From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 97)

I recently had a communication from my steward at my small farm estate. I have no inclination to be a farmer myself, but as I seem to be in the habit of surviving, it became appropriate to buy myself a small estate. I thought I might retire there, should I, against the odds, enter the autumn years of my life above ground. Or, in the very unlikely event that I should ever marry, it is somewhere to leave my wife. On the whole, my London properties are quite small, and most are let out. I retain the largest one for myself, but it is not the kind of place that a lady should live. It is very much a bachelor’s flat.

My steward was writing to let me know he had acquired several sows and one hog. I have taken against pigs since the time I was held captive and tortured at a pig farm. The whole thing was utterly sordid and embarrassing. I should never have been caught. It is not an episode I care to revisit as it reflects very badly on me. During torture, I lost a fair amount of blood. What surprised me was the interest the pigs took in my blood. I realised that should I die there and then; I would be fed to them. Pigs will, I came to learn, eat absolutely anything.

I now, rather unfashionably, like to know where my bacon or pork has been sourced. I continue to take great delight in eating pig, but I want to be reasonably assured that the pig has been fed on acorns, possibly slops, and never flesh of any kind. The whole thing gives me the shivers. I’d rather face a dozen enemy agents, with my arm tied behind my back, and only a blunt butter knife for defence, then find myself once again in a pen with a pig.

I do not want pigs on my farm, but apparently my steward does. He gave an excellent argument for their efficiency in all manner of things, and even assured me that they are remarkably intelligent. This last fact, I was not happy to learn. I had divined the evil nature of pigs - nose to snout - on several long, cold, and desperate nights. That they might also be intelligent may well give me one of my exceedingly rare nightmares.

However, the fortunes of the farm, and its tenants, are my responsibility, so I am being a considerate landholder and allowing the steward to keep the pigs. In his note to me, he has enquired if I will he visiting soon. He assures me he has got only the finest animals, and that I would be astonished to see them. He also asked if his little girl could have a piglet for rearing, saying she quite understood that at the end of its days her pet would be eaten, and had thought up a suitable name, ‘Yum-Yum’. She sounds likes a most interesting child.

Apart from asking me to visit the new livestock - not a chance in hell, until they are made into sausages - he also asked me to name the hog. Apparently, it already has some championship name – Ambrosios Kallias Demeter the Fifth, or some such nonsense, which he feels unable to shorten, and wishes me to rename it.

I honestly could not care less, but he is a good man, who does an excellent job, so I have written back a one-word answer, the name of someone I dislike and who invariably gets in my way. Although it will be sometime before the hog is killed, for now he is merely around to sire piglets, but when his time comes, I will take great pleasure in sending him off for butchering.

I have called the pig ‘BERTRAM’.