Lynne Kelleher Five years after preparing to consign him to the slaughterhouse due to his sexual orientation, the former owner of Benjy the gay bull has had an emotional reunion with the celebrity Charolais.

IN a world often too glum, in a world where scepticism is increasingly a plausible reaction to nearly any suggestion, we use escapism as a refuge. We use it as a safety valve so we might not, as Col Brandon threatened in Sense and Sensibility, run mad.