Children voted for Marcus the sheep to be slaughtered and sold for meat Photo: IMAGES INTERNATIONAL  Head teachers should always square up to bullies, so I am pleased to see that Andrea Charman, of Lydd Primary School in Kent, has done exactly that. Charman is the innovative headmistress who introduced her pupils to the stark realities of the food chain by starting a school farm, thereby illustrating the relationship between yummy meat nuggets and cute animals frolicking in fields. All well, good and educational, until the rearing process came to its logical conclusion with Marcus the lamb. As with all neutered male sheep, Marcus's greatest economic value was at market, so the children duly voted to send him for slaughter – proving yet again that children are far less sentimental than adults.  Cue widespread outrage, with one parent branding Charman "a murderer", and chat-show host Paul O'Grady offering Marcus refuge on his smallholding. The doughty Charman refused to be intimidated: she scrupulously observed the democratic process and last weekend Marcus went to the great pasture in the sky.  If only the rumpus had ended there, but the anthropomorphic lobby went ballistic; one cuddly animal obsessive wrote on Facebook that the school should be torched. Now the police are keeping a watchful eye and a great project is jeopardised.  The big question is why are the protesters so terminally dim? Do they truly not see that the project bolsters their cause? Any child who understands that animals have to be killed before they end up on our plates is more likely to respect the meat on their table. They are also more likely to weight up the pros and cons of vegetarianism – as has happened with at least one pupil. And any child who helps hand rear a lamb will be more likely to oppose the cruelties of factory farming.  Children learn nothing from those offering Marcus a home, except that sentimentalists with more cash than brains agonise more over a lamb with a moniker than the terrifying implications of bee disease, or the rape of our oceans by greedy fishing fleets. As a Lydd five-year-old could tell O'Grady and the rabble, it's neither ecologically nor economically sustainable for people to fill fields with neutered male sheep, which do nothing but munch and produce methane.  Let's hope that Lydd Primary School teaches maths as effectively as it teaches farming. Otherwise, they may end up as confused as the One Show's Christine Bleakley. According to Star magazine her birth date is February 2, 1979, making her 30, rather than 29 as both the BBC and Wikipedia assert.  Let's hope it's a genuine error, as it's terrifying enough that women over 50 routinely feel the need to fib about their years (such as Amanda Redman, who recently admitted to lobbing two years from her tally of 52, so she would still be considered for plum acting roles) without gorgeous young women like Bleakley becoming coy.  I am 41, but several media acquaintances who were once a little older are now magically younger and more frozen of face. The worst indignity came last year when I read a brief profile of my university contemporary, the comedian Richard Herring, who was described as 36. If men start dissembling, the age fascists have won. I was relieved days later when I saw Herring had jovially pointed out the error.  Of course Hollywood greats were exempt from the ageing process. The golden age movie stars were permitted to be economical with the actualité about age and pretty much any personal information: the carefully cultivated mystique of Garbo or Hepburn was a crucial element of their riveting glamour. But there's precious little mystery about the new crop of LA starlets. According to film crew who have worked with her, Transformers star Megan Fox is "trailer trash", who is also "dumb as a rock". You can't imagine anyone saying that about Ava Gardner.
Why are animal rights protestors so terminally dim, asks Rowan Pelling, after    the uproar at Lydd Primary School over the slaughter of Marcus the sheep.