It’s that time of the week, when Diary sallies forth from behind its self-imposed barricade of silence to serve its readers charity-trade journalism with a side of silliness. This week: Peta’s crusade on the dress-code of a band of futuristic warrior-monks; PSDA’s crusade against animal owners killing through kindness, and Rob Wilson going double-Dutch.
Peta fur-rious at fictitious figurines
Animal rights charity Peta has been making headlines this week, following its latest battle in an ongoing war against the wearing of animal furs. And it’s target is probably not who you’d think.
Nope. It’s Warhammer and, in particular, the Space Marines.
Sidebar: the Space Marines are a group of futuristic warrior monks who battle space orcs and alien mutants in the year 40,000. They are also a fictitious creation of Games Workshop, the makers of the table top games: Warhammer and Warhammer 40k.
It’s been reported that, in a letter to Kevin Rountree, chief executive of Games Workshop, Peta decried the fact that some of these Space Marines – remember, plastic figurines, each and every one go into battle draped in wolf fur.
“Nothing on the bloody battlefields of Warhammer’s conflict-ravaged universe could match the terrible reality that foxes, minks, rabbits and other living beings experience at the hands of the fur trade.”
Diary thinks it ridiculous that people still wear fur in 2017, let alone the year 40,000. Peta also makes a very good point that killing and skinning animals purely to wear something that looks, frankly, ridiculous anyway is cruel and barbaric.
And yet... and, yet.
Meanwhile, some of the think pieces from journalists of respectable mastheads like the Times and the Telegraph are, without hyperbole, incredible. This excerpt from the Telegraph really is the leader of the pack though, if you will.
Under the headline ‘fantasy fur police’, the journalist writes: “Some people like to spend weekends lining up armies of tiny plastic figures in the unrelenting conflict of Warhammer 40,000, set in “the grim darkness of the far future”.
“It may sound a dreary, crepuscular pastime, but no law prohibits such fantasy activities, any more than it bans days spent enjoying Wagner’s Ring cycle”.
Second sidebar: the use of the word ‘crepuscular’ and allusions to the enjoyment of baroque, German opera are both signifiers that the journalist in question likely went to Oxbridge and now, many years on, can’t believe they’re having to write about this crap. Amazing! Anyway, we press on.
“In the world of Warhammer 40,000, Chaos Warriors wear armour welded onto their flesh, ride mutant horses, and chase down enemies with wolf-sized mutant dogs. But it is not these monsters that have attracted the anger of animal activists. No, as we report today, they are protesting at pretend animals pelts of painted plastic that Chaos Warriors* sling over one shoulder. Such unsmiling censoriousness would drive even Nurgle the Chaos God of Plague to collect his Rot Flies and go home in despair”.
Mic. Drop.
*Although, as discussed, it’s the Space Marines that Peta are angry at. Not the Chaos Warriors. Diary hates to be a pedant, but one must get its facts right.
Killing through kindness
The PSDA has called on cat and dog owners to stop over-feeding their animals, as the UK is facing an obesity epidemic the likes of which the country hasn’t seen since it last looked down at its own children (Some 20 per cent of UK-children under 10 are obese, according to a 2015/16 public health study. So that joke is technically factually accurate, as well as being mean-spirited).
Findings from the PDSA’s PAW Report reveal a “staggering 5.7 million UK pets (3.4 million dogs, 2 million cats and 260,000 rabbits) are fed treats every day” which the report said could be fuelling an “obesity time bomb" for the UK's pets and their vets.
The report found that some “loving but indulgent owners” admitted to feeding their animals “crisps, cake, cheese, chips and takeaway”.
A further 4 million pets were fed “table scraps or leftovers as their main meals, further adding to the weighty problem”.
The charity has called on owners to encourage their animals to exercise more, and has launched the PDSA Pet Fit Club: “a national pet slimming contest”.
The first rule of PDSA Pet Fit Club is you don’t talk about PDSA Pet Fit Club. The second rule of PDSA Pet Fit Club is you don’t feed your rabbit chicken tikka masala.
Rob's a lager man
We here at CSM towers are convinced that Rob Wilson must have recently hired a new, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed little intern from some local university or something, because he’s been tweeting up a storm recently.
So, with that in mind, here’s a few choice pictures that have been appearing on Rob’s feed in the last few weeks.
Here he is pouring a pint:
Here he is about to enjoy said pint:
Not shown: the twitter abuse he no doubt got from his constituents because, while one can clearly see the tap for Bombardier there – a lovingly, handcrafted, GLORIOUS ENGLISH ale – Rob’s clearly a lager man and went Dutch. Poor show Rob, get with the Brexit programme already!
Yes, there can be no doubt that Rob Wilson's Twitter game has been strong recently, but it's not the only corner of the internet where the Reading East MP is posting some quality snaps. Please see here his impressive, albeit almost certainly inadvertent, rap squat to raise awareness of potholes in his constituency.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Gin saved by charity
It’s fair to say that the news has been pretty bleak of late, so Diary is delighted to be able to bring you, dear reader, news of the valuable and important work that one charity is doing to keep the nation’s spirits ups.
Kew Gardens proudly announced this week that “gin is now safe”. For the botanical charity has succeeded in collecting enough juniper seeds, which are used to make the beverage.
In an announcement on its website, Kew said: “The UK National Tree Seed Project – set up by Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank with generous funding from the players of People’s Postcode Lottery – has been collecting native tree seeds from across the UK since May 2013, of which Juniper is the first species to be collected in its entirety across Great Britain.”
This means that “your gin is now safe”.
Gin is experiencing something of a renaissance at the moment and becoming the drink of choice for many young and trendy individuals, or so Diary hears. And about time too – gin’s reputation for being ‘mother’s ruin’ has always seemed a little unjust, given the multitude of other pressures facing women in the time of Hogarth and co who could blame them for having the odd tipple.
Diary thinks it says a lot about the nation’s priorities that the first seed that Kew managed to fully bank as part of the UK National Tree Seed Project is the one that is needed to make sure that we don’t run out of gin. Then again, some of Diary’s colleagues are fans of drink, so its continued existence could be considered vital to workplace harmony, especially on a Friday afternoon.
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