Life on the inside

It is the story that everyone has been talking about today. No, not the riots on the streets of Tunisia, the lethal stampede at a religious festival in India nor the floods in Brazil. The most 'shared' story on the BBC today was, in fact, the curious tale of a man who is going to sue a 'rodent' for biting his penis.

Only in America readers!

But, before you lol yourself into a stupor, take a few moments to reflect on what led a Vietnam vet to get into a position whereby he is able to even take this issue to court.

For starters, vets are supposed to look after poorly sick animals. This man appears to have gotten himself into a sticky situation that resulted in a small rat or mouse biting his old fella. Maybe he was administering some sort of cock-based animal therapy. But that seems a little unlikely to me.

No, far more likely is that we're dealing with a man abusing his position of trust and power in order to attempt to sexually assault a small defenceless animal. Only to find himself on the receiving end of some razor sharp justice.

No wonder the man was locked up inside a prison. He's clearly a menace to society. Well, a menace to rats and mice anyway.

And that brings up another issue. The 'victim', Peter Soloman, is claiming that he was bitten on the John Thomas because he is black. So, now, not only is the have-a-go hero, would-be rape victim rodent being sued for fighting back, she is also being accused of racism.

I say 'she', but actually I do not the sex of the poor creature at the centre of this controversy. And, indeed, neither does Soloman. The very fact that he doesn't even know whether it was a rat or a mouse seems to put the case on very sticky ground. I mean, I'm not even a vet and I can tell that the animal pictured above is clearly a rat.

The thing is readers, people do some funny things don't they? Take, for example, Pretty Woman's Richard Gere, who infamously put a gerbil up his bum. A pest exterminator from the council told me all about that story. I don't think he personally knew Richard Gere. But he certainly knew what Gere was trying to achieve. You would think that having it away with Julia Roberts would be enough for any man wouldn't you?

He also told me (the exterminator, not Richard Gere) that mice can force themselves through the end of Biro pen. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Soloman, for whom not everything in his life has gone right, might well have been trying to put the rat up his penis, mistaking it for a mouse. Imagine that, the tail of the poor thing dangling from his bellend like a macabre tampon string! No wonder it bit him.