Wild Boars Escape Without Comment

Recent events in Devon have made me wonder if I am becoming an aging grumpy: my incredulity is genuine.

How can the media report the escape of wild boar without even a passing mention of the glaringly obvious question? I have bought wild boar products occasionally - and now it transpires that I have been completely naive to imagine that the animals were as described: wild. Is this complete ignorance on my part? Does everyone else already know that wild boar are not wild at all, but in fact the complete opposite of wild, namely penned in? Is it too obvious to mention? Perhaps only the British would put up with such a deceit of nomenclature.

I know Yorkshire pudding isn't all made in Yorkshire. But surely it isn't transparent that wild boar is farmed. Please tell me that I'm not a complete dunderhead.

If I do turn into a grumpy old man, animal liberation will be high on my list of invectives.

Ridiculous Snooker Competition Format

This year the format for the Championship League Snooker competition is very inequitable. It works like this. There are twenty-five entrants, of which seven are placed in Group 1. They play a round-robin tournament and the top four then play a knockout to decide the winner of the group. The winner qualifies for the Winners Group, and the remaining other four of the top five progress to Group 2, joining three other players from the original twenty-five. The bottom two are eliminated from the competition. This whole process is repeated until Group 7, when only the winner qualifies for the Winners Group, the other six players getting eliminated. The Winners Group then contains the seven players who won a group. Again, they play a round-robin and the top four play a knockout for tournament winner. Players win money by winning frames, getting through to the play-offs, winning a group or being runner-up, and by making the highest break in a group. The rates for these are differen...

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Aniseed Balls

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