The other evening I was driving back in heavy rain from my pilates class when I noticed something rather upsetting in the gated road that goes through our estate. I stopped and got out of the car for a closer look. Yes, as I feared, it was a dead duck. Some bastard had squished her flat.
What made me more upset still was that I could see her mate — a mallard drake — swimming forlornly in the ditch next to the road. I loved those ducks like Tony Soprano used to love his ducks. Especially the stupid way they waddled blithely across your path, forcing you to slow down and always making you smile whatever mood you were in. But clearly the tosser who did this was in too much of a hurry: either a van driver or someone in a 4 x 4, I guessed. The road’s so rutted and bumpy that no one in a normal car could get up sufficient speed.
Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is that we all like animal stories; also to show you what a deeply sensitive, caring person I am; but mainly, probably, the better to be able to give a proper slagging to the hour and a half’s worth of bilge I had to endure this week about some nutcase of an animal-rights lawyer who wants chimps first, then every other species thereafter, to be granted the legal status of humans.
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