The bizarre life and sad death of media-mogul Sir Robert Maxwell caused great stir, as well as spawning continuing conspiracy theories of covert survival and escape. All this has extraordinary resonances with the sheep-world’s own cautionary tale of o’er-vaulting ambition and nemesis ….
As with humans, there is an ovine ‘celtic fringe’ where not every sheep is – by culture or general elegance – quite in the same class as its Cotswold peers. But the bizarre patois of the rugged Scottish sheep often hides a rich tradition of history, relationships and derring-do …
One of the many great ironies of your Human Condition, as perceived by the Sheep, is the way you project on to us the very features – woolly thinking, blind followership etc – which most characterise what we see in humans. The ruminating Sheep is the direct antecedent of the introspecting philosopher and Socratic dialectition …
Not for nothing does the Lord Chancellor of All England sit on the Woolsack. The symbolic warming of his distingusihed bottom comes courtesy of the Sheep who gave England its greatness and wealth …
THE BASICS OF BELLICOSITY
It is as sure as night follows day that it is the Sheep, of all animals and throughout his history, which has been pre-eminent associate of human kind, supplying much more than the chops and woolly sweaters so grudgingly acknowledged.
For there would be no Art, no Literature, without the ovine species. These Felicitous Muttonings – the great Frank Muir’s description of what follows – give the Sheep’s own perspective on this relationship. They will lead you to look afresh in the fields tomorrow at this most singular and under-valued companion and critic of humanity.