The Great Quagga Race

I think Hnaef's taking this whole "I'm in Charge" thing far too seriously. I mean. Eileen had wanted us to mark the death of the last quagga properly, and we clearly didn't have time to grow one from some DNA recovered from a quagga rug or something. All I suggested was that we "borrow" some zebras from the Safari Park - or, failing that, a few donkeys - and do a bit of a paint job. Nothing toxic, just something to produce some beasts with stripes at one end and plain at the other.

But it has been pointed out that borrowing - or, as Hnaef put it, "stealing" - zebras is always wrong, and so is painting them. And so once again we will have to resort to the pantomime quagga costumes. Hnaef and Daphne won the Great Quagga Race the last time  - although Eileen put that down to somebody mysteriously tying together the shoelaces of the back halves of all the other quaggas. I've no idea who she was thinking about, but the beer at the White Horse tasted particularly nice that evening.

Eileen has a habit of getting all philosophical. And she has often asked me whether, if someone ever re-bred the quagga from zebras and/or horses - and they got the DNA more-or-less completely the same as the 19th century quaggas of old - would it be a real quagga or just some kind of tribute quagga? What would have come first - the chicken or the quagga? 

Eileen likes to compare quagga recovery to Celtic Christianity. In the unlikely event, she says, that the "Celtic" Christians gave up their badly played guitars and tea lights, and instead re-instated four-hour Masses in Latin and severe beatings for misdemeanours  - would even a totally perfect recreation would be truly "Celtic Christianity"? Or, given that the people taking part in the service would be 21st century people rather than than 8th century Gaelic-speakers, and that the whole thing had been recovered - given that it would have the nature of a restoration rather than the time-worn original thing - wouldn't it still be inauthentic? Surely they would ironically still be looking at themselves recreating Celtic Christian worship, rather than actually doing so?

To which I normally say this is too deep for my mind. And can I go and paint a zebra? And then she hits me with her cricket bat.  It's very painful, is genetic archaeology.