Evil. Black and White

I was at home putting Lara Croft in danger (by pointlessly swan-diving into completely dry watering holes) when Smurfy rang me and told me there was going to be some Panda gear on the news.

Now, I’d already been let down by the black and white bastards once this week, when one of the channels promised me some of their work and it ended up being ten seconds of “… are finally presented to Taiwan” and that was about it.

What had happened, I gather, is that there had been a lengthy delay delivering the two pandas and the Taiwanese were just about to get all up in China’s face about it. An international crisis was averted when the boof-heads were finally handed over. I would like to stress that I had no part in this particular deal, but being the world reviled expert on monochromatic mammals that I am, I was duty bound to watch the next instalment in the insidious rise of the bear.

Tonight’s offering from the panda camp was a parade of immature, immobile bludgers, all carried out on stage to the delight of the crowd. These were the ones that had been saved or conceived or built or trapped or dug up or whatever… (details, pah) since the big earthquakes in China.

If you look at the posture and the expression on a panda’s face when it is being carried out on stage by a woman of slightly less than half its weight, you will be struck by the dopey gormlessness. The flaccid hanging of the forelimbs over the woman’s arm, the drooping tummy and boneless back legs dangling in front of her as she fights to carry the sack of wet fur into the limelight to be admired. Admired for what? Being fatally relaxed?

What you would also be struck by, as we cut to exciting footage of pandas ‘escaping’ the quakes (being carried by long-suffering tiny woman again), is that being dragged to safety looks exactly the same as being dragged into the spotlight. Even with buildings and geological features tumbling down around it, the posture and expression is exactly the same one it has when people are baying for its autograph.

Nothing can be that oblivious. They must be so deeply engrossed in thought that earthquakes or rock concerts make no difference to them.

The question needs to be asked.

What are they planning?