in intelligence. Anyway, I wouldn’t plan on eating them afterwards (one has to draw the line somewhere, after all…) That is an interesting question though. Perhaps I will compile a list, and get back to you. I feel a little statistical analysis is in order…(geek)

There’s really no reason why I should eat one animal happily, and not another. I guess basically it comes down to social conditioning, cos dogs are eaten as a matter of course in some parts of Asia. In little ol’ England though, if I were to slap Mrs Henderson’s Pekinese on the barbeque, it would doubtless cause some consternation.

The only thing I really feel justified eating is fish. I reckon that if you can’t kill it yourself, then you shouldn’t eat it. Which means I probably shouldn’t eat meat at all, but I do. Fish, however, I have caught, gutted and cooked entirely myself, start to finish, so that seems a little more justifiable. Is there any logic to that? I suspect not. I’m tired.

My new statistics service tells me that I have two loyal readers (flatmates from last year at uni. Vive le ‘Flat 14’!). Cheers guys. I’ve only had it running for 24 hours though, so maybe there are more of you out there. There was one other visitor, actually, someone from University Of California, Santa Barbara. Hello there! If you come back, leave me a message and please solve the mystery of quite how you came to find this peculiar little backwater of the world wide web.