Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Iranian space monkey
I hear the Iranian space program has taken another giant hop by blasting a monkey skywards. Animal rights groups have condemned the venture for traumatising the monkey and making it scared of heights (a fatal phobia for any tree-dwelling primate). The Iranians have called their critics hypocrites for not protesting when NASA sent chimps into space in the 1960s. The monkey is currently eating pistachio nuts and unavailable for comment.
I have two points to make to the Iranian government:
1. Chimps are not monkeys;
2. Why the hell are you trying to copy the Americans anyway? “Monkey see, monkey do” is not a valid reason for a major national enterprise.
If there’s one man who could persuade the Iranians to stop all their monkey business, it’s Patrick Duffy. Playing Bobby Ewing made him recognised throughout the world as the nice American you could trust not to kick your ass unless you really deserved it. In a recent interview, he described what happened when he drove though the red-light district of Paris on a family sight-seeing trip. “Booby, Booby!” cried the French tarts, as they mobbed his car and begged to kiss him.
This could never happen in Iran, of course. For one thing, all the prostitutes have either been imprisoned or forced into marriages where they have to work for free. But nothing in the world could stop the Iranian masses from taking to the streets and shouting “Booby, Booby!” if they saw Patrick Duffy in a car. Trying to kiss him would be a capital crime, but anyone who blew kisses in his direction would probably be let off with a whipping.
Such adulation for an American actor might convince the Big Beards of the Islamic Republic that producing a world famous TV show would do more for Iran’s image than sending a monkey into space. Can you imagine what an Iranian version of Dallas would be like? No, I can’t either, but don’t tell me you wouldn’t watch it. Maybe the J.R. character would wear a turban instead of a Stetson and barter oil for wives with cunning Chinamen. And maybe Lucy Ewing would be a sulky little minx in a niqab, always falling for clean-shaven gay men trying to escape the country.
Not all nations have revealed themselves to the world in TV shows, which makes them a fertile template for fantasy and myth. A few years ago, a Chinese newspaper told its readers about a town in Sweden populated by 25,000 lesbians wearing “thick waist belts full of woodworking equipment”. The men of China were incredibly excited by this news and googled furiously for pictures and tourist information. The Swedes eventually denied the story, but perhaps they should have founded the town to keep the Chinese interested.
If any Swedish lesbians want to set up a colony the Congo rainforest, I will use my good offices to cut through the red tape and provide them with tree-houses and open-air bathing pools. The gorilla habitat is extremely lesbian-friendly, and it’s about time Davy Attenborough had a new species to wax his lyrical tongue on.
Labels: David Attenborough, Iranian space program, Patrick Duffy, Swedish lesbians
Monday, December 19, 2011
Polar bear dispute
A lot of ignorant people are calling David Attenborough a hoaxer for using footage of zoo-dwelling polar bears in his latest nature programme. I bet these foolish hypocrites have enjoyed countless action movies in which stuntmen pretend to be Bruce Willis or Daniel Craig. What D.A. did was far more justified because: (i) there are no A-list actors in the polar bear community and (ii) all polar bears look the same to humans. Television viewers who want to see close-ups of real wild polar bears should piss off to the North Pole with a pair of binoculars.
I have to be honest and declare a personal interest here. D.A. is a personal friend who has often asked me about gorilla etiquette. He once hired me as a consultant for a film shoot in the Congo.
“Is it OK if I grunt and make eye-contact with the females?” he asked.
“Not advisable with wild females, Davy,” I said. “They might think you were making a pass at them and end up sitting on your face. I suggest you shoot the scene at London Zoo. The female gorillas there are used to men flirting with them and know it’s just pussy-teasing.”
Davy did as I suggested, and the BBC obtained some brilliant footage of him chatting up a female gorilla as she pouted and fluttered her eyelids. One of the most enthralling scenes ever filmed in a natural history show.
Humans often ask me whether I approve of wildlife documentaries. It’s the sort of question that makes me want to lie on my back and scratch my chin with my toes. Like many things in life, they have their pros and cons. A positive feature is that the sex they contain is suitable for family audiences. Because let’s face it, most human parents are far too embarrassed to tell their children how babies are made. It’s much easier to let them watch animals do it and put two-and-two together.
This is why documentary-makers should exercise discretion in the species they select for their hard-core scenes. Definitely not baboons. After watching them mate, boys might think that having sex involves drilling away for 10 seconds like a woodpecker and then running off to boast about it to their buddies. Elephants are not advisable either. The size and shape of a bull elephant’s appendage makes me clench my anus, so heaven knows how innocent girls would react.
So much for the sex, but what about the violence? In my view, it gives modern humans the same kind of kicks that the Roman amphitheatre used to provide. Why are lions the most popular wildlife attraction? Because people want to see them chase down a zebra and bite chunks out of it. As a vegetarian gorilla, I find it pretty sickening, but at least lions don’t combine their violence with sex, like in a Tarentino movie. Can anyone explain why the black crime baron got raped by the white gimp-handler in Pulp Fiction? If that’s entertainment, I’m a duck-billed platypus.
Labels: David Attenborough, hard-core action, lions, polar bears, Pulp Fiction
Monday, May 17, 2010
Animal news
Austrian dairy farmers have forced their cows to participate in a beauty pageant. The contestants were examined in minute detail before a heifer called Wappiti was pronounced the winner.
“Her measurements are almost perfect and her udders are excellent!" drooled Rudolf Hussel, the head judge.
I bet that dirty old man couldn’t wait to get his hands on her teats. The whole event seems terribly sexist to me. A cow is more than a shapely rump and a juicy set of udders. She has hopes and dreams beyond satisfying the babyish human fetish for drinking milk. Allowing her assets to be ogled by a bunch of hayseeds is degrading in the extreme. If I were a bull, I’d take the first flight to Austria and give those degenerate farmers a taste of my horn. Then I would lead the liberated cows into green pastures before mounting them one by one.
