Monty’s Award – August 2023 Blog

I have been having a stressful time of it since the last update, harassed by people who accuse me of hating elephants. As is the way that social media works, this apparently means that I therefore approve of them becoming extinct. This is clearly not true. Like all right minded animal folk, I merely consider elephants to be huge and pointless beasts, with an inflated view of their own importance. They go around ripping up crops, whereas all my carrots are legitimately bought. Not by me, obviously, that would be vulgar, but purchased by approved carrot bringers. Getting back to elephants, if they are not all just great big blowhards, why did they evolve with a massive long nose? Anyway, as a peace gesture to the elephant community I have drawn this picture of one. 

It is fair to say that I do not hate elephants, but neither do I particularly care for them. So that is one more non-controversy put to bed. As you may have noticed, the problem with this effort on my part is that artistic endeavours are one of the few areas in which I do not excel. With horses, we have a problem in producing art of mass appeal due to the limited colour perception that we have been handed by evolution – which has somehow concluded that not being able to see a grey wolf on a vast green steppe is a beneficial survival tool.

{In the interests of pedantry, it is worth noting that horses were close to going extinct before they were domesticated, so in fact evolution was correct, in that the low level colour vision is terrible survival aid – Ed}

So you are saying that steppe tribesman took on natural selection and won, in order to preserve the horse?

{Yes. On behalf of the human race, you’re welcome – Ed}

OK, but I will do some research, just in case you are having me on. Anyway, the upshot of this is that constructing stuff out of nice grey metal is a lot more aesthetically pleasing than art. I mean, what is the attraction of this?

{Edited by me so that humans see it as a horse would – Ed?}

It just reminds me of the sort of bleak day when I am out on a racecourse and should instead be at home, pondering on the mysteries of life, the universe and everything. For instance, it has recently been brought to my attention that there are purple carrots. Shades that deviate on the paler or darker sides of orange are perfectly tolerable (and I can hardly tell them apart!), but a purple carrot stands out like a sore thumb and isn’t it just an emaciated turnip? The elephants are welcome to take those.  

Another thing that I learned is that whilst it is not surprising that the world’s biggest producer of carrots and turnips is China, the number two is a place that you would never guess. Go on, have a go. Whatever you said, I bet my response is, “no, incorrect.” It is in fact Uzbekistan. Before now, I had never heard of such a country and wondered if it was a fictional place, like Atlantis or Sunderland. In fact it is real, but being somewhere in middle Asia with a name ending in -stan must surely make it a dry and arid place, without a suitable climate for cultivating root vegetables. Perhaps that’s where the emaciated turnips come from? Anyway, I think I would like to visit, as it sounds as if the catering is not likely to be a problem, and it is just possible that my very, very distant ancestors came from somewhere around there.

This month’s question comes from a Mr Babar, from Paris. You know, I’m not even going to bother with this one… The second letter out of the hat comes from a Mr Frank, of East Grinstead. He writes:

Dogs were domesticated 10,000 years before horses, then sheep and pigs about 6,000 years before. As a species, so I was wondering why horses just have no common sense. 

The answer is that the definition of common sense is in the eye of the beholder, and I would say most horses have plenty. After all, you do not see any of us getting stuck with the job of barking at the postman