Firstly, let me thank the many who pay more than their subscription. It does help us along financially and keeps the overall price down. I do not have enough time to respond to each one individually, but the appreciation is still very much there.

I am also cheered by the many who add a note of appreciation to say they find the mag informative and it helps them feel in touch with a wider community - this being the purpose of the magazine.

Special thanks are also due to John Vetterlein for the gift of a computer and to John Curtis for directions on how to use it and also for running the website and more general help.

Vegan Views started as sheets typed on a stencil and run off on a duplicator - old technology that not many today will remember and most may not even have heard of. Now VV is coming up into the computer age.

New technology is taken up quickly, new ideas often take longer to be accepted as mainstream. May the day not be long in coming when this magazine will be outmoded because everyone is vegan and people will wonder why it was necessary to state the obvious.

This year saw the murder of a prominent politician in The Netherlands by a man who was said to be an animal rights supporter and probably vegan.

How, some may well ask, can a vegan do such a deed? My answer is that anyone who deliberately, and not in self defence, takes the life of an animal or a human cannot be called a vegan. If vegans think that Meat is Murder, then those who murder are not vegan.