20

Feb

Great British Circus Ringmaster Attacks Journalist

If you want a good chuckle, you have to listen to an interview with ringmaster Martin Lacey that went out on BBC Radio Nottingham last week. The journalist conducting the interview was physically and verbally assaulted when he made the mistake of referring to the Great British Circus’ camels as “tethered”. In a random explosion of expletives, Lacey launches into a tirade of abuse and at one point tells the radio journalist, “I think you’d better f**k off and not come back again.”

Well… there you go. We already knew that circuses which use animals are bad news but now we know a little more about the type of people who run them.

Animals forced to perform degrading tricks in circuses lead a life of misery. Animals such as tigers, camels and horses are confined to cages, trained using fear and pain as motivation and made to act in completely unnatural ways in front of spectators every night.

Listen to the interview in full, or a shortened ‘bleeped’ version at the Captive Animals’ Protection Society (CAPS) website. Be warned, it’s not for the faint hearted!

Image: Guardian Series / Creative Commons


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posted by ellaC on February 21st, 2008 at 4:07 pm

wild animals do not belong in circuses to be parade out every now and then to perform unnatural tricks to be gawked at by an amused circus audience..and then after the show to be shunted and locked away back in their cages.. or forever travelling on the road..
circuses belong to a long long by-gone era.. and long may they stay there..ie. in the past.. never to rear it’s antiquated gone sell by date head ever again..

posted by OpenMinded on May 31st, 2008 at 5:31 pm

I have no connection with the circus, nor have I been to an animal circus in decades. However, if you are to publish articles of this sort directed at a specific circus, shouldn’t your complaints be specifically about them.

I have no doubt that the cruel methods and conditions you cite are still in existence in some circuses somewhere in the world. But I want to see your evidence that they exist for the “Great British Circus”.

Don’t give me a load of generalisations.

If I said that some protest groups killed and maimed innocent people, it wouldn’t be untrue. But it would be wrong of me to extrapolate that you kill and maim.

I will probably get flamed for this. But I bet not one of the flamers is able to present any hard evidence about the Great British Circus, other than slurs against their language in the interview, which fails to prove any of the implied points.

In short, show us your evidence, not your opinions!

posted by Jane on June 18th, 2008 at 10:54 pm

OpenMinded stop copying and pasting your posts across the net. From the words and actions (as discussed in the article above and on the CAPS website) of some of these circus members you can see for yourself what a lovely bunch they are, of course not!

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