Wiza warmer : No.1 in an occasional series entitled 'Smokin' Jackets'.

'You can judge a society by the way it treats its animals' - Gandhi.






















.. and you can sort of judge our society by the way some of its people treat some of their animals.

In this occasional series, you're invited to admire some of the best of them, in all their sartorial splendour ... or was that silliness? Leave a comment if you want to submit a photo of your best-dressed greyhound in an excellent bed-jacket, and the Shrew will put the best on the blog.

NB. No 'fancy dress' (and try to keep the fluff bunnies out of those bedrooms shots, she may be 'Common' but an old girl has her standards!)

May Day 2010: The words of an unknown worker and unionist

WE HAVE FED YOU ALL FOR A THOUSAND YEARS

We have fed you all for a thousand years
And you hail us still unfed
Though there’s never a dollar of all your wealth
But marks the workers dead
We have yielded our best to give you rest
And you lie on crimson wool
But if blood be the price of all your wealth
Good God we have paid in full

There is never a mine blown skyward now
But we’re buried alive for you
There’s never a wreck drifts shoreward now
But we are its ghastly crew
Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth
Good God we have paid it in

We have fed you all for a thousand years
For that was our doom, you know
From the days when you chained us in your fields
To the strike a week ago
You have taken our lives, and our babies and wives
And we’re told it’s your legal share
But if blood be the price of your lawful wealth
Good God we bought it fair.