Goats

I like to think of farm animals as a kind of Bloomsbury Group or Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood or Studio 54 - a collection of artists, all in their own way contributing great things to society.

Sheep are the Rossetti or Woolf of the group - the leaders, the most prolific and infamous. Their list of contributions to the world is impressive:
The jumper. lamb shanks. Insipration for religion (the Lord is my Shepherd) and popular culture (Shaun) and common phraseology (mutton dressed as lamb). They are my heroes and an inspiration to many.

Cows are a slightly lesser geniuses (genei?) but also impressive… where would we be without the roast beef dinner, cow print pajamas and udderly dreadful cattle-related puns?
Even ducks, who are perhaps more craftsmen than artists, manage to deliver a mean pancake, and also star in the world’s greatest joke: (two ducks, swimming on a pond. One says 'quack'. the other says 'I was about to say that!')

Goats, however, I cannot place into my theory. Tragically for them, they remind me of those people who try their very hardest to contribute great things, to be remembered, but only succeed in producing junk, like the poor guy off Dragon’s Den who pitched his idea of a single driving glove to remind motorists which side of the road to drive on. Or Giles Brandreth.


 

                                                                                   
                                               Spot the Difference

 Here is an inventory of the goat’s achievements to date.

Goats' cheese : mingin'
Goats' milk : funky-tastin’
Billy Goats Gruff : an okay fairy tale, but it's no Chicken Licken.
The goatee beard... the worst of the lot. Beards should always look accidental.
Just to complete my theory, I once ate goat stew when on one of my many forrays into Africa. They even taste like sheep gone wrong.

Perhaps if there were no sheep or cows, we wouldn’t have to compare a goat’s attempts at art to his vastly superior contempories, and he could come into his own on his own and shine on a global stage. If there were no sheep, perhaps the religious would be chanting ‘the Lord is my Goatherd’ and we’d all be wearing goat-string vests in summer. But sadly, it’s all relative, in the cultural hotbed of the farmyard as everywhere else.
 
Still, God loves a trier.