You know those horrendous pictures and videos of animal cruelty that people post on facebook? I hate seeing them, and I would never post anything like that. 

Sometimes when you scroll down your facebook feed on your phone, the videos play automatically.

A few nights ago I made the mistake of scrolling just before I went to bed, and the last thing that I saw was a video of a dog being blow-torched to death as part of the Yulin Dog Eating Festival.

It obviously has the desired impact, as the first thing I did when I got up next day was to contact the three bands and the venue that I had booked for a gig to coincide with my 50th birthday. I asked if rather than this be a regular gig, if they would be OK with it being a fundraiser for The Humane Society, the leading organization in the fight to end this barbaric festival forever.

The three bands - Terry & Gerry, The Riverside Trio and James G Creighton, along with the venue - Bootleg Social in Blackpool - unanimously replied "Count Us In!". Thanks guys!

So - the plan now is to expand the line-up, and to raise as much money as possible to help end this cruelty.

The festival is not a tradition - it started in 2009 - this year around 3000 dogs are expected to be tortured and eaten at the event.

I would like to thank the person that posted the video - even though I really didn't want to see it - for kick-starting what I hope will be a night of fantastic music raising money for a worthy cause.

To quote Johnny Depp: “If you don’t like seeing pictures of violence towards animals being posted, you need to help stop the violence, not the pictures.”