ANIMAL HATE SPEECH A LOT OF BULL

AT Christmas in 1981 I got a cartoon book called 101 Uses For a Dead Cat.

It featured macabre sketches of deceased felines transformed into toilet brushes, toast racks and desktop pencil sharpeners. It was hilarious and became a global bestseller. But I wonder what the sensitive flowers of animal rights charity PETA would have to say about those cat corpse gags now? Because they’ve been urging everyone to stop using animal hate speech.

We need to drop many centuries-old English idioms because they “perpetuate violence towards animals”. So, instead of “bringing home the bacon” we should be “bringing home the bagels”.

“Flogging a dead horse” should become “feeding a fed horse” and you now “take the flower by the thorns” not “the bull by the horns”.

What a load of old kitty litter.

We’re even supposed to say ”there’s more than one way to peel a potato” – because “skinning a cat” is too grim. Hmm. 101 Uses For a Peeled King Edward?

That’s never going to be a smash.