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Why did the BBC show people skinning and eating squirrels in studio?

Newsnight took a step into slightly more left-field territory last night.

NEWSNIGHT IS ONE of the BBC’s many staples – a current affairs programme par excellence and home for many years to the incomparable Jeremy Paxman.

Why then did it decide to show people cooking and eating a squirrel last night?

It was all to prove a point about man’s odd culinary relationship with certain animals it seems.

Writer and environmentalist George Monbiot, who provoked outrage earlier this week when he revealed he cooked a squirrel he found dead on a road, repeated the feat on Newsnight together with nonplussed presenter James O’Brien.

And this is the result:

BBC Newsnight / YouTube

Why an axe was a necessary implement we cannot say. Apparently however, according to a queasy looking O’Brien at any rate, the rodent tastes something like rabbit.

monb1

monb2

monb3

Monbiot believes that  all farmed meat is basically unethical hence the diversion into roadkill.

And as you might expect the macabre spectacle has provoked a deal of reaction on Twitter, from the:

Amused

… to the…

Incredulous

… to the…

Bemused

… and of course, those who

Agree 100%

Dull television it ain’t.

Read: Glastonbury’s left-behind wellies are being donated to the migrants in Calais

Read: Man ‘trapped in piece of furniture’ in Co Cork

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Cianan Brennan
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