Last updated 11:36, Thursday, 17 April 2008

TELL me it’s a remnant April fool joke that organisers of an agricultural show down south have banned the sheep shearing contest this year because it might impinge on the rights of the sheep!

What next? Banning dry stone wall building competitions in case one of the stones falls down and gets hurt? Closing down the WI craft tent in case a visitor accidentally gets impaled on a garden in a tin lid?

Watching local farmers expertly shear the sheep and, in a matter of seconds produce a perfect fleece, is one of the treats at our country shows.

Next some busybody will insist that all shows take place without livestock and that they remove all fellside fences, walls and streams to make life easier for the hound trails. And, as for the sheepdog trials, well surely the sheep must be given the choice of withdrawing their labour if they feel being penned by Flossie is too humiliating for them.