Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pig

Last Night's TV: Storyville – Amnesty! When They Are All Free, BBC4 Lead ...

Virtue is its own reward, we're told, but it can dole out some ingenious punishments too, tormenting the well intentioned with unforeseen consequences. The Storyville film Amnesty! When They Are All Free began as what looked like a corporate celebration of the charity's 50th anniversary, full of fond memories and approving sentiments. But by the time it had finished it had become a lot more nuanced and ambiguous.

It was hardly a hatchet job, of course. To attack an institution this worthy would be to put yourself in singularly unpleasant company, alongside the torturers and despots and, as it happens, President Bush, who reacted indignantly to Amnesty's criticism of his administration. But it did acknowledge the tactical mistakes and the problems that success can bring. Intriguingly, it even had one of its more notable good causes – the Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky – taking President Bush's side, and rebuking Amnesty for describing Guantanamo as a "new gulag".

I suppose that might strike some as a little ungrateful, though Amnesty itself would have difficulty objecting, since one of its core principles is the defence of free opinion, however uncomfortable its expression might be. Founded by a London lawyer called Peter Benenson to take up the cause of prisoners of conscience it began as an article in The Observer, and as a triumph of optimism over realism. What real prospect was there, after all, that a hand-written letter from someone in Bolton would tweak the conscience of a dictator? But starting from the position that "if people do nothing, nothing will happen", activists and early members sat in pubs and badgered the powerful. And, remarkably, it did seem to have an effect. Even if the light turned on their activities was only one-candle power, regimes disliked it.

There were wobbles in the early days. Peter Benenson unwisely accepted funds from the British Government, damaging Amnesty's reputation for complete impartiality, and was fairly unceremoniously dumped by the organisation he had founded. And when the group started to campaign against torture it found that its adoption of a case could sometimes be counterproductive. Adopting Stalin's ruthless dictum – "no man, no problem" – the more murderous juntas simply made their dissidents disappear, forcing Amnesty to develop a 24-hour "we never close" policy, so that fresh arrests could be logged while there was still a person to worry about.

Anorak News » Escaped Vietnamese Pot Belly Pigs At Loose In ...

Were they hatching a plot?

It’s been a while since we saw the like. You will recall the Tamworth Two. In January 1998, Butch and boar and his sister Sundance escaped certain death when they fled from an abattoir in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. They swam the River Avon and hid in undergrowth, relying on the kindness of strangers and cunning. Over a week later the pair were captured and, after negotiations, were taken to the Rare Breeds Centre in Woodchurch, near Ashford.

Can the Vietnamese pigs make it to safety? Will police have to summon top porcine negotiator Rebecca Loos ..?

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