Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Let’s hear it for the python that had the civic good sense to eat Wilbur the cat

Rod Liddle takes issue with Wilbur’s grieving owners who want a change in the law to impose restrictions upon creatures such as snakes. What we really need is a new citizen’s right to defend ourselves against the feline menace

issue 15 August 2009

Rod Liddle takes issue with Wilbur’s grieving owners who want a change in the law to impose restrictions upon creatures such as snakes. What we really need is a new citizen’s right to defend ourselves against the feline menace

It’s been a grim summer for news, all things considered, what with Afghanistan and flying pig flu and the rain and now Harriet Harman squatting over us all like one of those terrifying smallpox deities the Hindus have. So I thought I’d share with you a story which, in the midst of this gloom, cheered me up enormously. It is the story of a little ginger and white pussycat called Wilbur, who lived in Bristol with his owners, Martin and Helen Wadey. Martin and Helen loved Wilbur a lot. His purr was, according to Martin, ‘like a dynamo’. He was the family pet and suitably adored.

Anyway, one day Wilbur set off in pursuit of that familiar and engaging leisure option for our millions of domesticated cats — killing wildlife in a neighbour’s garden and then taking a massive dump in the middle of the lawn.

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