Morrissey's signed a copy of his fabled autobiography, and is auctioning it off to raise money for PETA.

Odd choice of charity for someone who is usually such a fundamentalist on animal rights, given how they've euthanized tens of thousands of animals, explaining it away as animals which would be killed anyway:

PETA told the Daily Mail that the animals they take in at the center are usually difficult to find homes for and would presumably end up being euthanized anyway: “Most of the animals we take in are society’s rejects: aggressive, on death’s door or somehow unadoptable,” Dollinger noted.

The pile of corpses includes rabbits, whose aggressive tendencies are well known; even if it's true, any animal charity that can't make the promise that they'll never euthanise a healthy animal is probably less deserving of support than one that can.

Still, that's only a small compromise compared with the other one Mozzer's made in the last few days:

Singer Morrissey has left fans in the U.S. baffled after his best-selling memoir was released Stateside minus the details of his relationship with a male photographer.
[...]
The tome, titled Autobiography, details several anecdotes involving Walters, and Morrissey writes movingly of their two years together, but in the U.S. release, which was published on Tuesday (03Dec13), many details in the original book are missing or edited down.

A photograph of Walters as a boy has also been removed, and his name has been cut out of a story detailing a night out with The Pretenders star Chrissie Hynde.

Because, of course, people buying a book about Morrissey are going to find that sort of thing off-putting.

Perhaps there's some sense in giving money to a compromised charity from a compromised book.

PETA have issued a statement about Katy Perry's Roar video. Of course they're not happy. PETA only issue statements when they're unhappy:

“Animals used for entertainment endure horrific cruelty and suffer from extreme confinement and violent training methods,” a PETA spokesman said in a statement. “They often become stressed and anxious when hauled around and forced into unfamiliar or frightening situations.”

The group, long-critical of animal rights practices in Hollywood, suspects Perry worked with animal exhibitor Serengeti Ranch on the “Roar” video which, according to PETA, “has been inspected by the US Department of Agriculture 22 times since 2001.”

PETA - whose twin aims are persuading celebrities to take their clothes off and killing hundreds of healthy animals every year, had once been pleased with Perry because she was a celebrity vegetarian.

Trouble is, when people adopt poses because they're fashionable, they're just as likely to take up a contrary stance when fashion dictates. PETA might be discovering the weakness in their business model.

PETA sent a letter to Kelis, asking her not to wear fur.

Kelis responded like Dappy might:

There is no humane way to kill anything, let me start there. It’s unfortunate but it’s part of life. With that being said, I would eat pterodactyl if you found some and you told me it was meaty and delicious. And after doing a very minimal amount of research....... I found out that the founder Ingrid Newkirk is completely batty. I had a feeling but she far exceeded my expectations. I mean certifiably insane! Lol this chicks will is nuts, google it – it’s a riot! Beyond the fact that I think she's a diabetic, which means she needs insulin, which is taken from lab pigs (I know this because my sister happens to be in veterinary school), which would be completely hypocritical. It’s like don't abuse animals unless it can help me.



I feel very strongly about a lot of things such as the sweatshops that spin cotton and the blood on their hands. Btw it’s not just the look of fur. It’s warm as hell and feels glorious, ever rubbed faux fur on your body? Nothing luxurious about that. Then the letter proceeded to name artist and designers who don't wear real fur. Great! More for me! I don't judge them, don't judge me.

If I started wearing endangered animals like polar bear or orangutan then talk to me. (Which btw for the record I would not - I do believe in the preservation of endangered species) But the minks and chinchilla that quite honestly are rodents and if weren't in the form of a coat I would demand they be put to death anyway are not an issue to me.

The death of high fashion. Ugh.

I eat meat, and in fact my mouth salivates as I type the word meat! And the paint throwing that's just ridiculous! What if I was hurling Loubitons and Pierre Hardy's at every sad poorly dressed person on the street? As right as I may be it’s just fanatical and crazy. And people have the right to feel as they please. What about art? Survival of the fittest. Natural selection? No let's just let all the rodents run free and over take our cities. Oh wait they have, NY and LA in particular are infested! Why don't u save them all from scavenging on the streets and ruining my evening strolls, take them home. Make them pets! Get off my back! Pun intended!

Underpaid minorities picking your vegetables, now that's fine for you right? Please, fight for their rights. How about the poverty in the communities of brown people around the world. She had the nerve to say (and I quote) "get over it" talking of the issue of black people and slavery in this country verses cows being slaughtered. Is she kidding me? Lol yes she must be. Actually, she's lucky most black people have real issues to worry about in the U.S and don't give a crap what her delusional privileged opinions are. But she should try saying that again just for kicks n giggles on the corner of Adam Clayton Powell Blvd in Harlem n see how well people "get over it" lol.

