Shark Performance Art

I'm late with this story, because I had enough to write about on Wednesday and I tend to give performance art the bum's rush. But this stunt does have a useful purpose. Last Wednesday, Alice Newstead had her skin pierced with hooks and was hung in the window of the Lush cosmetics store in Regent Street, central London, for 15 minutes. Why? To protest against the barbaric practice of collecting shark fins for shark-fin soup and for use in shark cartilage supplements, which are thought to alleviate arthritis. The sharks are hooked; their valuable fins are cut off; then they're thrown back into the sea to drown. It's a slow and painful death.