Why didn't James Herriott ever think of this when he was faced with a difficult bovine delivery? A group of Bosnian choristers are awaiting their turn to use one of the safe routes - an old mine - out of Sarajevo so they can get to a competition in Paris and defend the honour of their war-torn nation. They have to wait until the incoming group arrive, though, and in the intervening moments a farmer races up to them asking if anyone is a doctor. Nobody is, but one trained to be a vet - and he is exactly what is needed. A cow has a twisted uterus and unless someone helps urgently both cow and calf will die. He reluctantly agrees to help, but with shells dropping all around them the animal is hardly in the condition to settle, let alone to have him stick his hands into her nether regions. How to calm her? I know, get the choir to sing something suitably soothing but loud enough to drown out the noise of the bombs. The thing is though, birthing isn't the half of it as the totally shattered "Spotty" isn't so very keen on getting back up off the hay. Luckily, the vet (Davor Janjic) has a cunning plan for that too! It's got something of the Nativity to it, this, with some dark humour peppering what is - on multiple fronts - a matter of life and death. My favourite character, however, is none of them - but the sentry guarding the tunnel whose slightly sarcastic tone and attitude did rather sum up not just the futility of war but of the stoicism of those fighting (whilst chewing gum). Well worth quarter of an hour.
