Tag: feeding

7 Reasons The Zoo Is My Habitat

Last week I did something I hadn’t done since I was a boy. I went to the zoo. I’m not going to lie, I immediately felt at home. Here’s why:

Zoolympics Challlenge 1: Stick Your Head Through A Set Of Shark Dentures And Look Sexy

1. Playground. As I may have expressed before, I am a boy trapped in a man’s body. Though whose it is, I am yet to establish. I have never grown up and I don’t intend to. I like being silly. Silly is good. I also like swinging from things while being silly. I saw monkeys at the zoo. They were being silly. And swinging. And picking their noses. It looked awesome. Well, maybe not the picking the nose bit. That made me a little bit sick. But the silliness and the swinging was definitely for me. I want to do that.

2. Sleep. Generally, after I’ve had a day of being silly and swinging around the clothes line, I like to have a sleep. Unfortunately I am prevented in this pursuit by one of two things. Either Claire arrives home or, as sometimes happens, Claire is already at home. Such appearances from my future wife make it very hard to sleep when there are important things to do such as make dinner, plan weddings* or – and the notion still makes me shiver – talk. At the zoo, there was silliness, swinging and sleeping. A whole lot of sleeping.

3. Talk. As previously indicated, I’m not a big fan of talking. I absolutely loathe small-talk. And, as for big-talk, I would rather do a naked lap of St. Andrews. (The football ground, not the golf course. My embarrassment does not need enhancing by the cold Scottish winds). It’s not that I’m uninterested in what you have to say, it’s more that The Tremeloes said Silence Is Golden and I have never stopped listening to them. The thing I noticed at the zoo was that animals don’t talk. Not even a little bit. They make weird noises occasionally – which is nice – but there’s no talking. And no animals asking other animals to talk to them either. Which means more time for silliness, swinging and sleeping. They’ve got it sorted.

4. Feeding. Some of the animals are fed upwards of four times a day. And I’m not talking about snacks here, I am talking proper meals. Four proper meals. Each day. That’s my kind of feeding.

5. Chores. With the exception of the ants who seemingly work all day and all night carrying bits of leaf over logs, non of the animals at the zoo have to work. Or go to school. Or get the shopping in. Or iron their trousers. (In fact, many of the animals I saw were naked). Animals, from what I have seen, don’t do any of the boring stuff at all. They’ve never had to write essays on Pride & Prejudice. They’ve never had to stand in a queue at the bank. They’ve never experienced an episode of Time Team. Their work-life balance is perfect. No work, all life. And life, as I’m sure we can all agree, is for living. It is not for spending in Barclays.

6. Vanity. It’s an alarming statistic, but if I was to walk down the entire length of Regent Street ten times in a row, only on seven of those would someone stop and take a photo of me. For someone who fancies themselves quite as much as I do and does their very best to live up to the meaning of their name – Gift Of God – it’s rather upsetting when someone just walks past without even so much as a raise of the eyebrow. In the zoo though, everyone would be taking photos of me. I’d probably even appear on postcards and desktop backgrounds and t-shirts. And that is the way it should be.

7. Olympic Qualities. As I was walking around the zoo I was challenged to a number of Olympic contests. The Zoolympics they called it. A name that made me chuckle uncontrollably for at least twenty-two seconds. From what I experienced the Zoolympics were designed to belittle me. In less than three hours I discovered that my reaction time was slower than the Blue Dart Frog, my wingspan was shorter than the Wandering Albatros and my backside wasn’t as stripy as Okapi. Which all leads me to believe that if I want to win Gold at anything, anytime soon, I need to move to the zoo to be pumped full of whichever Performance Enhancing Drugs the zookeepers have access to. I felt stupid being outwitted by a frog. Really, really stupid. But at least I beat my Dad.

*You do only have one wedding don’t you? It’s just that having booked both the church and the reception venue there is apparently so much still to do. How? I would like to know how?

September 7, 2011
7 Reasons To Borrow A Cat Flap

Last night, upon viewing a Felix advert, my girlfriend – not for the first time – announced she wanted a cat. Upon enquiring as to why she didn’t get one, I was told that we don’t have a cat flap. (To be honest, I had noticed this before). Sensing my girlfriend’s disappointed I then suggested that perhaps we could borrow our next door neighbour’s cat flap. I didn’t share the seven reasons as to why this is a great idea then, because I wanted to share them with everyone who has a cat flap problem now. (And, I didn’t have seven reasons on me at the time). Here they are:

One flap, half a cat

1. Collection Service. It won’t make any difference to the cat whose flap they enter. The reason a cat enters the home is because they have had enough of being outside. At least that’s my logical conclusion. As a result, all you need is an arrangement with your neighbours. Whenever the cat enters their flap they get on the phone, you whip round, pick it up and bring it home. Then, the next day, you just take the cat round to your neighbours and let it make its own mind up on when it wants to leave the house via the flap.

