Proof at last that Hooting Yard’s eco-credentials are second to none! It is two and a half years since we raised the important issue of carbon hoofprints, with reference, I recall, to a vagrant goat god. Well, we were scorned and ridiculed, but now, eventually, as I suspected would happen, the world has caught up with our visionary eco-consciousness.

Mr Eugenides provides the valuable service of directing our attention to a recent study:

The eco-pawprint of a pet dog is twice that of a 4.6-litre Land Cruiser driven 10,000 kilometres a year, researchers have found.

(Incidentally, I think it was our Antipodean correspondent Glyn Webster who created a superb compendium of wisdom by tapping “researchers have found” into Google. Perhaps he can post it in the Comments.)

Of course, our tireless endeavours to be the most eco-superduper website in the universe continue apace. Even as I write, earnest beardy besandalled Cassandras are hard at work in the Hooting Yard Eco-Pod tallying up stats on the carbon talonprints of a crow, the flipperprints of sea lions, and – thrillingly – the eco-suckerprints of various squelchy aquatic life-forms.

Watch this space.