Because our eyes occasionally hop to matters across the Pond or perhaps because we're Wodehouse fans, kind readers occasionally designate Dr. Curmudgeon and Company as a "mid Atlantic" blog. We've slipped a bit lately in this rating, so I turn my eye to the other side of the Atlantic and I see not the current Blair/Brown brouhaha, or the sad decline of Marks and Spencer, but..yes.. the Eglu.

In France, they wanted a chicken in every pot. In England, they want a chicken in every yard. But chicken housing has gotten very high tech these days. The Eglu is the iMac of chicken housing. Colorful, stylish and modular, it makes one think well of chickens, which is a new experience for Style Editor who has always viewed chickens as utilitarian embodiments of evil.

I urge The Countryside Alliance to push along the Eglu in any way they can. The more chickens kept in suburban yards, the more chickens killed by foxes, the more people realize perhaps that foxes are in fact a problem. It's hard for an eight year old to love a fox when it has killed Mrs. Clucky.

And for those of us over here, do not despair. The Eglu is coming to America.