Brake, swerve, or kill? Sept. 6, 2006

Driving alongside Windermere, the car headlights catch sight of a badger sat there in the middle of the road, preening or stage-struck. I am going 80 kph on the bend. I have to decide whether to brake, swerve or KILL. Swerving could cost me my life. But I could not kill a badger, in this way, even if a cull is imminent and this very same badger is to be culled and heaped into a bin bag in the weeks to come. We can’t go disregarding or cheapening their lives. I stop within a whisker of the beautiful beast. Having overtaken a car a thirty seconds before, I knew it would now come ploughing round the corner and into the badger if it stays there. I put on the flashing-lights, blocking any other car’s route to the badger. The badger simply can’t be taken out in this way, under the wheels of some car, even if that cull is imminent. The car might plough into me mind. Fortunately, the badger moves just in time and off into the undergrowth… I hit the accelerator, wheels spinning, and on, away… on the radio, Northern Ireland fall further behind to Spain, having already trailed 1–0.

And yet there IS to be a happy ending for Northern Ireland : they WILL be singing and dancing in the streets of Belfast, tonight, and “Sweet Caroline” will have never felt so good. Life there tonight must again, and now, or possibly for the first time feel valuable and special and ‘meant to be’. Indeed : so good, so good, so good.