LITTLEJOHN

JUST as there is a Whitehall department which meets once a week to give me something to write about, so, too, does there appear to be an organisation devoted to giving Gary something to draw. How else to explain the story about Digby, Britain’s first guide horse, who has been sacked for being too big?

Digby, an American Miniature, was being trained to assist a partially sighted BBC journalist. He learned to press the button at pedestrian crossings and post letters. But after a growth spurt, he started knocking items off the shelves in supermarkets and was too large to fit under a desk.

Rather than waste his skills, Digby is being retrained to navigate escalators on the London Underground before being reassigned to a new owner who works at the Office for National Statistics.

I have visions of finding myself on the Piccadilly Line, sitting next to a horse wearing iPod headphones and reading the Evening Standard.

It reminds me of the old story about someone bumping into a chap walking round Regent’s Park with a gorilla.

‘I’m taking him to London Zoo,’ the man explained.

Next day he’s spotted on the Finchley Road with the same gorilla.

‘I thought you were taking him to the zoo?’

‘That was yesterday. Today, I’m taking him to the pictures.’