Nobody else was hurt.What is interesting about all this is the degree of timidity it uncovers. If something vaguely unfamiliar and wild happens around us, we instantly call out police, coastguard or vet. We cannot deal with mice or beetles without Rentokil, we flap dementedly at wasps and bees; the advent of earwig or woodlouse disgusts us. Entire relationships are founded on mutual assistance in dealing with the depredations of spider or rodent ("I does the creepy-crawlies, he does the rats").Yet once we ruled almost all of the Indian sub-continent (tigers, snakes, insects), much of Africa (lions, wart-hogs, meerkats and hyenas, according to Disney) and the whole of Wales. Nor was Scotland the only place where a wild boar has caused consternation this spring. In Essex, for several months this year, a 17- stone boar "terrorised" the villagers of Hatfield Peverel and Wickham.

It would turn up in their gardens looking for acorns and roots. Strangely, however, the only thing that got hurt in the whole affair was the boar himself - eventually run over and killed by a Peugeot 309 GTi. Conclusion? That Peugeots are a hell of a lot more dangerous than wild boars.On Thursday of this week, a "rampant" Friesian, which had escaped from Axminster market, "ran amok" in the gardens behind Musbury Road. Not much of a surprise there. All this effort has been expended because of the terror felt by local inhabitants.

Most of the time, museum management, or Treasury officials, will make these kinds of decisions on our behalf, and let us escape the most difficult dilemmas. There, in the entrance hall of the Victoria and Albert Museum - or in any of the other big national treasure troves - we should spend a minute or two agonising ourselves about how much it is fair for us to pay.. What if you only work part time - should you give half as much? Will the attendants look snooty if you only give pounds 1? Many of us, it appears, would prefer to have the price set for us, so we can make a private choice about whether to go to the museum.But why should we be let off so lightly? There is no easy answer to the delicate question of how we should balance the contributions of taxpayers and visitors, nor how much we each should pay according to our incomes and circumstances. According to the V&A, people feel irritated by having to choose how much to give.