This is the home of occassional rantings of an American expat who has moved to the United Kingdom.
"It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And though we are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are made weak by time and fate, but strong in will; To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
lyrics of Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson
26 May 2011
London Zoo
So, what to do on a nice spring day whilest 'under-employed' in London? Go to the 2010 favourite attraction, the London Zoo. The London Zoo boasts being the 'oldest scientific zoo', founded over 180 years ago and is the heart of London, in Regents Park. It was opened on 27 April 1828,and was originally intended to be used as a collection for scientific study. It opened to the public in 1847.Located in the middle of the city, it has plenty of animals to see including lions, camels, giraffes, penguins, tigers, monkeys, sheep [yes, sheep] and meerkats. But no elephants!
Read more: http://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/
Pam and I went, and I think we saw the entire zoo ... except the aquarium. Apparently, fish are boring. We went into the reptile house [I have brothers and she has boys] and we watched a bug demonstration with a hissing beetle that Pam wanted to pet [why?], but no fish. This week on Friday the new penguin beach opens.
So, about the meerkats. Have you ever stopped and thought about why they are so popular? They are essentially prairie dogs and although there are prairie dogs in all of the US zoos that I have been to, there are not big lines of people waiting to see them pop out of their tunnels. There are some, but they are not the 'rock star' status that the meerkat enjoys.
I have a theory: Disney released a little movie in 1994 called 'The Lion King'. In it, Timon made all of us aware of meerkats. In fact, the next year, 1995, I went on safari when in both Kenya and South Africa, and the college students I was traveling with always asked the drivers if we could see meerkats. They were like, 'huh?' Lions, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, and hippos, yes! Warthogs, maybe. Meerkats? Anyway, here in the UK they are HUGELY popular as a car insurance company has created a meerkat colony as their sponsor for their commercial advertising. They even opened their own store in London ... not to buy insurance, but to buy meerkat 'stuff' and so that 'Aleksander' could launch his autobiography.
Lastly, at the height of our employment, we had about 80 staff members, 60 of which were based on London. Our office was FULL! And when one of my staff who worked from home, mostly, was in the office, she noticed a lot of ... energy that came from the many 20-somethings whom seemed to be in crisis a LOT. She used to refer to the group as 'the meerkats'. This, of course, quickly caught on and I think she was flooded with meerkat gifts, especially around Christmas, and especially because you can find them EVERYWHERE here in London. Even I managed to score a few!