If u want to preach do it about something worthwhile don't waste my time trying to save the dang chipmunk.

Find a worthwhile cause like the women being maimed in these Middle Eastern countries. Or female circumcision. Or women's rights here in America, we still get paid less for doing the same jobs as men. Quite honestly if you hate the world so much go live in the forest where no one else has to hear you complain about the perfectly good food chain the good Lord created. Everyone has the right to an opinion, and that's mine on that! xoxo

Kelis - perhaps unsurprisingly - is a little bit confused and all over the place - moral relativism and the question of if a pterodactyl would constitute an endangered species notwithstanding, she seems to believe that if people didn't make them into coats, the country would be overwhelmed with mink.

It's not entirely clear why Kelis thinks that wearing fur has anything much to do with the food chain (perhaps she enjoys a nice mink burger every now and then), and she does appear to be suggesting that she has a God given right to wear fur. And a vet might quibble with the suggestion that there isn't a humane way to kill things. But you've got to admire the decision to engage with PETA on their ill-thought-out, stunt-happy home turf.

I think this means that I'm allowed to knit myself a scarf from any hair Kelis might discard. But it is a bit of a moral grey area.

Pink has been writing some letters. But not getting anywhere with them:

She told Q magazine: "I wrote to him to protest about fox hunting and I figured he would be this stuffy, privileged a**hole. But he's like a redneck from the south.

"If you're brought up shooting and hunting animals, if you really think it's second nature and you're blasting away then it's hard to see the other point of view. You need educating."

It's nice to show an interest - although, frankly, you might want to concentrate more on the other animals which William legally blasts to death for a laugh.

The Queen? The Queen's no better:

She once penned a letter to William's grandmother Queen Elizabeth about the use of bear skin hats on her guards and was disappointed not to receive a response.

She revealed: "To be truthful I was really surprised I didn't get a reply to that one. I wasn't just writing in and complaining, and it certainly was not a publicity stunt.

"I actually proposed a plan. Stella McCartney had designed theses replacement hats for the guards using fake fur. I felt we were solving the problem for her and offering a viable solution. But she never wrote back. Maybe she doesn't have any of my stuff on her iPod."

Perhaps she doesn't have your stuff on her iPod. Or maybe she got a letter saying "Hey, Stella McCartney has designed some cruelty-free bearskins - wanna see?" and put it quietly to one side.

Peta are known for doing some dumb stunts, but now it's starting to look like they've just decided to take on everyone who isn't, like, you know, one of them. They have just run some ads in Orlando which call larger people "whales".

The poster features the back of an overweight woman and has the slogan "Save the whales - Lose the blubber - go vegetarian". That would seem to be making a pretty strong whale-person link, right?

"It appears you are implying that overweight people are like whales," WJXT-TV reporter Scott Johnson said to a PETA representative.

"Not at all," said Ashley Byrne, of PETA. "It's just a way of grabbing people's attention. It's just a provocative way to grab attention."

So putting a photo of a fatter person next to a big slogan saying "save the whales" isn't comparing a person to a big, blubbery whale, it's just being "provocative"? But isn't it being provocative because it's insensitively hurling abuse at fat people? And if it isn't hurling abuse, then how would it be being provocative?

Oh and... what is the point of being provocative just for the sake of it? What is there to respect in an organisation which is happy to run sexy pictures of slim people (like every fashion product ever), and now run photos having a go at the overweight (like diet product ads) , and yet thinks its in some way progressive?

Is it really helpful in the culture we're stuck in for an animal charity to encourage bullying of fat people?

And - come to that - if being overweight is such a terrible thing, and animals are so great, what's with the using "whale" as a term of abuse? Or is the poster suggesting that being overweight puts you on a par with one of nature's majestic giants? Or is it not even fully thought through?

The adverts have provoked some reaction though - and this, by the way, is where we get onto the music connection in this story. It's provoked Tegan And Sara to revoke their support for PETA. They just tweeted:

feeling a bit ashamed that we ever supported PETA. They should be ashamed over this.

The time to really have felt ashamed about supporting PETA, though, was when it started to emerge that, while they're very good at getting people to prance about in the nack to promote them, they're actually shit at caring for animals, and killed 95% of the animals they were 'caring' for last year.

Am I misremebering, or does PETA insist on the Pet Shop Boys changing their name once every two or three weeks?

I'm not even sure it makes any sense, either - sure, some pet shops are horrible places; personally, if Neil Tennant turned up at Pet City in Aurora Mall in Denver, set the poor, crushed creatures free and then locked the management in tiny, overheated perspex boxes while inviting the population of Colorado to bash rhythmically on the door for ten hours a day, I would be delighted.

