It’s not easy being green,’ sang amphibian superstar Kermit. ‘Just try being pink’, his partner Miss Piggy might have retorted. After all, having your legs chopped off and fried by the French pales into insignificance compared to what some politicians (allegedly) get up to with our porcine pals. But would a dumb animal die happier knowing that it was part of a hunt for a cancer cure for humankind, as opposed to a bizarre rite ultimately intended to keep the sheeple in their place?
Britain is, after all, a nation of animal lovers. In some cases we love them in a red wine jus, for others… well, ‘love’ is a word with many meanings, including the affection we show for the cuter household pets. Innocent beasts are vital to mankind’s very existence, whether forming part of the food chain, or a convenient foil for some random ‘political’ act – like when The KLF dumped a dead sheep at the doors to the Brits, or Angelic Upstarts gigs incorporating a pig’s head (possibly as some kind of metaphor, who can say).
Ozzy Ozbourne’s bat-biting incident has passed into legend – blamed on a case of mistaken identity. Less well-publicised was when he similarly beheaded a dove, the excuse this time being completely plausible for the Black Sabbath frontman i.e. he was out of his face at the time, m’lud.
Status Quo’s story is a little more innocent – in Australia their tour bus hit a kangaroo. Wanting to honour the dead animal, they dressed it in a tour jacket to take some dead marsupial selfies. And who among us can honestly say… anyway, the animal, like the aging rockers, unexpectedly turned out to be still alive, and bounded off to a new life (with the keys to the tour van). ‘Joey’ was last spotted playing in a Quo covers band, his lack of opposable thumbs not preventing him mastering the three chords required for ‘Down Down’.
Left-wing politicos The Clash were arrested for shooting at pigeons, while Happy Mondays, as detailed in 24 Hour Party People, were rather more devious in their abuse, Shaun and Bez hiding rat poison in bread and feeding it to 3,000 of their feathered foes with inevitable consequences. But at the other end of the social spectrum, fox hunting is famed for its bizarre initiation rituals, like smearing the dead animals’ blood on the faces of the children present, not too far removed from Porkgate. And while there’s no evidence of actual animal abuse (yet), the Countryside Alliance can now count on the support of what looks like a Tory supergroup including Eric Clapton and Bryan Ferry (obviously) plus sundry members of The Who, Procol Harum, Genesis, and Pink Floyd, whose giant inflatable pig may soon take on a whole new significance.
All the animals have in their corner – apart from Brian May’s Barmy Badger Army – is Morrissey’s regular pronouncements against most of humankind (well, the Chinese, a decent percentage), and supporting a stall selling Moz memorabilia in aid of Battersea Dogs’ Home.
Mind you, Alice Cooper treats his snakes pretty well, we’re told. And you’d not bet against either of them in a fair fight…

Concrete Antenna
Concrete Antenna
(Random Spectacular )
Putting the ‘art’ into ‘rock’ can be a licence for pretension, but happily, not in this case. The ‘antenna’ in question is a ‘sound installation’ for the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop on the shore at Granton, and the performers include Tommy Perman from experimental music-makers Found, who have previously produced a chocolate 7” single, and along with academic Simon Kirby, interactive band-in-a-box Cybraphon. The two are joined here by songwriter Rob St. John on this collection of ambient instrumentals, a dozen tracks which merge into one another. It’s a lazy, calming listen, as repeated chord patterns mingle with the sounds of birds, foghorns and wind in the sails of fishing boats near the Newhaven shore, urging us to heed the call of the sea. HHHH