Chas Newkey-Burden

The secret is out: vegetarians are 'tougher' and more 'power-hungry' than meat eaters, according to a study in the Times this morning. Well, as a vegan I suppose I must be even tougher and more megalomaniacal. I'm surprised, then, to not find myself doing a whole lot of street brawling or holding any subterranean meetings to discuss how I'll overthrow Keir Starmer with my bare hands. I was actually as surprised as anyone by the findings. Not because I subscribe to the caricature of veggies as gentle, pathetic creatures, but because my experience of vegetarians and vegans is that we are a bit less impressed with clout and power than most people.

Animal rights campaigners are up in arms because Disney+ is able to use a legal loophole to broadcast a scene of a rat being forcibly immersed in liquid. The RSPCA has slammed Disney for showing a controversial scene from the 1989 thriller The Abyss where a live rat is deliberately submerged in fluorocarbon liquid. The rat is seen struggling during the scene and the charity said the experience was clearly one of ‘terror’ for the poor little rodent, although the filmmakers insist it survived. The scene had previously been cut from all UK screenings by the British Board of Film Classification, which ruled that it breached animal cruelty laws and must be removed from all cinema releases, DVDs and traditional TV broadcasts.

We Brits used to rub along pretty well with seagulls. Their distinctive call conjured memories of happy days out at the seaside and it was strangely hypnotic to watch them circle above the waters as we breathed in the salty air. But now they're in danger of becoming public enemy number one as the tabloids pump out scare stories about our feathered friends. Only this week, the Daily Star called them 'flying scumbags', the Daily Mail described them as 'feathered thugs', and the Sun labelled them 'dive-bombing muggers'. Meanwhile, the Daily Express warned that an 'apocalyptic swarm' of 3,000 seagulls had 'invaded a UK town'.

Britain can sometimes feel like it's no country for old men. Our elderly folk get a hard time; they're blamed for society's woes, accused of messing up the planet for younger people and hogging houses which families struggling to get on the ladder could never afford. How is Attenborough, who joined the BBC in the 1950s, still making breathtaking television eight decades later? This ageist stereotyping, and the narrative of intergenerational unfairness which puts the blame on older people for anything that younger people don't like, has pitted generations against each other, but is it as fair as we think? A national treasure who turns 99 today is a one-man defiance of all the 'selfish oldie' stereotypes.

It’s going to be a scorcher in Britain today, with temperatures forecast to hit 29c. Naturally, lots of people will be throwing open their doors to bask in the warmth and sunshine, loving every moment of this summery spell. Lots of people, but not all people. Some of us don't enjoy hot weather, so we won't be celebrating this early onslaught of sizzling conditions. This isn't a hot take: the truth is that I hate a lot about summer, so I'm not wild about this week's heat. Some of us don't enjoy hot weather, so we won't be celebrating this early onslaught of sizzling conditions For most of the summer, it's humid during the day and hard to sleep at night. The sun rises far too early, to wake us up from the slumber we'd only just managed to settle into.

Everyone knows that running a marathon can be painful. The worst part is the final 6.2 miles of the course, as your body runs out of glycogen stores, your legs turn to jelly, and your sweat-drenched head begins to thud. Every step can feel like a mile. Another challenge comes during the week before the marathon. In those nervy days, everything starts to feel all too real and many runners get swamped with anxiety and self doubt. It's a paranoid state familiar to professional and first-time marathon runners alike. We call it 'maranoia'. I'm running the London Marathon today, so I'm currently deep in maranoia. I keep worrying if I've prepared properly, any momentary muscle twinge makes me think it's the onset of a crippling injury, and all I can think and talk about is the marathon.

When I heard that WH Smith was going to disappear from our high streets, I became a nostalgic mess. I was transported back to childhood trips to buy pencil cases before each school year began, weekend visits to browse football magazines, some of which I even bought, and those late December expeditions, feeling loaded as I arrived clutching the WH Smith tokens I'd been given for Christmas. God bless those generous, if not always imaginative, relatives! There's still time to nip in and buy an Easter card before they shut their doors, but frankly, given how dreadful most greeting cards have become, why bother? What we put on our mantelpieces shouldn't be tat The truth is that our love affair with the high street hero went sour ages ago.

Reports of rats in Birmingham that are ‘bigger than cats’ are now making international headlines. The New York Times, NBC News and CNN have all weighed in on the city's rodent problem, as the strike action by bin workers rolls on. Rat panic seems to be setting in. An MP said the rodents are ‘dancing in the streets’ of Birmingham, the Telegraph reported that a man's Mercedes was ‘completely written off’ by rats and there have been fears about ‘nuclear rats’ overrunning the Hinkley Point C nuclear reactor in Somerset. ‘You see them just sat there, looking at you,’ a source at the plant told the Observer.

Britain prides itself on being a nation of dog lovers – but is this true? Animal rights campaigners have targeted a leading dog show, accusing the event of promoting ‘deformed’ breeds such as pugs and bulldogs. Peta wants the Scottish Kennel Club to disqualify brachycephalic dogs, which have shortened noses and flat faces. These dogs ‘can barely breathe — let alone go for a walk or chase a ball — without gasping for air due to their shortened airways,’ said the group. This isn't the first time campaigners have targeted dog shows: last month, Peta supporters were removed from Crufts in Birmingham after they complained that it's cruel to breed dogs with very short legs, like dachshunds and corgis.

An American influencer called Sam Jones has been roundly denounced after she posted a video of her snatching a wild baby wombat from its distressed mother in Australia. The video, since deleted, showed Jones picking up a joey by the road and running with it to a car, while its poor mother ran after them. A man can be heard laughing callously as he films, saying: ‘Look at the mother, it's chasing after her!’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm7TdUJ0UvE Social media users, conservationists, animal rights campaigners, and even Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, have condemned Jones, who has now left Australia voluntarily amid calls for her deportation. It's easy to see why so many people are so angry.

For me, even the thought of running late for a flight is absolutely blood-curdling. The prospect of sweating it out in the back of a cab, with red traffic lights and zebra crossings conspiring against me as the clock ticks down, seems like torture. I'd rather miss a bin collection day.  Thanks to TikTok, people are starting to arrive late for flights deliberately. The 'airport theory' trend sees passengers show up to the airport just 15 or 20 minutes before departure time to see if they still get to board, making a mockery of the advice to arrive two hours before a short-haul flight and three hours before longer ones.

An animal rights activist has exposed extreme cruelty at a slaughterhouse in Arley, Warwickshire. Joey Carbstrong's secretly recorded footage shows staff slamming sheep hard onto concrete floors, dismembering sheep while they are still alive and playing recordings of wolves to the terrified animals as they were dying. The shock here is not just the cruelty itself: repeated investigations have found hideous savagery in UK abattoirs. When the animal welfare group Animal Aid secretly filmed inside eleven randomly chosen UK slaughterhouses several years ago, their undercover researchers found clear evidence of cruelty and law-breaking in ten of them.