My daughter bought a shoulder of lamb the other day. Martha, almost 4½, saw this and was interested.
"Did they take a lamb from its mummy and turn it into that?" she enquired.
Ellen began explaining.
"They shouldn't have done that," said Martha, "it's not right. I don't like it."
I haven't yet found out whether Martha consumed any of the dead sheep concerned. Suffice it to say that last Thursday I cooked tea for her and her younger brother. I was intending to do, at Martha's request, fish fingers and tomato soup, a combination of which she is especially fond. However, I had to make up the quantity with a few chicken nuggets I found in their freezer and put these delicacies on the table for Mrs. Wow to supervise. To my consternation Martha consumed all four fish fingers and all five chicken nuggets without Inigo getting a look-in, so as recently as last Thursday it was OK to turn fish and chicken into those.