The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2127 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Simon went off to watch the telly while I fiddled with more records, mammal records. It was about an hour later when Si came back to me, “Come with me,” he said and beckoned. Intrigued I followed. The national news had just ended and on came the local variety, just headlines.

I listened to all the usual stuff, car crashes, jobs created or lost, something on the naval dockyard–like I said the usual, then: ‘According to mammal expert, Dr Cathy Watts, the government’s badger cull was likely to make things worse rather than better. Instead of killing poor wild animals they should tighten up sloppy farming practices and concentrate on developing a vaccine for the cattle, she said. She also commented that no one knows what the exact size of the badger population, and even the mapping the University of Portsmouth has been leading, only shows distribution not population density. Dr Watts is also a leading member of the Mammal Society, who have also criticised the cull as unscientific.’

Just then the phone rang and Danni answered it, “Mummy, it’s for yoo-hoo,” she called sounding in an unnaturally good mood. I wonder what she’d taken, perhaps she could spare some for me?

“Hello?”

“Hi, Cathy, it’s Erin.” What did she want?

“To what to I owe this pleasure,” I said my words dripping with sarcasm.

“Ha bloody ha, Can you come to Bristol tomorrow?”

“What for?”

“Do an interview and appear on a phone-in.”

“Why can’t I do the interview by phone?”

“They haven’t got video phones that are any good yet, and the phone-in is based in Bristol.”

“Who’s up against me?”

“They wanted the Secretary of State, but he was busy shooting badgers or something, so they got the minister for rural affairs or something, Walter Paget, I think.”

“Not the Oxbridge scholar?”

“Is he? He’s a politician so a good education would be wasted on him.”

My tummy flipped over, “I have a horrible feeling that he was on an Oxbridge debating team that demolished ours on, ‘Feminism should be taught in schools,’ or something like it. He was an arsehole and he got up every woman’s nose who was there.”

“Especially yours by the sound of it.”

“Yes,” I didn’t remind her that I was supposed to be a boy in those days and I certainly didn’t wish to remember how I was targeted as a wishy-washy, effeminate liberal supporter of feminism. ‘If that’s what it does to men, let’s ban it now.’ I winced at the memory.

“So, what better time to get back at him?”

“I’ve got better things to do than debate lunacy with a lunatic.”

“No you haven’t, so dress up smartly and be here by half nine at the studio, they’ll be expecting you.”

“How am I supposed to be there at that time, I’ve got a baby to feed.”

“Bring it with you, you can tell them there’s no TB in your milk.”

“Very funny, and it is a her, I’d have to bring her with me.”

“Okay, bring her with you then.”

I’m definitely losing it because I allowed Erin to talk me into going to Bristol. It would mean a very early start–it did. I left at seven and was there at nine with Erin waiting for me. We went into the studios and after being powdered I was stuffed in front of a camera while Erin carried the sleeping Lizzie.

We were taken to hospitality and I fed the little one, changed her and tidied her up. She chattered away in her pram playing with her teething ring and her teddy. She eventually went off to sleep as Erin and I drank coffee and ate Danish pastries. I had had my breakfast early and my tummy was beginning to growl.

I was led through to a sound studio with Erin and the baby, to be joined by some pop star and a dairy farmer. As we waited for the minister we chatted and the baby woke up. I asked the woman, Heather Pettis, who was presenting the show, if it was okay if I fed her. She looked around and everyone nodded approvingly. I’d just picked her up when the minister arrived. He was late and looked as irascible as ever.

He sat down just as I exposed a breast and Lizzie latched on, the expression of disgust on his face was almost palpable. “Couldn’t that wait,” he asked across the table.

“Dr Watts asked everyone’s agreement before starting to feed her daughter,” said the presenter and the producer nodded.

There was a brief interlude of music then we went live. Heather Pettis introduced the arguments and then the members of the panel, mentioning that I was feeding a baby so if anyone heard noises of a baby that was why. The rest of the panel chuckled except our scowling politician, who I was half surprised hadn’t curdled the milk in my breast with his look.

The truth is that no one knows what will happen after the cull, six weeks of shooting badgers on two test areas. The suspicion is that it will possibly get worse because we don’t have population figures and such experts as Lord Krebs, a noted scientist told the government it was making a mistake and should work on vaccines. I was delighted that his opinion was read by the presenter because it concurred with mine.

The farmer, though he hadn’t lost any cattle, knew others who had and he described at least one farmer who went bust and shot himself because of the loss of his herd. He was in favour of the cull because doing something was better than doing nothing.

The pop star was against the cull for scientific reasons and he listed them–again very similar to my own arguments. Turned out he had a PhD in astrophysics or something. I was just glad it wasn’t Brian Cox or I’d have been salivating all through the show.

I said my bit, about guestimates not being good enough to describe populations and that the whole idea was flawed logic manipulated by politicians. Of course Paget had a go at me for that and I defended myself while still feeding Lizzie who’d fallen asleep until I started to talk. I demolished his argument and accused him of misogyny. The pop star then started in on him as well and by the end of the programme he’d been savaged by everyone but the farmer who kept rather quiet.

One of the callers asked if I was the one who made the dormouse film which made Erin smile broadly. Another asked when the harvest mouse one would be finished and I could only hazard a guess at early next year. The pop star, Brian, I think his name was, said he loved my film and looked forward to the next one, Paget scowled even more.

Some caller asked the pop star if he missed Freddie, whom I assumed must have been his wife or something because he said, ‘every day.’ Apparently the show did a poll which suggested sixty six per cent of people were against the cull, but as the pop star said, “The same was true of the war in Iraq, but that didn’t stop it. Governments need to be more accountable.” Everyone except Paget agreed, including the farmer.

We left and Erin and I walked back to my car, having changed tiny wee in the loo. “Who was the pop star?” I asked and she almost fell over laughing.

“Didn’t you hear the introductions?”

“Not really, I was trying to stop Lizzie from eating my headset.”

She shook her head. “You really don’t know who he was?”

“He was quite articulate and has a PhD and probably a few million to go with it.”

“Quite a few.”

“So who was he then?”

“Ever heard of a band called Queen?”

I blushed, “Oh that Freddie...”