/ 4 June 2007

Corgi eating artist sets mashed potato target

British artist who last week ate a meal of meatballs made from a dead corgi dog in a protest against animal cruelty said on Sunday his next project involved being buried in a box under a mountain of mashed potato.

Performance artist Mark McGowan (37) said the corgi, which died from natural causes, tasted terrible.

Corgis are the favoured dogs of the Queen, who has owned more than 30 of them during her reign.

McGowan said he ate the dog because he was angry that the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, of which the royal family is a patron, had not prosecuted Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband, for hunting and killing a fox. The RSPCA said the fox did not suffer.

Now McGowan is switching his attention from animals to vegetables. He told Sky News television that his next project would be an interpretation of the work of American illusionist David Blaine.

”I am being buried in a box — a David Blaine type thing — in Dublin underneath a metre of mashed potato,” he said. He did not explain why. – Reuters