Given what we know about the long and environmentally damaging journey a piece of meat usually takes en route to your plate, it’s tough to be too harsh on vegans.

I’m a meat-eater, but you know they have a point.

Every so often, though, a vegan like Cilla Carden makes the news, and the ridicule soon follows. Carden, who lives Down Under in Perth, has taken her neighbours to the Supreme Court, and is still considering further legal action, despite a number of setbacks.

Over to the Guardian:

The court and the state’s administrative tribunal have both thrown out Cilla Carden’s complaints about her neighbours, including their cooking smells, cigarette smoke, chairs scraping on concrete, reflective light and the sounds of children playing basketball and pet birds.

Carden, a massage therapist who lives at Girrawheen in Perth’s north, says the ongoing dispute has robbed her of quality of life and claimed her neighbours actions are deliberate.

“They’ve put it there so I smell fish, all I can smell is fish,” Carden told Nine. “I can’t enjoy my backyard, I can’t go out there.”

Let’s give Cilla the chance to speak for herself:

Good fences make good neighbours, but they’re no match for the smell of shrimps on the ‘barbie.

Cilla’s gripes went far past just the smell of meat, with this from the BBC:

Her list of demands also included orders for a family living next door, and another neighbour, to reduce their patio lighting, silence their pets and to replace plants in the common garden…

The tribunal also noted that [one] family had already moved their barbecue prior to the hearing in an attempt to appease Ms Carden.

“[They] have not allowed the children out at night, have not used the patio at night, and have not turned on the lights for several months for fear of reprisals from the applicant,” the tribunal said.

OK, she’s starting to sound a little militant.

When the judge in July handed down the tribunal’s judgement, he also noted that she had presented almost 400 pages for consideration, as part of the appeal.

Imagine if she lived in Pretoria, and she tried to tell her neighbours to stop braaing and keep it down while the Boks were playing?

[sources:guardian&bbc]