The journey into work this morning was especially miserable. The weather a depressing funeral cocktail of grey and wet, and the train even more broken and slow and full of people than usual. Heavy sighs and despair all around. But then - what's this? - a ray of sunshine breaks through the window of my monitor and fills my heart with joy and happiness and beau🐭tiful feelings. Today, I thank the internet for cheering me up with this p🐼icture of an actual real hedgehog wearing Sonic the Hedgehog shoes:

Above: Awww

To help raise awareness of the potentially grim future facing Britain's hedgehogs, Sega created a dedicated road crossing for some snout-faced balls of cute. The photo opportunity stunt conveniently coincided with this week's release of Sonic Colouܫrs. But still, raging cynicism aside, if Sega hadn't put Sonic shoes on a hedgehog, I would never have known that our brave little hogs of the hedge are in such perilous danger.

Above: Sega's temporary hedgehog crossing in Twickenham, London.Mrs Tiggy Winklewas unavailable for comment

And, just to clarify, I did get in touch with Sega and they confirmed that the hedgehog-wearing-shoes picture is genuine and n💝ot a photoshop job. Apparently the animals used are publicity hedgehogs and are trained and tame and had a lovely time. Which is good to know.

Anyway, hedgehogs - Britain would be rubbish without them and they look good in shoes. A🔥lso, Sonic Colours is out tomorrow.

November 11, 2010