2. Annoying. As with humans, I imagine a proportion of cats are very indecisive. They’re not sure whether they want to be in or out which means a lot of cat flap exit and entry. Thankfully, it’s your neighbours who will have to put up with the constant opening and shutting of the flap. You, quite frankly, couldn’t care less.

3. Maintenance. Due to the fact that you have an indecisive cat, the wear and tear on your neighbours cat flap is going to be acelerated. Not your problem though is it? They are the ones who will have to invest in WD40.

4. Hole In The Wall. The idea of knocking a hole in the wall to let a cat in or out scares me. What happens if a fox tries to get in? Or a rat? Or an alligator? That’s not the kind of thing I want to meet in the kitchen at 6.30am. Especially as I don’t have my eyes in at that time and as such can’t see a bloody thing. I’ll probably think my girlfriend has brought some crocodile skin boots. Which means we’ll end up having an argument. Firstly, about her choice of footwear attire and, secondly, about why I’ve bought an alligator to bed. I’ll win though. I’ll just tell her we should have borrowed next door’s cat flap. As I had recommended.

5. Community. The chances are that if your neighbours have a cat flap they also have a cat. As with your typical cat-based film, the two cats will argue and fight at first before slowly beginning to accept each other and like each other. They will then set out to patrol the neighbourhood together, fighting the invasion of mice and pigeons. And then presenting them on your neighbour’s carpet.

6. Worry. Now, despite never having had a cat myself, I know that owners start worrying when their feline friends don’t come home for a couple of months. If you are relying on your neighbours to tell you when your cat has returned from a day of adventure, you don’t have to worry so much. So they haven’t been in touch for a few days. That’s easily explained. They might not be in, they might be asleep or they might have moved. The cat it probably fine in Salisbury. Relax!

7. Feeding. With any luck your cat will eat the food that was supposed to be for your neighbours cat. Saving both your money and your nostrils.*

*Having recently fed a cat, I came to the conclusion that to own a cat you must have a permanently blocked nose.

March 14, 2011
7 Reasons That This Picture Is Amazing

A friend of mine sent me this picture. And it’s amazing. Here are seven reasons why.

1. It’s Cute. Just look at the sweet little pig feeding between the bigger pigs. Look how sweet and little and cute he is. Awwww. What a lovely, heart-warming, rustic scene.

2. It’s Compelling. The cute pig picture was on my monitor when my wife was walking past the room and, having glimpsed it, she was beside me within a nanosecond, looking rather flustered and seemingly unable to take her eyes off it. “Isn’t the little piggy cute?” I enquired. “Errr…er…yes”, she replied, before wandering off, looking back at it over her shoulder a couple of times as she left the room.

3. It’s Unexpected. The friend that sent me the picture of the cute pig did so in an email entitled Not What You Think. And he was right. Because usually when I get an email from him it contains some sort of smut or a horrific example of Darwinism. The last thing I expected was a nice animal picture. It seems that seeing the cute pig has brought out my friend’s better side.

4. It Brings Out Deep-Rooted Primitive Beliefs. Using my phone I showed another friend the picture of the cute piggy while we were in a bar and his reaction was extraordinary. After a couple of seconds looking at the picture, he grabbed my phone and tried to hide it under the table. I can only imagine he thought that by looking at the picture we were stealing the pig’s soul, but I never got the chance to ask because…

5. It’s Awesome. So awesome that the sight of it caused a woman seated a couple of tables behind us to gasp audibly and point, slack-jawed in our direction. This was unnerving and we left quite soon after. But not before I observed that…

6. It’s Inspirational. Because the gasping woman was obviously very taken with the cute piggy; I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but when her friend came back from the toilet she seemed very excited and spent several minutes telling her about the picture in a breathless and animated manner. She pointed many more times, and touched her ruddy cheeks a lot. The cuteness of the piggy seemed to have affected her greatly. Hormones, I expect.

7. It’s Baffling. Because I like the cute pig; I like the little fella a lot, don’t get me wrong. But other people seem extraordinarily taken with him, and there are other, cuter animal pictures out there that don’t provoke such a reaction. This one, for example:

Awww. Much cuter.

October 20, 2010