Ben Machell marvels at the unlikely two-legged stars of London Zoo
Last week, for the first time in my adult life, I went to a zoo.
I’d been before, once, in Chester when I was three. But after that? Never. I’d like to say this was due to a moral objection to keeping animals in captivity, but I think the real reason was simply that there just aren’t that many zoos around. They’re certainly not as commonplace or accessible as popular culture — specifically children’s books — tries to make out. But whatever. On a bright spring morning, my kids, my girlfriend and I spent the day at London Zoo.
And the animals were all… fine. Totally fine. Perhaps it was my lack of experience in such matters but they didn’t seem to be putting in a massive amount of… I dunno… effort? One gorilla was fast asleep. Ditto the lions. I suspect I’ve had my expectations of charismatic megafauna unrealistically warped by YouTube clips of animals performing outrageous stunts in the same way that teenage boys have had their expectations of sex warped by online porn. This made me feel a little ashamed and I resolved to cut them some slack. It was, after all, a Sunday morning. I wasn’t firing on all cylinders either.
That said, I loved seeing the tigers being fed. I was jealous of the zookeeper doing it: I genuinely cannot think of anything more satisfying than lobbing chunks of raw meat over a high fence. The sight and sounds of the whole thing — the gentle whizz, the soft splat — was deeply therapeutic.
But more than anything, I enjoyed seeing the other punters. For some reason there seemed to be loads of goths. Very little makes me happier than seeing goths out and about on a sunny day, doing fun things, big smiles on their bone-white faces. I also liked the three cool, young French guys who got incredibly excited by the giant tortoise, and I enjoyed the slew of new parents with prams who would stare, unblinking, at the fish in the aquarium for hours at a time. My favourites, though, were the kids who’d make sure that word spread like wildfire whenever it seemed as if an animal was on the verge of doing a poo. These tweenage whistleblowers made sure no act of defecation went unobserved or unremarked, and I respected their commitment. Animals are good but people are better. I’ll be coming here again.
