In which the immense ineptitude and insidious incompetence of inbred institutions inevitably leads to increasing incapacity and irrelevance.
I spotted a sick horse two weeks ago.
It was wandering about the forest next to my home. Looking for a suitable spot to die.
It seems that the local "travellers" abandon sick horses here fairly regularly.
I have found four dead horses in the couple of years I've lived here.
This latest poorly horse wouldn't let me get near him.
He just had a look about him that said:
"I've had quite enough of this world, thankyou very much. I want a refund."
He wouldn't take any food from me.
The next day he was dead .
He'd collapsed near a public footpath five minutes from a built -up area.
My first contact, as a Concerned Citizen Wanting To Shift a Dead Horse was the RSPCA.
I love contacting the RSPCA.
I watched all these TV programmes and they looked great.
They should make a graphic novel and a movie about these guys. They all have super powers and everything:
"There's a dead horse here"
"How do you know it's dead"
"It's not moving"
"It might be asleep"
"It hasn't moved for a week"
"....how tall is it?"
"How tall?"
"Yes. How tall. How many hands?"
"Difficult to say. It's lying down. It's dead"
"Are you sure it's dead?"
"Yes, it's been there a week and seventeen minutes"
"So....how did it die?"
" I don't really know. It's obviously been sick"
"Sick?"
"Yes, you know-vomit"
"Oh no, sir. Horses can't vomit"
The conversation went on like this for about another week.
The horse was dead. I didn't know how tall it was. And around it's head was a pile of raspberry coloured puke.
Yes. The RSPCA superhero was right. Live horses cannot vomit.
But dead horses can. Just before they die. They can puke.
And this one was....
Dead.
So when we asked the RSPCA about this latest corpse they told us to ring the local council office and DEFRA.
We rang the local council office (Animal Welfare) from the number of the council website.
However this turned out to be the telephone number for ...Trading Standards...who eventually gave us the number of Animal Welfare..who promised to ring back, but... didn't.
I then emailed Anilmal Welfare, who then rang back and passed us onto...
Recycling and Refuse.
After a while I rang Recycling and Refuse as I hadn't heard anything.
The lady on the 'phone said "it was being dealt with but the man with the knacker's van had been on holiday but he would ring me when he got back".
By this time the horse had been there for two weeks.
It was spring by this time. The weather was lovely and sunny. And warm. Not the best conditions for keeping a dead horse fresh.
The man with the Knacker's Van did ring me back, and arranged to call out the following day which he did, accompanied by a Council Official (both nice guys, by the way).
They told us that the council had sent someone out seven times to locate the body and hadn't found it.
I asked him why they hadn't rung me and I'd have shown them where it was.
He didn't know.
Nightfall. The body is still in the trees.
It's in the middle of a forest with no access roads.
The nice men from the council haven't a clue how they are ever going to move it.
They inspected it and said
"hmmmnnnnn......this isn't good. It would have been better if we'd been here two weeks ago......oooh what's that? ......oh there are rats inside it....when we try to pick this up now it's going to come apart like a cooked chicken"
Footnote
One of the guys told me that last night a Land Rover had collided with a stray horse on a road over the local viaduct. The driver was badly hurt.
That was a Land Rover.
A Land Rover is not a small car.
If it has been a small car, the driver would possibly have been dead.
Oh, and the men From The Council also told me that, whilst pulling a cart through the main street of our local town a horse had gone crazy and demolished half-a-dozen vehicles.
The cart driver bugged out and wasn't seen again.
Horse lovers.
Doncha love 'em?
I spotted a sick horse two weeks ago.
It was wandering about the forest next to my home. Looking for a suitable spot to die.
It seems that the local "travellers" abandon sick horses here fairly regularly.
I have found four dead horses in the couple of years I've lived here.
This latest poorly horse wouldn't let me get near him.
He just had a look about him that said:
"I've had quite enough of this world, thankyou very much. I want a refund."
He wouldn't take any food from me.
The next day he was dead .
He'd collapsed near a public footpath five minutes from a built -up area.
My first contact, as a Concerned Citizen Wanting To Shift a Dead Horse was the RSPCA.
I love contacting the RSPCA.
I watched all these TV programmes and they looked great.
They should make a graphic novel and a movie about these guys. They all have super powers and everything:
"There's a dead horse here"
"How do you know it's dead"
"It's not moving"
"It might be asleep"
"It hasn't moved for a week"
"....how tall is it?"
"How tall?"
"Yes. How tall. How many hands?"
"Difficult to say. It's lying down. It's dead"
"Are you sure it's dead?"
"Yes, it's been there a week and seventeen minutes"
"So....how did it die?"
" I don't really know. It's obviously been sick"
"Sick?"
"Yes, you know-vomit"
"Oh no, sir. Horses can't vomit"
The conversation went on like this for about another week.
The horse was dead. I didn't know how tall it was. And around it's head was a pile of raspberry coloured puke.
Yes. The RSPCA superhero was right. Live horses cannot vomit.
But dead horses can. Just before they die. They can puke.
And this one was....
Dead.
So when we asked the RSPCA about this latest corpse they told us to ring the local council office and DEFRA.
We rang the local council office (Animal Welfare) from the number of the council website.
However this turned out to be the telephone number for ...Trading Standards...who eventually gave us the number of Animal Welfare..who promised to ring back, but... didn't.
I then emailed Anilmal Welfare, who then rang back and passed us onto...
Recycling and Refuse.
After a while I rang Recycling and Refuse as I hadn't heard anything.
The lady on the 'phone said "it was being dealt with but the man with the knacker's van had been on holiday but he would ring me when he got back".
By this time the horse had been there for two weeks.
It was spring by this time. The weather was lovely and sunny. And warm. Not the best conditions for keeping a dead horse fresh.
The man with the Knacker's Van did ring me back, and arranged to call out the following day which he did, accompanied by a Council Official (both nice guys, by the way).
They told us that the council had sent someone out seven times to locate the body and hadn't found it.
I asked him why they hadn't rung me and I'd have shown them where it was.
He didn't know.
Nightfall. The body is still in the trees.
It's in the middle of a forest with no access roads.
The nice men from the council haven't a clue how they are ever going to move it.
They inspected it and said
"hmmmnnnnn......this isn't good. It would have been better if we'd been here two weeks ago......oooh what's that? ......oh there are rats inside it....when we try to pick this up now it's going to come apart like a cooked chicken"
Footnote
One of the guys told me that last night a Land Rover had collided with a stray horse on a road over the local viaduct. The driver was badly hurt.
That was a Land Rover.
A Land Rover is not a small car.
If it has been a small car, the driver would possibly have been dead.
Oh, and the men From The Council also told me that, whilst pulling a cart through the main street of our local town a horse had gone crazy and demolished half-a-dozen vehicles.
The cart driver bugged out and wasn't seen again.
Horse lovers.
Doncha love 'em?
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