THE FAMILIARS ACT 2006!
Before me were 12 High Court Judges in traditional robes sat in a line behind a long wooden bench. The room was in a 15th Century type old building and it had timber beams across the ceiling and a wooden floor. Before them on trial was a young man who was an Animal Rights Activist. One of the judges opened up a large, leather-bound book to show me. I was representing the young man. In this book were the evidence and the exhibits to prove the man’s guilt. The judge opened the book and pointed at a couple of pages which had black and white pencil drawings in of animals and he said to me, “Look – he has 12 familiars, all of them imps of different varieties and the law of the land says only 10 are allowed! The Familiars Act 2006 only allows 10 animals to be owned – the man has 12 therefore he should be sentenced to 12 years in prison.” I looked at the sketches of the man’s animals or pets – normal everyday animals alongside strange-looking ones, imps and demon-type creatures – but he had too many and he had broken the law. His fate was sealed! This was a dream I had about a fictitious Act of Parliament which had been introduced. Why the year 2006 was in it I do not know but the word ‘Familiars’ is an old medieval word to describe the pets and companion animals of witches, which were also known as ‘imps’. Its imagery tied up with the legal world, animal rights, English history and medieval witchcraft trials. Dreams are strange, are they not? Yet, in a way what do they say? Animal Rights Activists have been imprisoned for 12 years in reality for the most trivial of offences. Is the present scourge of Oxford University against the SPEAK Campaign and Animal Rights in general nothing more than a 21st Century witch-hunt?
Before me were 12 High Court Judges in traditional robes sat in a line behind a long wooden bench. The room was in a 15th Century type old building and it had timber beams across the ceiling and a wooden floor. Before them on trial was a young man who was an Animal Rights Activist. One of the judges opened up a large, leather-bound book to show me. I was representing the young man. In this book were the evidence and the exhibits to prove the man’s guilt. The judge opened the book and pointed at a couple of pages which had black and white pencil drawings in of animals and he said to me, “Look – he has 12 familiars, all of them imps of different varieties and the law of the land says only 10 are allowed! The Familiars Act 2006 only allows 10 animals to be owned – the man has 12 therefore he should be sentenced to 12 years in prison.” I looked at the sketches of the man’s animals or pets – normal everyday animals alongside strange-looking ones, imps and demon-type creatures – but he had too many and he had broken the law. His fate was sealed! This was a dream I had about a fictitious Act of Parliament which had been introduced. Why the year 2006 was in it I do not know but the word ‘Familiars’ is an old medieval word to describe the pets and companion animals of witches, which were also known as ‘imps’. Its imagery tied up with the legal world, animal rights, English history and medieval witchcraft trials. Dreams are strange, are they not? Yet, in a way what do they say? Animal Rights Activists have been imprisoned for 12 years in reality for the most trivial of offences. Is the present scourge of Oxford University against the SPEAK Campaign and Animal Rights in general nothing more than a 21st Century witch-hunt?
1 comment:
sometimes living with animals is much better than living with human animals in this world we should excpect anything
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