While buckling under the weight of the bonfire of old newspapers this morning, I saw Lordi, puntastic Eurovision winners, on the front page. "Ooh, how nice," I thought. No. It's a picture of someone protesting against animal wrongs in Oxford. Maybe they should take the piss out of themselves every now and then.

I really like puppies. And kittens, horses, guinea pigs, cows, occasional birds and sharks. I don't especially like the idea of my dog having stuff put in her eyes, or being kept in a cage if only because she'd annoy the hell out of everyone around her by shaking until she got her red toy (some people get hooked on crack, she gets hooked on cheap plastic.) However. To all intents and purposes, I was locked in the country for 13 years which rather ingrained me to the fact that things die. While some things, like foxes, make my blood boil - those bastards killed the chickens - I would infinitely rather that every living thing got to lead the best life it possibly could. And that's about as hippie as I get.

While dermatological testing has become the norm for make-up and beauty products - remember when The Body Shop was the only one against animal testing? - until there's a workable solution for testing medicines on animals, that's how it's going to have to be. I realise that if I were ever to visit a testing centre I would have nightmares for weeks, become vegetarian and enter a catatonia of guilt, but I hate cancer, hate the bad AIDs and really, really hate any kind of disease that robs people of their friends and family before their time.

Animals do need us to fight their corner - game reserves and fishing restrictions for example - but that's still no excuse for otherwise sane people to go around emptying graves and terrorising those involved in animal testing if there is really a good reason. And that really makes me feel sick to think about, because I fucking love puppies. Alright?