from SQUIRREL HILTON

On the television last night somebody was drinking blood. Pig's blood. Some pale, tending-to-corpulent chat show host and a self-satisfied, pock-marked tv chef.

I don't normally watch television, not having one at home, but here I was at work at the end of a shift with three of my work colleagues all ranged around the room in varying states of exhaustion, watching the big set in the corner and waiting to go home. And the overpaid oafs on tv are drinking the blood of a recently murdered pig and commenting on what a fine taste it has. The scene is supposed to be sophisticated somehow--this is one of those shows for a crowd that considers itself to be "upmarket", better than the folks who like all the other tv chefs.

And Lewis, who considers himself a "foodie", watched it play out on the tv with a sudden animation, something like glee shining in his eyes. He reminded me of a teenager lighting his first cigarette in public, only he was even more bumptiously confident. Five years ago the "animal rights brigade" still held enough sway with the media--and had won enough of the old argument--to make this gruesome spectacle something you probably wouldn't have to look at on mainstream tv. Now nobody could do anything to stop it, and watching it unfold was like an orgiastic fuck-you to all those fevered lunatics who had once curtailed your freedom.

The freedom to drink the blood of an animal as an ostentatious, and curious, proof of your dominance over all animals, including the ones who lived in council houses, used buses, ate generic greasy chicken wings in burger bars.

I got up from the sofa seat next to Esme, in a leather coat, with a feeling of nausea rising into what Western heroes used to call their craw. "I'm not watching any more of these murdering bastards, " I said, and I stalked from the room.

The others carried on talking and tv-watching as if I'd never been in there with them. Bruce? Who the hell is Bruce? So it was these days with anyone who believes in rights for animals.