OR IS THERE?

Look again. What do you think she's thinking about, as some sweating vet crouches down in the hay with her, squinting through his lens? Is she thinking "Ohhhh! I'm so happy here, imagine what pleasure the image of my fair Fresian skin will bring to countless sailors across the seven seas!"? Is she thinking that oh, gosh, yes, she actually could do it, right here, right now, with anyone, anyone at all, even one of the living brooms from Fantasia? Or is she thinking how she's a bit chilly, and wishes she was wearing a cardie? Perhaps she's thinking about how her calf-child daughter is getting along on her first day of school, her being the only cattle-human hybrid in the year? What is she having for tea?

We've certainly stirred up a hornet's nest of prickly issues. What do YOU think the cow-lady is thinking, and by extension all people who work in the field of glamour photography? Tell us by clicking here:

moodebate@robiad.freeuk.com

Thanks!

Here's what Holly Mellors had to add to this debate, which I'm sure will burn indefinitely:

The cow lady is thinking, 'Why am I so badly drawn? Why is my face all wonky? Why do I have no feet? I may be a little more than a spastic daub but I can think and I can feel and, by golly, I can cry! If only I were one of the cows in that picture by that man - you know the one - I think it's on a drinks coaster - where the cows are expertly painted and lying at leisure in a field. What kind of cruel mooniverse do we inhabit were there's so little justice and crappily-sketched cows like me are cast into the world, half-made to wail in sadness into the hollow of our churns!! Ah, come quick, slaughterman and slice me up for sarnies!'

Badly drawn? Holly, it's a photograph. Apart from that, you're spot on! Holly wins a Milky Bar for her troubles.

Topical thoughts on the subject from Vaughan Green:

By induction, and the kind of telepathic resonance that can only come through eating diseased beef, I think cow-lady is chewing cud and anticipating the approach of her favourite stud servicing bull, the one with the special hooves. Later a TV vet will approach and by means of a plastic sleeve, insert his arm anally to retrieve a lost contact lens. For tea, she will have prion-rich sheep brains from sewage-fed flocks.

Telepathy, eh? You may have something there, Vaughan. It's long been known that cows can predict when it will rain - they lie down and this, of course, keeps them bone dry all over and safe from chills. As for anticipating her favourite bull - are you implying she's been with more than one??? You think this innocent, waif-like sweetheart is some kind of shaggabout cattle-whore? Look at her face and then ask yourself how you managed to conceive of such a licentiousness. Look at it!

Glad we've cleared that up.

Now, this heartfelt missive from Yappari Gush:

Cow lady is thinking good about the sexy man me.
She thinking "Ohhhh! Yappari I love you"
She's a chilly bitch queen and nop she wants.
Only cattleman in world will be Gush Junior, my son.
Cow lady make tasty hamburger for my tea and then rumpo-pumpy.
Please give Cow lady my emails.
Love Yappari Gush.

I repeat this is from Yappari Gush

I don't doubt you, Andrew. I assure you, I pass on all my emails to the cowlady, even the torrents of unpublishable filth from that Andrea Dworkings. Usually, she just rolls her big, brown, bovine eyes and goes 'tut'! But when I showed her your printout - well, can a single cowlady stampede? She certainly had a bloody good go! I had to take refuge in a trough! Suffice to say, Yoshi, you got a reaction!

Next up is a creature who goes by the terrifying Wu-style alias of "Katie Burgess", or as her parents called her, Sheepish Lord of Chaos:

She's Anneka Rice isn't she?

Could be, Katie, could be. Certainly haven't seen her around for a while. They still have a wax-work of Anneka in Madam Tussaud's, you know. In full Treasure Island regalia, hanging off a little ladder. No wax-work of the cowlady, however, but it can only be a Matter of Time.

Crystal Nicholson. Crystal Nicholson. Sounds like a rather exotic technique for taking some kind of inner-city stimulant, but it can't be, as it has this to say:

THE COW LADY IS THINKING, "WHAT SOME IDIOTS. WAISTING THEIR LIFE WONDERING WHAT I'M THINKING. THEY MUST NOT GET OUT MUCH."

Quite right, Crystal! Idiots! You're all idiots!!! Look at yourselves! Trying to empathise with a hurriedly sketched painting!! Crystal mocks you ALL, and so do ... Oh. I'm bothering to update an internet with your responses, aren't I? I'm just as bad. I even tried several different colour schemes for this table. I could be out talking to girls. I've got a family to feed, goddamn you all!!!

Tall Dave vents his throat:

Oh thats my mates mum. Darren sort these guys out. Showing such degrading pictures of your famile like that. Mind u she has got nice udders

It is not you mate's mum. The very thought. If it were, he should be proud of her. She holds herself with such dignity. And get your eyes off her udders, they're not for you, are they?

And then we have Rogan Hamilton-Roberts:

I've just bought the Steps L.P. and I'm learning the moves. It rocks...And
makes my udders go hard.

I can see how Steps might do that to a cow. I'm not sure if that's a good thing, udder-wise.  I mean, they need to be tough, but not actually hard.  Try for the consistency of cloud, that should sort you out, Rogan.  Some Mazzy Star should help.

Daniel Valdez is an angry young man:

MOOO shes thinking MOOO damn it dont you people know how cows think?

