I Told A Farmer's Wife Her Prize Bull Was "A Big Lad" And Then Fell In The Slurry

The shoes were brown brogues. I had polished them the night before, in my flat, for a farm visit. That is the level of stupidity we are working with.

The bull was in a pen. He was enormous. I said, because I had read a leaflet on the train, "He's a big lad."

The farmer's wife — seventy, four foot eleven, forearms — said, "He's a Charolais."

I said, "Yes."

She said, "You said he. That's something, at least."

I laughed the laugh of a man who has been told something and does not know what.

Then I walked backwards, to get a photograph for my report, which is a thing I had also read about, and I walked backwards across a yard I did not know, on a farm I had never visited, in brogues.

The slurry channel is covered. Mostly.

I went in to the waist.

There is a specific silence that follows a young man in a suit going into slurry. It is not silence, actually. It is the sound of two farm dogs deciding whether this is a game.