Truffles and Mast – A Review of Hogwood: A Modern Horror Story

Thick corn fields and rolling hills, folksy farmers, hay bale pyramids and mangers attended by contented cows, sheep and pigs. These are the images of the holy British countryside, the New Jerusalem, England’s green and pleasant land, images immortalised by countless novels and poems. Of course, it has not always appeared this way to everyone.

The Christmas Mouse

The sky was blue and black with night and the grass was seized up with frost. Squirrels and badgers, foxes and voles adopted a retiring attitude faced with this bitter cold. They snuggled in their warrens until they were as warm as toast, and passing chills only cooled them into slumber. Small cars purred down

The Drowned Dove

The murmur of the seaside, waves-upon rocks, scuttling, clicking crabs as they dash across baking sand: winter on the Cape. All the white picket houses snooze along the bay and distant brown beachheads, dotted with boulders give way to dark, foreign trees. We saw a mongoose at the Green Hole once. Since then I always

Seventeen Million Mink

A new strain of coronavirus has appeared in Danish mink farms and has quickly spread from minks to people. The response has been to plan a cull of all seventeen million of Denmark’s minks. Perhaps there is no alternative at this late stage, although the choice should have been made long ago to desist from

The ‘Ewesful’ Idiot

A flock of fat, white cotton balls are plodding around the field. The sun is bright and a little spicy in fact, for mid-October at least. It heats the Christmas out of my bones and lets me dwell on summer. We enjoyed the view out on the field back then, through pollen-hazed vision and beams

My Friend Bob

Spiders are much maligned creatures. Their furry carapaces inspire everything from cold chills to shrill screams – I should know, because to tell you true Bob made me feel the same way. Even though I stood barely higher than a kindergarten stool, Bob’s sluggish crawl dosed me with a jolt of primeval fear when he

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

I wouldn’t say I love animals. Do not misunderstand me here: I am exceptionally fond of the little beasts. I certainly love my pets and I am constantly reminded of the fact that animals can be charming, adorable, fun and comforting. Yet still, despite all that, if someone asked me to divulge my interests and

Speaking of Eugenics: A Macabre Study of Animal-Testing Advocates

Speaking of Research is an organisation dedicated to upholding the right of scientists to perform experiments on animals. Now, it has been well-argued by many why animal testing, for both scientific and cosmetic purposes, is cruel, wasteful, unhelpful and unnecessary. I for one am not in a position to say – and as such I

Pig-Headed – Our Hypocrisy over Animal Cruelty has led to Flat House Farm

Flat House Farm is the latest revelation in a long series of exposés of the meat industry. It suffices to say that the images that have come from this ‘high-standards’ farm are nothing short of horrific. The emaciated skeletons of dead and dying piglets litter the floors of the barn, older pigs weighed down with

The Pheasant

It’s one of those childhood memories, half-dreamed, bathed in a blue glint of reminiscence. I was perhaps seven or eight years old – a strong-willed, sensitive child with a penchant for red-faced rages followed by inconsolable weeping. I remember the pheasant now, through the cool glass of the window on that February morning – or