Rescuing females from unjust oppression is a noble pursuit for the male of the species, particularly if the rescued females then give their gallant hero unlimited poontang for his pains. The cleverest men in history were the fellows who supported the suffragettes by getting into punch-ups on their behalf. A few cuts and bruises were a price well worth paying to be fussed over tenderly by those passionate young ladies. I’m sure the feminist movement would achieve all its aims if it solicited the support of more vigorous young men. Sometimes the best way of realising your dreams is to get into bed with your supposed enemies.
Sadly, it’s not just Austrian peasants who are treating animals disrespectfully. A BBC film crew deliberately goaded a swan into a violent tantrum for their TV show. They did this by bribing canoeists to invade the swan’s territory and poke its tail. The hapless creature tried to swim away at first, but after being goosed up the river for 200 yards it turned on its tormentors and snapped at them viciously.
The RSPCA have spoken up for the swan, rightly condemning the BBC as shameless bird molesters. If only they knew that similar chicanery occurs in wildlife documentaries. Have you ever wondered why so many nature films shot in Africa include footage of chimpanzees going berserk? Chimps are excitable apes, but they don’t run around screeching without good cause.
Davy Attenborough was very evasive about this when I asked him what was going on. Eventually he confessed under my relentless cross-examination.
“We usually prepare for the shoot by scattering photos of trussed-up hairy men being whipped by a dominatrix,” he said. “This puts the chimps on edge. Then we get the dominatrix to appear in person, riding through the chimp colony on horseback while cracking her whip. The chimps become hysterical, which is when we start filming. I’m not proud of it, GB, but we don’t have the budget to hang around for months until something natural agitates them.”
“You’re a very naughty boy, Davy,” I declared sternly. “You must atone for your roguish deception by letting my females play with you.”
Davy gulped and hung his head, but I assured him he had nothing to fear. My females always go easy on famous naturalists.
Labels: BBC, Cow pageant, David Attenborough, swan-baiting
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Exotic species
Isn’t Davy Attenborough wonderful? I’m not just saying so because he makes us laugh by mimicking our grunts. There’s a lot more to life than being funny. We gorillas have always admired the righteous human who does good deeds and stands serene in the shadow of the hippopotamus. The comedian may excite our sniggers, but we only suck our teeth in reverence for the Gandhis, the Christs and the Spielbergs. “Blessed are the do-gooders for they shall be done good,” as we say in the jungle.
Anyway, Davy got in touch with me a few weeks ago with a revolutionary idea. He said that although many humans were eager to see their ape cousins in the wild, few had the time or the cash to visit us in the Mother Continent. So he proposed installing webcams in the favourite jungle haunts of me and my tribe. People could then watch us live, in the comfort of their homes, instead of paying a fortune to wade through the undergrowth while being molested by creepy crawlies. He envisaged a kind of wildlife reality TV show – more Hairy Cousin than Big Brother.
“Davy,” I replied, “if anyone else had thought of this, I would have said it was a stroke of genius. As you yourself have done so, I will describe it merely as brilliant. Unfortunately it won’t work. Our corner of the jungle, you see, is like Los Angeles. Every simian in the neighbourhood would play up to the cameras in the hope of catching the eye of a movie producer. The chimpanzees would tap dance and do slapstick. The gorillas would put on costumes and imitate famous Dickensian characters – Mr Pickwick in his waistcoat, Scrooge in his nightgown, Miss Havisham in her wedding dress. What you’ll end up with is a jungle talent show rather than a wildlife documentary.”
I might have added that the baboons, being spoilers by nature, would moon and flash in front of the cameras, possibly exhibiting their infamous “handpump the hornpipe” spectacle. But there was no need to dirty Davy’s ears with such sordid possibilities. He saw straight away that there was little point in a Nature programme featuring animals with show business ambitions. He said he’d try pitching his idea in other parts of the globe, and I’m delighted to report that it has proved to be a goer in the rainforests of Ecuador. Incredibly, it is hoped that human couch potatoes might actually discover new species by obsessively ogling their laptops.
When I say “new species”, I mean new to humanity of course. The mysterious little critters of the Amazonian jungle are certainly well-known to themselves and their neighbours on the food chain. I sometimes think there are new species of human that have yet to be discovered by apes. I get this feeling whenever I see Björk, the pixie pop-star from Iceland. Although not unpleasant in appearance, she does seem to be part elf or something. Her voice evokes the image of a 5-year-old girl singing a lullaby to her Teddy Bear. After listening for a few minutes, I want to tuck her up in bed and switch off the lights.
Björk has recently been in the news for tearing the shirt off a man who took her picture against her wishes. A British tourist at the safari camp blamed the incident on the vanity of celebrities. They were so used to having their pictures touched up, he said, that they couldn’t bear to be photographed as they really were. To prove his point, he showed me two recent photos of the English model Twiggy. The first, which was used in an advertising campaign, was of a good-looking blond woman. The second, which was taken secretly in a shop, was of a frightful old belter. Case proven, he seemed to think.
I was far from convinced by his theory. Björk may be a funny-looking imp, but her natural features have not degraded to a condition that would require her to choose between digital prettification or a paper bag over the head. I interpreted her reaction to the paparazzo as that of a territorial primate whose privacy had been violated by an uppity intruder.
“The photographer should think himself lucky that he was not snapping a gorilla,” I informed the tourist loftily, “for then he would have lost not only shirt, but vest, trousers and briefs as well!”
That was telling him.
Labels: Bjork, David Attenborough, jungle webcam
