Diary of a first-time non-voter

They are rats with wings and they don’t taste good in a pie – I know because I’ve tried.

That’s about all you can say about pigeons.

Because I own a Marilyn Manson album and have a few body piercings, people sometimes ask me what my childhood trauma was. Well, when I was a mere toddler I saw a pigeon fly off leaving its foot on the pavement. This, of course, scarred me for life – and ever since then I’ve hated the dirty beasts.

I assumed this was a personal thing that I would have to work through alone. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Pigeons are now such a major issue that the mayor of London Ken Livingstone has been accused of taking big and barbaric action, in his decision to stop people feeding the winged menaces in Trafalgar Square. The last official pigeon-feeding day in Trafalgar Square this week was met with a protest against Livingstone’s ban by the ‘Pigeon Alliance’.

Both Livingstone and these pigeon power people must be stuck for something to do, because they all seem to have forgotten that we’re talking about little creatures that fly around defecating on us from the sky. I’d personally feel more guilty about removing the batteries from a furbie than I would about letting a pigeon starve, and I can’t believe the feathered gremlins have provoked a protest, got their own alliance and had so much attention from Ken.

Okay, so my childhood experience has twisted me up inside, and I have pigeon-hatred ‘issues’. But I’d still have thought the mayor of London – not to mention bird-lovers – would have other priorities.