There you are having a nice pub meal - steak, chips, onion rings plus maybe something green to show willing. And, looking across the bar, you spy something odd. Not quite sure what it is - might be a stuffed hedgehog. You put it down to experience - I mean what kind of establishment would litter its fireplaces with stuffed hedgehogs?Yet you return - drawn, fascinated, absorbed even - to view the mystical stuffed hedgehog. OK so it's not all that great a stuffing (on closer examination) and it's trying to crawl up a badger's backside. But, wonder of wonders, it is definitely a real stuffed hedgehog.
Such is the essence of modern life. We are faced with things we don't expect to see - Wayne Rooney studying Latin, the Beckhams pigging out on steak and chips at a Harvester and Jeff Stelling singing plain chant - but never a stuffed hedgehog.
I guess my life is complete now.
....
