Animal Tragic
28 August 2018, 21:06 | Updated: 28 August 2018, 21:11
Let's check in with the world of animals before climate change renders their habitats unlivable or Donald Trump's sons shoot them all.
Those people who graze the internet looking for things to be upset about were sent into what the papers call “a frenzy” when they read about a restaurant that was serving cow.
Don't worry, the cow was dead. That was not what caused the furore. It was the trolling before it died that did it.
A restaurant in Cardiff, which shall remain nameless, because it didn't bother to give itself one and simply goes by its address: 29 Park Place.
Actually, it has spelled out the numbers, so it is really called Twenty Nine Park Place, because that's classier.
They have a special offer on beef and alerted Twitter to that fact by posting a picture of a cow, minding its own business, with the caption 'Daisy is a little bit worried! Why? It's steak night!'
As you can imagine, the internet went into what the papers call “meltdown” because people presumably imagined that steak is created in Styrofoam trays at the supermarket, and no animal is harmed in its production.
Comments on Twitter included but were not limited to: 'Oh my god, this is dreadful' and 'So cruel and immoral', which is, of course, nonsense.
If God didn't want us to eat cows, he wouldn't have made them out of meat.
And besides, cows can't read.
This did not stop the restaurant from prostrating itself before the internet and begging its forgiveness.
This seems to happen a lot – people on the net taking offence on someone else's behalf.
It is the first time I have heard of them taking offence on someTHING else's behalf.
The restaurant shouldn't have bothered as the Twittershpere was already weighing in on the plight of another defenceless animal.
And by defenceless, I mean it is equipped with the deadliest poison of any living thing.
A black widow spider was found in a crate which had been shipped to Scotland from America.
In their homeland, black widows live for about two years, which is approximately two years too long.
Workers at a business park in Aberdeenshire discovered the spider in the crate, noted its distinctive black and red makings and said (and this is a direct quote): “AAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!”
They called the Scottish animal welfare charity, the SPCA.
Their website is littered with pictures of cute puppy dogs and pussy cats and absolutely no deadly spiders at all, so they announced that they were not very interested in trying to re-house it.
There's not much call for something that looks like a prop in a horror film and could kill all of your other pets and you too, if it felt like it.
So the Scottish charity that exists to protect animals suggested that the spider be “put to sleep”.
This sounds like it might involve singing it a lullaby while gently rocking it to and fro, but as one bite could put you in a coma, I think that it was code for bashing it flat with a rolled up copy of The Scotsman newspaper or the underside of a Scotsman’s slipper.
If Donald Trump's sons tire of blasting at lions with assault weapons and they want to shoot at black widows before another one finds its way here, then that is OK by me.
Just between us though, I might be secretly rooting for the spider.