But many pet shops don't sell pets; they only sell things that make pets happy. Catnip and bottles for feeding rabbits and things that delight puppies. Some, indeed, also try to rehouse rescue dogs and cats, to save them from being destroyed - something which might give PetSmart a moral lead over PETA.

Still, PETA are happy that the Pet Shop Boys have elected to not change their name, but have posted a message of support:

“The organisation PETA Europe, dedicated to establishing and protecting the rights of all animals, has written to Pet Shop Boys with a request they are unable to agree to but nonetheless think raises an issue worth thinking about.”

Coming next week: Buttsteak are badgered to change their name retrospectively to Butttofu.

It's not quite going out canvassing for Sian Berry, but it turns out that it's not all beer and Oasis bootlegs for Kasabian: They're passionately opposed to the battering of defenceless seals. Tom says so:

No word yet on if this new rejection of all-things ugly is going to impact on the band's music, or use of a Manson-connected name for a pop group, but it's early days.

Naomi Campbell - yes, she has released a record, since you ask - has been trying to square the circle to explain why she took part in the "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign and then, erm, started turning up in fur. Apparently, it was PETA's fault:

But while we can see that you might disagree with PETA and choose to disassociate yourself from the organisation, surely you wouldn't then abandon your convictions - or was it a case of "I hate PETA so much, I'm going to make them squeal?"

No: it's just that Naomi apparently doesn't understand that taking a stand is meant to be different from following a fashion. It turns out that Naomi doesn't have a problem with fur at all:

More criticism for Live Earth, as PETA question the selling of meat at an environmental awareness gig:

The UN has discovered livestock farming contributes more to greenhouse gasses than cars, planes and lorries combined; the soothing balm, though, is that at the ridiculous prices Wembley charge - eight quid for a burger - nobody is going to be eating very much meat.

In common with most people who have ears, we're not big fans of Jet, but it's pleasing to see them joining forces with The Vines and PETA to try and stop the Canadian seal hunts.

Of course, all they've done is sign a petition, which, frankly, is a working definition of "the least they could do". Still, they've got plenty of coverage for a little bit of writing, which must make it all worthwhile.

Jennifer Lopez's love of draping herself in the pelts of slaughtered creatures is causing her some problems. Apparently, she's been getting death threats from what the News of the World call "animal rights nuts". Interestingly, there seems to be some attempt in the reporting to comflate the mainstream PETA with the slightly more hideline death threaters:

It's more than a little unhelpful to suggest that peaceful, lawful pressure groups and criminal activists are one and the same. Unless, of course, you're trying to make the public think that anyone who's committed to anything is some sort of terrorist.

Shirley Manson has signed on to play the Sophie Ellis-Bextor role in the latest UK anti-PETA advertising campaign. You can see the advert here; we would post it but it's quite grizzly and we imagine most of you would rather choose if you'd like to keep your breakfast down or not.

PETA's campaign to persuade people to not wear anything that's been made by ripping the outer flesh off animals has signed up another famous person (well, alright, Jamelia) to rip off her clothes and be photographed.

We're not sure it's such a good idea. Apart from the feeling that PETA have totally run out of ideas - how many naked people have done versions of this ad now? - it might be a little self-defeating. After all, since it's clear that, as long as people wear fur , PETA will persuade pretty young pop stars, models and actors to do nude photoshoots, isn't that going to make people who like to see Jamelia and others with their pants off actively go out and buy rabbit coats?

The Sun is reporting this morning that Heather Mills is no longer talking for the animals:

Which is all fascinating, especially since PETA uses a large number of famous people to front its campaigns - it's not like Mills was their equivalent of Kate Moss. So even if Mary McCartney had asked about Heather - something we, frankly, doubt - the response would have been a shrug.

A quick plug for PETA's video interview with Conor Oberst, the acceptable musical face of veganism (i.e. not the one you want to slap - hello, Moby).

It's curious that the meat eating, fox-killing majority don't manage to get anyone cool to talk on their behalf - aside from the people tempted to by McDonald's cash to promote their products. Nobody ever really pops up saying "Meat is cool", do they?

Missy Elliot may have a reputation as a bit of a ball-buster. Not without reason, it seems, as she's teaming up with PETA to get animals neutered.

Sophie Ellis Bextor is taking time off from telling people not to smoke by telling them not to wear fur, either. FabSophie is shown in a new series of PETA ads holding up the gizzards of a dead fox. She still looks curiously sexy, too. SEB: The Moby that doesn't come across like a sanctimonious schmuck.