On Going Ferel

I've always entertained the idea of going feral. At 8 years old after an unfortunate incident involving a baby rabbit and the bottom oven of the aga, I found I had no option but to divorce my parents. I stole a length of cane from the sweet peas, raided my father's sock drawer for a red spotted handkerchief, packed up my Easter-bunny chocolate which I had been saving for just such an occasion, and set off, chocolate in the handkerchief on the stick, to make my own future.

I crossed two fields before I sat to rest and eat my picnic. Feeling a bit sick, I continued over another field. Then I came to barbed wire.

I have never been able to process failure so on this occasion I made a conscious decision to return home for more sustenance. Without the reassuring weight in my bindle stick, I felt vulnerable. I wouldn't know which berries I could eat. I wasn't used to hunger and it was a frightening prospect.

I am grateful to my parents that they never sought to remonstrate with their failed hobo. They greeted me as if I had never been away. I was able to slip sheepishly back into the routines of tea-time and taunting my sister without loss of face.

But here I am now, living safely on the museli-belt in north London, wanting to run away again. I wonder will I end this back in the bourgeois with my tail between my legs like nothing ever happened?

The Art of Protest

Protests are back and I want in.

As a teenager, I was generation apathy, my only protest to cry in outrage at the price of a pack of fags (and even then I was too lazy for roll-ups).

Blithely I listen to tales of my mother as a self-styled anarchist in the green-wellie brigade, her passion fuelled by a rural cider press and thirst for change. And I'm jealous. My mother is one of the meekest people I know (unless she is defending her children) yet she has validated her existence by standing up for her beliefs.

I would like to change this.

Apathetic no more I am to be an eco-campaigner. According to the top tips for DIY activists, I alone have the ability to "expose the damage and misery brought about by the insatiable consumption of domestic animals, spurred on by subsidies which only benefit mono-culture and factory farmers - the least deserving spongers of all time." Gulp.

I have a belief; I believe British farmers should feed Britain. So first things first, I will boycott anything not produced in Britain.

Secondly, I must set up camp in Westminster and state my intention to reverse planetary annihilation, or at least ensure the survival of the British Isles in the face of global famine.

Does anyone know the rules on Parliament Square? Can I take my dog Roo with me? Has anyone seen Swampy recently?

Today I'm going to find out these things and more.