There'll always be an England...

....and it will always be a grand place to be a bad animal. No one can beat the English when it comes to going the extra mile for an animal... whether it needs it, or deserves it, or not. A few recent tales:

- A baby hedgehog crawled into an empty bags of crisps - that's potato chips for you Americans - and then occupied the attention of six people for three and a half hours when it couldn't get out, or at least they thought it couldn't get out... Because it was inside a fence around a stairwell, do-gooders had to cut through the iron railings to get at the no doubt terrified creature. The hedgehog, now being called Crispian, is being cared for by Prickles hedgehog rescue, where he is reportedly "is thriving and enjoying his daily saucer of cat meat/biscuits, oh and dried meal worms!!!"

- That critter might have really needed help, but you have to wonder what was in the minds of people who spent three hours trying to rescue a goat from a rocky ledge in West Yorkshire.  The goat had reportedly been "stuck" for five days, but when a team finally was lowered by rope to get close enough to touch her, she acted like any animal in her natural habitat: She jumped off the ledge and ran away.

- Finally, a bird rescue in Kent has gone to the press asking for help in rehoming one of its residents, resulting in the following article:

A foul-mouthed bird with a taste for human flesh is up for adoption.

So long as you don’t mind enduring a string of expletives during the day and the odd peck if you get too close, you may be interested in taking on Beaky, a chattering lory who is more bad bird than angry bird.

He didn’t just get his name from his blue language, but because he also enjoys biting people he doesn’t really know.

His favourite curse is the dreaded F-word, along with ‘a***hole’ and he likes to call everyone ‘stupid’. 

A spokesman said Beaky is an intelligent and playful bird who is a good mimic buthas picked up some colourful language.

He enjoys the company of people, but staff warn he may bite at first until he has formed a bond with someone.

Apparently the rescue has tried all the usual things and haven't been able to find Beaky a new owner. Reading that glowing recommendation, I can't imagine why.