So according to today’s news, not only is there an increased risk of bangers making your heart go bang – that’s ‘sausages can give you a heart-attack’ if you’re not down with the UK lingo – it’s now a widely known fact that eating just one sausage a day raises the risk of cancer by a fifth. Now that’s a lot of extra chances of getting cancer, if you ask me. And it’s not just sausages either, eating bacon or any other processed meat every day also carries the same risk, so I’d steer clear of it all. The animals are telling me they agree.

Never one to shy away from controversy, PETA US has offered to pay Aretha Franklin’s $19,000 home foreclosure tax bill… on the condition that she ditches the fur for good and donates her unwanted furs to PETA US like Mariah Carey and Kim Cattrall have done in the past. I think that’s a pretty fair deal, don’t you?

In the most recent correspondence with the ‘Queen of Soul’, Ingrid Newkirk tells Aretha all about the fur trade, sparing no detail too gruesome in the hope that she will come to her senses and stop paying for the suffering and death of animals for ‘fashion’.

I love the bit that says: “Our offer is a win-win situation: You get to keep your home and animals get to keep their lives. We are rooting for you to please give animals the R-E-S-P-E-C-T that they deserve by giving up fur.” I’ll let you know if she responds!

Aretha image: Ecorazzi / Creative Commons

A KFC in Camden has been forced to hire bouncers due to increasing amounts of violence inside and outside the fast-food restaurant. Stabbings, kick-ins, people being bottled and wafts of cannabis have all been reported, forcing the chicken-foes to hire security staff. Well, need I say more? Not only is eating animal flesh like KFC chicken bad for animals and your health, but I’d avoid the ‘restaurants’ all together if there are these kind of shenanigans going on…

Following hot on the heels of other major chain stores like H&M and New Look, £1 billion store Matalan has implemented a policy against purchasing Australian wool. David Mellett, a director within Matalan, told PETA:

“[We have] instructed our suppliers that they must not source Australian merino wool for any future orders … [and] we will now include this as part of our auditing process.”

What’s all the fuss about? In Australia, a cruel process called mulesing is used, which involves crude mutilation using shears to cut huge chunks of skin and flesh from lambs’ backsides – without any pain relief – in a misguided attempt to reduce maggot infestation, even though effective and humane prevention methods exist.

In another European demo, activists and this rather forlorn looking ‘sheep’, protested against the cruelty of mulesing in Helsinki, Finland. Keep up the pressure my continental friends!

It’s official – plastic is killing our wildlife. The BBC reports that all albatrosses living in the Pacific’s Midway Islands contain plastic, as a result of feeding on human waste products like toothbrushes, bags and bottle tops.

A big thank you to media like the Daily Mail for their recent campaign to banish plastic shopping bags from the UK. The plight of sea turtles and other sea borne creatures reached the limelight thanks to the Mail’s huge article and online petition to the Prime Minister. Turtles mistake the translucent plastic which litters our seas for jellyfish – their favourite food. According to the Mail, “Once swallowed by the turtle, the tough plastic becomes lodged in its gut, sealing the fate of the sea creature. The plastic is indigestible and wraps around the turtle’s insides. Slowly, agonisingly, the animal starves to death.”

Clearly this is not on, and together we should work on avoiding this occurring. Plus there’s the whole issue of the impact on the environment, including the fact that most plastic bags takes up to 1,000 years to rot. Sure, some supermarkets have brought out bio-degradable carrier bags, but there has to be a more efficient way.

So what can we do to cater for our shopping needs? Use ‘bags for life’ which are made of canvas and other hardy materials, and also our shops should charge for carrier bags rather than giving them out for free (you’ve got to admit, it is annoying to be given a bag for one small item, right?). We can’t be expected to be plastic angels (or foes?) and ditch all plastic from our lives overnight, but if we all try to eliminate some here and there it can only help.

Image: Clean Green Bags / Creative Commons

Boy, am I excited… I’ve just been invited to the pre-opening of a classy new, totally vegan classy restaurant in London. It’s called Saf and is headed up by master chef Chad Sarno, who promises “no hidden ingredients, no additives, and no agenda – simply authentic vegan food.” Now I don’t know about you, but that sounds delicious. My mouth is watering just thinking about it, so I’d best stop lest I ruin my computer. If you’re a PETA member, you can be in with a chance of attending the opening night yourself, just email Joanne and she’ll see what she can do! I’ll bring you a full, lip-licking report after the event, watch this space… In the meantime, read an interview with Chad to find out more about this much talked-about chef.

This is genius. Cue laughs. The ICanHasCheezBurger site has a whole load of funny pics like this, enjoy!

see more crazy cat pics

Claire is unable to write her guest entry this week but I thought I’d give you an update on how this lovely lady is doing in the run-up to the London Marathon on the 13th April. She tells me she has hurt her foot but it is on the mend and raring to go again. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again – Claire, we’re all so proud of you and what you’re doing to help the animals. She still has a way to go to reach her target of £5,000 so please consider sponsoring her and in turn helping all the animals PETA works to protect. Out of interest, let me know if anyone else is running the marathon…

Now, I haven’t written much on the impending seal hunt as yet, so a slap on the wrist is needed. It isn’t because I have something against the seals, I promise. In fact I think they’re really cute and totally deserving of our attention at this vital time. So, without further ado I introduce you to our Stop the Bloody Seal Massacre campaign.

Depending on when you read this blog entry, the seal hunt will have either begun or will be starting in just a few hours. This is such a serious, hideous crime against nature, and hundreds of thousands of baby harp seals will be bludgeoned to death for the skins on their backs. This Daily Mail article tells of rules and regulations that have supposedly been implemented to ensure the annual slaughter is “humane, sustainable and responsible,” but how can ‘skinning seals’ and ‘humane’ be used within the same sentence? Get a grip, Canada.

Stop the Bloody Seal Massacre at PETA.org.uk.

If you haven’t already heard, you can now clean your home in a cruelty-free fashion with M&S household products, which are now BUAV approved – hooray! M&S join the ever-growing list of household names who are accredited on the Humane Household Products Standard that PETA supports. There really isn’t any need to use cleaning products that have been used to torture animals, you can get just as much sparkle with cruelty-free versions. The great thing about the M&S products (make-up too by the way, girls) is that you can find them on pretty much any high street, nice and easy…