Cramped conditions

Sometimes the world feels tinier than an undersized pygmy shrew's brain. When I look at so-called entertainment news that gives twenty-four hour coverage of the aftermath of Britney Potter shaving her head, when I look at what people are reading on the metro and it's so often the same old Harry Spears book, I'm not surprised, yet I vomit from surprise.

The world is a-bubble with interesting books to read, including those from the deep past which you haven't read yet. It is brimming with unprocessed people, all kinds of people, with all kinds of features, bottle-nosed thoughts and droopy ideas. There is so much diversity and yet everyone is crowding around the same old people and the same old books.

At the zoo everyone is around the penguin pit. I can't breathe. I can't move. I'm choking on little kid's fumes and the frazzled beard of the man in front of me and I can't see anything. There's plenty of space over in front of the water-hogs but of the 300 or so animal species at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, penguins are always ranked in the viewing top ten. But why? Because two people stopped to tie up their shoelaces so some other people thought something interesting must be going on over there. They were followed by more people with the same idea and so on until there is a whole crowd trying to spot the penguins, although in fact the penguins' enclosure is closed for renovations and meanwhile the waterhogs are having an orgy.

Let's face it, penguins, cute as they may be, are fashionable. With films like La Marche de l'empereur, Happy Feet and Farce of the Penguins, splattered all over the world, I wasn't surprised when the latest issue of Australian Geographic featured a story on penguins.

What about rorquals? what about chinese water deer? what about muskrats? What about pine martens? what about badgers? what about PYGMY SHREWS?

Ok I admit it, I'm just listing animals from the book I've been reading called Fauna Brittanica and perhaps all these animals are especially interesting to me because I come from the Southern Hemisphere and I've never actually seen some of these animals in the flesh. But really, it's good to know that there's a lot more going on in the wild than penguins shaving their heads and appearing nude in plays.