The Spoons That Are My Ears!

I'm sure I've mentioned that my novel The Abnormalities of Stringent Strange has been picked up by a publisher and hopefully will be issued later in 2012? Two years ago I wrote this extremely absurd science fantasy pulp romp and I haven't bettered it yet, that's for sure! Maybe I never will.

Anyway, the publisher suggested to me that some of the money raised from the book should go to a charity of my choice. I agreed; but it wasn't easy choosing a recipient. Finally I settled on Animal Aid.

Animal Aid aren't actually an official charity but a not-for-profit limited company, which basically means that they are slightly freer than a charity to run the kinds of promotional campaigns they think will be effective. But you don't want to hear about legal stuff like that, probably.

Animal Aid campaign against cruelty to animals. So they are in opposition to vivisection and other forms of abuse: the fact of the matter is that cruelty to animals is gratuitous, pointless and cynical; and it reveals some disturbing psychological truths about the perpetrator. It's a well-documented fact that psychopathic killers generally start with torturing and killing small animals before progressing to humans.

I'm not a fanatic. And Animal Aid only ever supports peaceful methods of opposing cruelty. So they seemed the ideal choice for me...

People have asked me why I didn't choose a charity dedicated to improving the lives of humans. I thought about that, but so many other writers I know are doing excellent fundraising work for homo sapiens that I thought it was right to focus on some other animals instead. So now you know.