You're not a nutter, Fred. And I'm sure we will get there in the end. Thank you for demonstrating outside the course over the years. I'm too old to do much now, but I try to speak out if I can.
Steve, you paint a depressingly overwhelming picture of wholesale abuse, and seem to have lost hope of any of these issues being addressed. But one can only do a little at a time. I don't feel I 'spout off about ban this and ban that'. Keeping silent is to tacitly consent to what goes on.
I'm lucky enough to live in rural Norfolk, and source my eggs and meat from local farmers, whose farming methods are humane and observable. I also source my bread from organic and local bakeries (and what a difference in flavour these foods have from supermarket gunk!) We grow a lot of our vegetables ourselves. So I do make an effort to 'live kindly on the Earth'. I'm quite surprised actually at the intensity of some of the posts here. But, as always on Mudcat, I accept there are many views on a subject. I'm glad however that the word 'f***wit' has been removed by a Moderator. That wasn't called for.