This is what always happens with religion: it is meant to make people behave better, but when they get too serious about it, it ends up making them behave much, much worse. Britain is in the thick of an acrimonious, debate about secularism and religion. Religious belief and church attendance have been shrinking for decades, yet religion continues to play an important part in our national life. Prayers before council meetings may have been banned last week by a judge, and an increasing number of our city churches are put to sound secular use as indoor ski slopes or apartments. But there are still bishops in the House of Lords, prayers are said at the Cenotaph, and the communal celebrations of Christmas and Easter have yet to become completely taboo.

To many, the A30 is just a road, but to retired civil servant Arthur Boyt it's more like a delicatessen. Arthur eats roadkill. He has sampled cat, barn owl, squirrel, hedgehog and badger. But his lifestyle is under attack. His isolated cottage on Bodmin moor has started receiving abusive calls from disgruntled locals. His wife, a vegetarian he met in Watford, is so afraid that she refuses to leave her bedroom. But Arthur refuses to change.