There everyone is, caught between horror at the ghastly enormity that is foot-and-mouth and ennui that is dragged on for so long, when suddenly from the ashes there rises the sacred calf, Bambi reincarnate. With her fluffy white fur, ox-eyed gaze and perfect pink pout Phoenix is the prettiest page 3 star Fleet Street has had in years. Suddenly amid the big, ugly world of slaughter trip the words tiny, white and innocent. Ministers quail and policy is made on the hoof.
People talk about causes needing a human face, but on the whole prefer an animal countenance. Mute bestial appeal is considered easier on the ear than, say, the guttural petition of asylum-seekers. We can be fairly indifferent to our own kind; it takes an animal to make us human. Phoenixs life would have been pretty dreadful under normal circumstances, but no matter. She has assumed the symbolic status of The Cow That Changed History.
Animals have altered the course of events more often than might of events more often than might be imagined. Manys the time when mankind has felt himself to be sturdily at the helm, when in fact matters have been bunted along by beak or snout. Europe itself began this way when Europa was carried off into the ocean by bullish Zeus, kicking and failing before submitting to become a continent. For Christians the instigating beast is the serpent, worming his way into Eves confidences with sinuous insinuations.
Ancient history is a positive bestiary of cloven goings on. The noblest incidence of animal magic came in the form of the sacred geese whose cackling alerted their masters to a stealthy advance upon the Capitoline Hill. Caligulas bestowal of a consulship upon his worse was rather less successful, being one of all-too-many final straws that broke the populaces back and led to his being dispatched at the Palatine Games. Cleopatras exit pursued by an asp showed far better judgment.
Animals also throw up historical what-ifs. What if Richard III had traded his kingdom for a horse, Dick Whittington not been so bounteous with his cat, or Catherine the Great been less pony crazy? In the multimedia age pets can win the ultimate prizes and emerge as global megastars. The orbit of Sputniks dog, Laika, made him the fantasy comrade of the worlds youth.
The Prime Ministers personal intervention as Phoenixs savior is a bow to the electoral beasts of the apocalypse. It is a case of chicken, but the public will see only a happy ending to The Calfs Tale.
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