Walking With Pandas
‘TODAY’S news is sure to have the self-styled creatives who run the TV schedules spluttering into their mochachinos and celebrating that they’ve found a couple of new formats.
| ”You are the weakest link. Goodbye” |
They will have read the news in the Express that in little over 50 years from now a third of all non-human mammals will be extinct.
That in itself suggests a TV gameshow, one where cape pygmy owls and panda bears do battle to see who will live and who will go the way of the dodo.
Dying With Pandas will be a sure-fire hit for the Beeb.
But better is the variant on the current theme of the Brits who seek new lives abroad as we learn how the Scottish crossbill may need to move to Iceland to survive as its native habitat warms up under global warming.
Cameras will follow Hamish as he and his young family take a flight to Reykjavik and set up home on the tundra.
Will the Crossbills survive their first winter abroad? Will their berry groves bear fruit? Will the locals be friendly or peck them to within an inch of death?
It is sure to be every bit as captivating as the current TV output.
Indeed, if Hamish could move in with a female red-necked Phalaropes while her husband makes a flight in the opposite direction, so very much the better.
There are enough permutations to make the mind of a television executive boggle.
But when it comes to future TV stars there can be none more incandescent than a three-year-old border collie named Benjamin.
The Mail hears Ben’s agent, Clive Pendly, claim that his dog is the smartest pooch in the world.
Benjamin knows the names of 56 different toys (his cuddly stegosaurus never fails to impress), can pick up litter and place it in a bin and most probably wrote the article in the paper.
So clever is he that he is to feature on a TV show to find Britain’s cleverest pet. Of course, we already knew that he would.
And, like you, we look forward to the show and the chance to ask Benjamin which animals he thinks will not be around in 50 years time – and if he thinks a soap opera about pets for pets and by pets is too ahead of its time.’
Posted: 8th, January 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