That may well be how cows think, Daniel, but this lovely creature is a cow lady - a creature of intellect, a creature of refinement, and a creature of feelings. There's more going on in her head than the forlorn lowing of cattle. I know. I've seen her ... poetry.

Kahuna say:

she is thinking...man.....i shouldn't have had all 658463 of those martinis last night...that ain't butter in the churn...

She does look somewhat worse for wear... although I happen to know she is a responsible mother. But Kahuna raises another interesting question: what is in the churn?

This is Clarrie:

she's thinking, 'why does the writing on my churn appear to be in hebrew, what mysteries does it contain?' Just because she's a cow-lady doesn't mean she isn't deep.

yrs, clarrie

The photographer, Arthur Rogers, wants to get in on this one, contributing for the first time on the debate that he set helter-skeltering into being ooh, almost six months ago. "Clarrie sounds like a girl. Is it not obvious that it says: 'CHURN' but in mangled up, badly reproduced handwriting? Maybe it is Hebrew, maybe it is the 'key' to the Kabbala, allowing Hassidic Rabbis to decipher the Torah and hail the coming of the Messiah. Although it seems unlikely. Still. Check out her bovine knockers! Cor!" Thanks, Arthur! Thanks, Clarrie!

Lildog143 reckons:

what she's really thinkin about is how much she looks like the mona lisa. she has a happy but blank expression on her face that holds a true mystery. a mystery truer than the hebrew writing on the butter churn. well that's what I think at least.

thanks, lil

Thank you, Lil. She does look like the Mona Lisa, now you come to mention it. Blonder, more bovine perhaps, but if Da Vinci had lived in Austria, he may well have come up with something not a million miles from the photo at the top of this page. And she is an enigma, you're right. Nothing to disagree with there. Next!

GarPsu of Worecestershire writes:

To be truthful, I know what she is thinking. She is wondering how long it will be until her sexy man comes home from that big farmhouse. You know, the one with the MOOOOO's coming out like a scream rolling out of a young and innocent child's mouth. She is awaiting the return of her lover so that he will be there when their child is born. She is frightened. I can see the emptiness in her soul without her husband to stand by her. Can't you see the tears in her eyes?? Can't you see the sorrow?? Look at her! Look at the poor widowed woman. She has no clue that her man went to the slaughter house. Look at her! Sympathize her! These people write as if they know her. They call her names and look at her nakedness. Just think, she is lost in the world, and you people are here cracking jokes about this poor cowlady?! Just look at her, can't you feel her pain?

I can feel her pain, but then I've got my hand resting on her flank as I type this. My left hand.

Richard Thom, step to the mic:

in actuality, i think you're all a bit off. the churn is just a pleasing metaphor for the feeling the grand cowlady has in one of her many stomachs. she's really thinking of how they turned aunt minerva into those tiny sausages perfect for serving at parties.

My, it's sunny outside. Just look over there ... ... keep looking ... see ya!

Stephen Diver takes time out from slaughtering hens to say:

She is thinking, how did I come to be here, on a screen with lots and lots of PINK writing, when I could be on th ecover of Vogue. I'm worth so much more Godammit - you people sicken me. All I ever wanted was an uddertube that fits....

Cover of Vogue? Or Gorilla Salad? Which do you think she'd rather be on? Hmmm??? HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM???????????????

Julio reckons:

The Cowlady is thinking about that love affair she's been having with Farmer Brown, and how she hopes the plastic surgery which converted her udders into breasts will make him want to visit more often. (I wouldn't be surprised if this very image was found in the back of Farmer Brown's Bible that he "reads" every night.) Your friend in cow porn, Julio

Thing is, Farmer Brown's been shagging the Seapigs, - leastways, we found some sushi laced with Spanish Fly in his pockets... it's all very complicated, isn't it? Shall we start a soap? Fuck off!

Is Niall Webster here? Niall Webster? .. .. NIALL!!!!! Speak up, lad.

The Cow Lady...the cow lady is beautiful...beauty incarnate. She thinks nothing; her mind is like a slate - imagine a slate...imagine one...PROPERLY...now; now your mind is like hers. Now you bond, like atoms. Or Oxo.

That's one of the scariest suggestions so far. Still, it's all gravy.

Murray, Ross:

The fine figure of a woman that she is, is thinking, 'If it wasn't for the fact that I was big meaty heifer I'd probably be working the till at Iceland and feeling my fillets with the same look of disdain that ages and embitters all the other cows in the queue! My only saving grace is the fact that I had the courage to take the bull by the horns and make that happy snapper click-clack till he knew where his bread (and butter) was coming from.'

Ross has several tons of communications satellite at his disposal. A nudged switch, a missed warning light or a spilled can of Tizer and it all comes crashing down on our heads. And yet he somehow finds time to look into the mind of a made-up cow!! Thanks, Ross!

It's the swooningly-named Camille Moonbeamswirly:

The LadyCow is contemplating the possibilites of reaching those far-away moons of her musings. Daydreams of sweet, glittery, unkown and unexplored galaxies give her hope...a brighter day will come! When she closes her eyes, she can see herself in her new world, peaceful and content in a bovine paradise. She knows she can do it; she can reach the zenith of her mind! If only she could get her back feet on top of the churn...

Aw! That's the most beautiful response we've had, Camille. I'm ... crying. Really, I am. OI!!! YOU LOT!!! Why can't you be more like Camille?