Here at Uig we measure out our days in hapless subjugation to the bean. Our fretful waking hours are punctuated only by fleeting moments of doleful euphoria and periods of crazed compulsions; for it is the Cocoa Bean and its various derivatives to which I refer.

Now you may view this sort of indulgence as relatively harmless and, to be sure, we have maintained a reasonable facade of social acceptability. Indeed, our only real problem is that, having failed to absorb the necessary amounts of Chocolate intravenously or by inhalation, we are obliged to consume the brown ambrosia in the form of drinking Chocolate. And this requires an awful lot of milk.

The solution was obvious: buy a cow.

To this end a byre was built in which to house the brute and to get the byre size just right we went out into the by-ways, tape measure in hand, to stealthily gauge what we took to be average cattle. This method however yielded wildly approximate esti mates - and a very small byre!

So, alas, rustic doe-eyed images of milky bovine plenty began to fade and in a selfdestructive frenzy we resorted to the goat - two of them in fact. Now what I know about a goat can fit comfortably into a gnat's navel, and several burning issues have arisen.

For instance, why did the ancient Hebrews select the goat on which to project their tribal sins and chase it into the wilderness? Where do phrases like "Getting one's Goat" and "Behaving like a Giddy Goat" derive from? Why the connection with demonology? Given that the goat is one of the few animals with a highly convuluted brain - suggesting a high capacity for learning - how come it hasn't learned very much? Why are sheep to be kept separate from them? And how is it they are able to sneer without the necessary facial musculature?

Most of all, why aren't they nice to me? Perhaps if I fed them cocoa beans...