Trial by Twitter over AA Gill baboon death

Published: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:30:00

The restaurant critic AA Gill has been the latest commentator to feel the wrath of the micro-blogging site Twitter. In his column in the Sunday Times Gill wrote that he shot a baboon while on safari in Tanzania "to get a sense of what it might be like to kill someone". The comment sparked outrage from animal rights campaigners, and echoed the furore over Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir to quickly become a Twitter trending topic.

In the article Gill said he shot the baboon because: "I wanted to get a sense of what it might be like to kill someone, a stranger. You see it in all those films: guns and bodies, barely a close-up of reflection or doubt. What does it really feel like to shoot someone, or someone's close relative?"

But he also wrote he knew there was "absolutely no excuse" for the killing of the baboon, which is seen as vermin in the country. "There is no mitigation," he said. "Baboon isn't good to eat, unless you're a leopard. The feeble argument of culling and control is much the same as for foxes: a veil for naughty fun."

Gill is renowned for his hard-nosed writing style, which is best known for criticising the UK's restaurants. However, his latest article has reportedly instigated complaints to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).

But despite the complaints, and unlike the widespread condemnation that greeted Moir's article on the death of Stephen Gately, the public and 'Twitter jury' appear not to have taken Gill's article quite as seriously. Comedian Dara O'Briain tweeted: "I was going to get angry about AA Gill until I read excellent Jan Moir piece about how baboons make questionable lifestyle choices." While Father Ted writer Graham Linnehan wrote: "This just in: Katheryn Flett [sic] kicked a rabbit in the nuts."

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