Now I know the above article isn’t about Bull Fighting, and instead about a festival where they ‘ONLY’ set torches attached to the horns on fire. The bulls then do some running about. My issue being why would anyone consider that ok? They said it causes no distress, but if I had horns, and someone set them on fire, I would be pretty pissed.

Now I will state clearly, I am a hippy vegetarian, no big thing really. I have no issues with people eating meat, we have obviously evolved to this point to eat meat, lots of other animals eat meat, so I cannot see any problem with it. I just choose not to. What I do have problems with is watching people torture animals. Life is a precious thing, and through our actions, we are slowly removing it from the world. The Buddhist sensibilities in me make me think that this is just part of the story of the world. We won’t be around for ever, that is natural, the dinosaurs died, so will we. Every generation thinks they are immortal, only to find out that they are wrong. The story of the world does seem to be that it will be stripped of all the life on it, and will slowly turn into a husk. Then, 4 billion years from now the sun will go super nova, consuming the earth, and we will all be nothing but a forgotten memory.

But why torture these animals. The Catalans state this is part of their history (and totally different to Bull Fighting which they banned this year, becoming the first mainland Spanish province to do so), and tradition, and so should be protected. I am sure there are loads of things that were traditions that we don’t do anymore. Does anyone want to get up to the mischief of the Ancient Greeks? Maybe we should have castraltos back again? Just because something is a tradition, that doesn’t make it right.

Bull Fighting is utterly abhorrent. I like to think I can see both sides of the argument on most things, but not on this. It is the torture of an animal. It is no better than bear baiting. Yet thousands of people flock to see it, revelling as spears are thrown into its back. I honestly enjoy nothing more than seeing a matador gored by a rampaging bull. Maybe that makes me no better than the bull fight watchers, but I only enjoy it because it feels like karma is punishing these wankers who are doing this horrible act.

I hope that at some point in my life, I see the sport banned. But unfortunately in 2007 and 2008 the Spanish government financed the sport with public money of over 1.1 billion Euros, even though in a 2002 Gallup poll of Spaniards almost 70% said they had no interest in Bull Fighting. Apparently they used EU money to do it. The Daily Mail must be spitting blood!

- Anand