Le Cheval Gai

Several people have asked me what I think about the Oxford 'Gay Horse' brouhaha.

Of course it is nonsense. But what did we expect when we gave the humble constable the quasi-judicial right to issue an £80 'ticket' for behaving in a manner that seems to the issuing officer to be unseemly?

That, mes enfants, is why we have impartial tribunals known as courts to interpose a little consideration between the indignation of the officer on the street and the public good known as justice.

£80 tickets are cheap and easy to administer, but as for justice - don't make me laugh.

If the peccant undergraduate had been related to me, one would have encouraged a rejection of the ticket and a plea of not guilty in front of a proper bench of magistrates.