A horse who has frequented pubs and clubs for almost twenty years refusing to make small talk has finally opened up about his debilitating low mood.
The horse - known only as Clip Clop - has been sensationally outed as a corporate stooge for the rich and famous, after the Metropolitan Police left top secret documents in the hands of James Murdoch on the same day The Sun on Sunday needed a front page story.
The controversial papers detailed the practice of loaning adorable animals to figures in the public eye who are experiencing a media backlash. The process - often referred to as 'chumming up' - is a damage limitation exercise used to boost publicity, and can see those involved paying thousands of pounds a time for the privilege.
Now Clip Clop has revealed the darker side of this relatively unknown world, and the often devastating consequences:
You go where you're needed, and it's fun at first. They stroke you a bit, tell you all their troubles, that sort of thing. You feel good. But then it just starts to get on your nerves when it's all day and all night. And they take out super-injunctions so you can't repeat any of it. I'd go into a bar, and every night it would be 'Why the long face?'I wanted to say, 'You'd have a fucking long face too if you'd worked with Jeremy Clarkson for seven years and gone through three divorces with Phil Collins!' But I couldn't tell anyone so I'd just keep drinking. It was a downward spiral.
This is not the first time News International has used chumming up to stem the flow of negative publicity - in 2003, Robbie Williams was pictured riding a hippo in his local Tesco, while in 1995 Stephen Fry had a mental breakdown and stayed with kittens wearing mittens for six weeks in the south of France.
When asked to comment on today's fresh revelations and his time with former Sun editor Rebekah Brooks, Clip Clop replied: Fucking hell. She said she was Mick Hucknall.
