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achievement. Imagine a pony drugged and raped a young woman in a Travelodge. It would become an international celebrity.

      For many people a love of animals is simply a last resort. Animals are at least something that can bear to be around you, admittedly because they don’t know how to get food.

      We shouldn’t get too conceited, however. We might think that our technological achievements mean we transcend animals, but we’re not using them to transcend anything. We’re using them to eat way too much cheese and broadcast interviews with Bon Jovi.

      In many ways pets are more like mirrors – things to project our emotions on to, which makes them feel bored, angry and horny, and annoyed that they have to finish writing their book. We are the descendants of people who kept dogs. The dog’s sense of smell was an evolutionary advantage to early society, so that’s who we are: the people who wiped out everybody sensible on earth, all the decent people who didn’t want to live in a camp covered in shit.

      • • •

      A fire destroyed the tropical house at Five Sisters Zoo up here in West Lothian. A tropical house in a Scottish zoo? At least the animals would have blissfully croaked ‘Thank God’ as the heat and flames consumed them. They don’t know how it started. My money is on two stick insects shagging.

      At Edinburgh Zoo giant pandas Sunshine and Sweetie were filmed attempting to mate. Their keepers got the film off Sunshine’s mobile phone. It could be they’re just so used to being filmed while mating that Sunshine always feels he has to cum on her tits. Mating is tough because the females only ovulate once a year – although that does mean Mr Panda can go the other eleven months without coming home to her crying because he didn’t switch the dishwasher on.

      Every year Sweetie only has a day and a half in which to conceive, although a preference for mating in the summer means in a Scottish zoo that window could drop to just eighteen hours. Thirty-six hours to have as much sex as possible – I’d suggest packing them off to a Club 18-30 resort in Faliraki, sharpish. And hope Sunshine’s muscular paws will be able to pull all the Terrys and Daves off Sweetie so he can get a go, too. Of course, there’s a chance that Sunshine wasn’t making repeated attempts at hugs; he might have been just trying to find Sweetie’s zip so he could put away his pyjamas.

      London Zoo’s tigers have been given a new enclosure to help them breed. It must be great having sex if you’re a tiger – when they get to go on top it’ll be like doing it on a great big fireside rug. When in season tigers mate ten times a day. I’m told the action’s been so hot that even the panda in the next enclosure’s started wanking.

      BBC One show Frozen Planet was accused of fakery because they filmed a polar bear giving birth in a zoo. Of course it wasn’t in the Arctic – the only time David Attenborough goes somewhere that cold is when they place him in a carbonite freezer in between series. MP John Whittingdale described it as ‘hugely disappointing’ – unlike hearing that an MP is spending his time moaning about wildlife shows during the biggest global recession in recent history. TV definitely fakes stuff more than newspapers, a source close to TV said. A friend of Attenborough agreed: ‘TV fakes stuff, but newspapers are great’, said the unnamed source.

      And in another case of unnecessary human intervention in the animal world, a woman in Norfolk has taught a chicken to count. That was nice of her; now it knows exactly how many days left till it gets strangled for Christmas. A quarter of pet owners will share Christmas dinner with their pet. Me too. Lobsters may not be that affectionate, but you try getting your cat to pull a cracker.

      There’s been a lot of sad news in the animal world recently. Lonesome George the Galapagos turtle died at one hundred years old. The First World War, the Russian Revolution, Hiroshima . . . it’s incredible to think of all the things he must have been completely oblivious to. A record breaker even in death, he’s now the world’s largest ashtray.

      We lost another record-breaking animal when the world’s biggest boa constrictor was killed after attacking a man in Florida. Boas pair up for life – on hearing the news the dead snake’s partner took her own life in a joint suicide pact with a severely depressed porcupine, a further tragedy being that because of the therapeutic power of acupuncture, at the start of her final clench she actually felt just a little bit better.

      More bad news. The last known rhinoceroses in Mozambique have been wiped out by poachers. Their horns are prized in Asia for their aphrodisiac and cancer-curing properties. Well, which is it? Surely that could be dangerous, giving a patient with late-stage cancer an unwanted erection for the rest of his life. It costs $100,000 to hunt a rhino in Africa. I’d never do that. I hate flying. But I’m interested to know how much it costs to hunt a rhino in Manchester. I’d do it on a BMX wearing a ski mask. Once it was dead I’d sell its horn as a bong.

      American hunters and their families are also paying up to £10,000 for giraffe-hunting expeditions. Ah, shooting giraffes – the American pastime for those whose aim isn’t accurate enough to piss on a dead Arab. (I couldn’t enjoy watching TV with the head of a dead animal looking at me, which is why I’ve not been able to follow It’s All About Amy on Channel 5.) It’s especially sad, as not only do giraffes form an essential part of the savannah ecosystem, but the chimps use them as slides in their theme parks.

      Of course, the Africans put up with all this – when they see a white American getting off a plane bristling with guns they’re bloody relieved all he wants to do is shoot wildlife. Shooting something twenty-foot tall on a plain actually sounds easier than shooting fish in a barrel.

      Having seen the photos of these hunts, my first question is why do hunters wear camouflage? Are the giraffes prone to shooting back at them? It’s good for the kids to have these photographs – in later life, simply showing them to their therapists will save a lot of time. If you’re a big enough prick to want your kids to have a similar experience but can’t afford a flight to Africa, then why not take your toddler to your local petting zoo and spit at the goats?

      • • •

      A huge badger cull has been given the go-ahead in England. The badgers infect dairy cows with TB. It’s a real problem, as too much coughing means their output is then only fit for milk shakes. Step one of the cull will be to gas the badgers’ setts. Step two, to check for hidden rooms in the attics of rats and moles. I’ve a special connection with these animals as I once removed a thorn from a badger’s paw. Four times, in fact. In the end I just sacked him and hired a human gardener. Clarissa Dickson Wright has suggested that we eat the badgers that are being culled. This shouldn’t to be taken too seriously, as she said the exact same thing about the Croats during the Bosnian war.

      It appears that the latest threat to human health is seal flu. I’ve been doing what I can to help, going to the end of my nearest pier to shake out sachets of Lemsip. Seals suffer particularly badly from flu, as their flipper length means they can’t quite reach their noses with a hankie. I don’t think I’d mind so much about seals giving me flu if the little bastards didn’t laugh and clap after they’d done it.

      Meanwhile, officials have warned that fish pedicures could spread HIV. Why are fish giving pedicures? What is this – The Flintstones? TOWIE stars have been pictured enjoying the fad, which initially led to worries that the fish could also somehow transmit mental retardation. Of course, the principle of one animal grooming another is quite common in nature. Rhinos have parasites picked from their skin by certain birds, and adult horses are often caught on Facebook posing as foals.

      Living in the countryside can apparently increase your risk of getting Parkinson’s disease by up to 80 per cent. My grandmother lived on a farm – we knew she had Parkinson’s disease when the bulls began queuing to come into the milking shed.

      There’s talk of a pesticide ban to halt declining bee numbers. I feel partly responsible, as I use their pelts to make pom-poms for my cheerleading hamsters. We must help, as they give us so much. I’ve been trying to get hold of some beeswax to polish my antique wardrobe but I just can’t get the cotton buds in their little ears. Butterfly numbers have also crashed. I say good; for once we can leave our butter out unprotected. I confess I collect the dead ones and dry