Banning Donkey Rides - I Blame The Fertility Rate

No, no, this works, I shall convince you

The idea of banning donkey rides at Weston Super Mud is obviously and clearly absurd:

One of Britain’s oldest donkey beach-ride companies has hit back at calls to ban the seaside tradition in Weston-super-Mare.

Campaigners are trying to prohibit the popular activity, claiming that it is “outdated and cruel”.

Donkeys are famously stubborn beasts. That’s where mules get it from. If a donkey doesn’t want to do something it’s not going to. Just isn’t. They’re also wildly different from horses in their reactions to threat - they do not run away, they attack. Donkeys are also highly sociable beasts - herd animals. The nett of all of this being that if a group of donkeys doesn’t want to do something then they’re not going to - and quite possibly kill you in the process of not doing it.

That is, it cannot be true that proffering donkey rides is something that the donkeys find objectionable because they would object. And you’d know they were objecting too. Oh, sure, they might think it a bit of a chore but worth it for the occasional mangelwurzel top in the feed bag but it’ll not be any worse than that. The QED being that donkeys do the rides.

A Change.org petition, launched on Aug 1, slammed the tradition, claiming that donkeys are “sentient beings capable of feeling pain and experiencing emotional stress”.

They say the donkeys are “often subjected to long hours of work in high temperatures with limited access to water and shade, which compromise their well-being”.

The petition adds: “There are plenty more exciting attractions to visit in Weston-super-Mare that do not compromise animal welfare.

“These alternatives ensure that our town remains a vibrant and family-friendly destination without causing unnecessary distress to innocent animals.

“By putting a ban on these rides, we will not only be protecting the welfare of the animals but also setting an example moving toward more humane practices across the board.”

So, given the QED how can it be that there are enough people stupid enough to set up a petition? The answer is the decline in fertility rates.

Raising a human child is a 20 year process of repeated insistence not to do that. Don’t eat your own shit at the start up to don’t eat someone else’s when you’re on a date two decades later (something those with shigella from those orgies didn’t get told enough). There then starts the further 20 to 30 year process of terrorising daughters in law into shouting enough at the next generation on the same points.

Yes, this is a rather gender biased explanation but then I’m gender biased so we’re all balanced there then.

Which does mean that there’s a certain amount of shouting about stuff built into the human race. Just because we’re descended from thousands of generations who did this - that’s why they had surviving descendants.

OK, greater portions of women have no children these days, those that do have fewer. There are therefore fewer toddlers and daughters in law to be usefully - necessarily - terrorised into compliance. But that’s not the way that genes and innate behaviours work, not at all. So, that urge to shout at people about stuff hasn’t gone and must find a new outlet.

Women no longer have to shout at toddlers to not eat out of the potty therefore we have insistence about not eating from the supermarkets. Or Greggs, or the chocolate aisle. There doesn’t have to be anything actually useful or sensible in what is being shouted about it’s an innate piece of the equipage of the species. No more deniable nor stoppable than bonobos thinking that a quick handjob is the right way to say good morning.

So Gentlemen of Britain, your duty is clear. Get shagging and get that birthrate up. We do, after all, have to make the shores of the Bristol Channel safe for Equus asinus to make a living. For if asses aren’t allowed to thrive there then how the hell are we going to deal with the Bristolians and Welsh?