The winning idea on the second episode of BBC Radio 4's splendid "Genius" show was for the breeding of miniature elephants as pets. HMG are rejecting this idea too soon. They would do better to pass it on to the chaps in white coats at the genetics lab.

If a responsible pet owner makes provisions to care for an elephant then what right has the government to stop them?

Elephants have been kept as domestic animals for thousands of years, they can be trained to work in the building industry and in agricultural. I think this is all part of a bigger conspiracy backed by the manufactures of farm machinery and lifting equipment. If I where Jack Smithies I would be keeping one eye out for the Black Helicopters.

Surely 4 tiny elephants to walk on the back of your tortoise - and a side plate to act as a discworld?

glow-in-the-dark elephants. Park one in the back garden and leave the curtains open.

No more need for electric lighting, and CO2 emissions would be reduced at a stroke.

they may start off as ordinary family pets, well, as ordinary as an elephant could be, but give them a few years and there'll be an underground army of discontented elephants ready to rise up against their human keepers in a plethora of pachyderm proletarian protest.

Thankfully the Broon govt has had the foresight to avert a terrible future dominated by brutal elephants forcing humans to haul heavy logs through forests and to slave in peanut mines.

Paris as my icon 'cos she said that mine was like an elephant's trunk. In the dream I had at 7 this morning.

re: Annonymous John

> glow-in-the-dark elephants. Park one in the back garden and leave the curtains open.

> No more need for electric lighting, and CO2 emissions would be reduced at a stroke.

Not sure this would apply. I remember reading somewhere that the major contibutor to greenhouse gasses are cows farting. Imagine how much worse a country full of elephants farting would be!

The PM's petition website is a rich source of entertainment. Browsing the "rejected" pile is almost as hilarious as some of the signatories' names. See, for example, these gems:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Antismokingwatch/

There's a website there, i'm sure of it...

According to The Now Show, the bit of green behind your house is (in ascending social-class order):

1) t' yard (from north of the Watford Gap)

2) the back garden

3) Devon

There's a problem with that idea though. Quoting News At Ten:

DUNG!!!!!

Dan Dare featured an alien one. http://www.dandare.org.uk/JPEGs/Who-Flamer-Spry-and-Stripey.jpg

I really wanted one as a child.

In Edinburgh tenement land we had to share our back yard - it was called a back green as I recall.

Personally I've always thought that miniature genetically modified Mammoths, GM-ammoths if you will, would be the way forward.

Not only do they have the same entertainment potential as elephants and produce the same amount of quality manure for your veggies you could also shave them and use their hair for clothes, carpet, rope...

The possibilites are endless. Well nearly.

That would be nice. A small talking and singing one, about as tall as a normal chair, that one could ride on would provide countless hours of fun and entertainment to bored geeks everywhere. Apart of serving as a man-transport-slave, it could also hold conversations and let you cuddle up with it on cold, dark nights.

...real petitions about important issues like climate change or global poverty or fighting AIDs get swept under the carpet - it's depressing that 'Elephants as Pets' or the Sun's 'we want the red arrows at the olympics' get all the attention.

Anyone care to guess as to how much CO2 emissions are caused by yer average elephant?

Me, I love elephants. Uhm, I mean I like them as pets, not sex-toys like all those sheeps in New Foundland. And I bet they are very convenient pets as well. It takes a brave parking attendant to attempt collecting parking fees from one of them things.

...not for Christmas. We already have donkey and dog sanctuaries; if these animals became the new must-have we'd need someting like they have in Tennessee: www.elephants.com, a home for neglected elephants.

Lustful Herd Of Pachyderms. No need for a taxi, I'll grab my car.