Watching the news tonight; just ridden home, so in a special little world of own stench and sweaty tshirts and hat hair in my eyes and so on. I mention this as it may just be I was tetchy from being tired, messy and still a little buzzed from the joy of almost-but-not-quite being run down. Anyway, on the news, some farmer had the bright idea to have his sheep sponsored. There's a drought on, apparently. So some reporter was out there in the field, intoning (I promise; intoning) grave and considered words about the chance of these poor little fellas dying. But hey, you can always sponsor one and stop this terrible thing from happening. Get a picture. Maybe even come visit.
What bugged me was that this was pretty much exactly the same as when similar chumps stand in front of little African kids with big bellies and flies 'round their mouths. Sponsor a child. That kind of thing. Like some kind of cheapshit novelist's metaphor.
Working through what disgusted me will probably just redisgust me. My list of people who are not worth shit is kind of expanding rapidly: first it was jockeys, then politicians, now apparently I have to add television journalists. Lawyers goes without saying.