Electric Cows

Like our strangers in Paradise, it sometimes seems as though we are all sheep-walking into an alternative reality. I was invited to undertake training in electronic dairies - how appropriate, another pail to fill to meet the ever-changing milk demands and quotas of the council.   It was a misperception on my part, the invitation was for training in the use of electronic diaries. A kind of corporate tagging, meticulously logging all our contacts and activities with sheep and shepherds and other creatures, our tractor journeys over the ploughed and unploughed fields, our rubber-booted walks through silage, our time in the milking factories, maybe even our time in meticulously logging all our contacts and activities with sheep and shepherds and other creatures....I refer to earlier posts for background details about the production of milk.

And flowing hot and fast from the corporate teat come further demands for training in I.G. - interminable governance. During my times on the Isle of Wight ferry I knew all about the guv'nor and you knew where you stood - on the bow with a rope at the ready to secure your vessel fast to her moorings. You tried not to fall in, you tried not to hit anyone with the rope, it was simple. Now there are just too many ways to drown, and someone will be too busy checking their clipboard to throw you a rope.