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Okapis and a tribe of hairy women
It is a relief to discover some things have not changed. In the local Pitshangar Village post office, a hand illustrated billboard cautions customers to beware of Royal Mail swine fever, the symptoms of which are an attack on full-time employment and public services, a disregard for employees’ terms and conditions, the closure of mail centres, the loss of and fall in basic pay, and cuts to employees’ pension schemes. Customers are asked to support their local postal workers, in consideration of which there is the defiant declaration that “we will not be silenced and we will not be bullied and we will not be defeated.” Over the last week a series of 24 hour strikes have been held in London, Birmingham, Coventry and Edinburgh over proposed cuts to job numbers and what has been described as the Royal Mail employers’ refusal to negotiate. Lorry drivers are due to join in soon and a national strike ballot is now on the cards.
We will support the local postal worker of course if for no other reason that they are always courteous and helpful when we go in, and have given us tips on how to save quite a bit of money when sending parcels back to New Zealand. This includes such things as writing “small packet” on small packets, which apparently qualifies senders for a lower postage rate. We would have thought that a small packet would have been quite evident by its weight and size but such are Royal Mail rules and regulations that if it is not correctly identified, then it could be mistaken for a large packet or an odd-shaped letter and different charges could apply. It was enough to have us consider going down to the West London Trade Union Club in Acton for eight or nine pints and a game of darts before dinner.
On the subject of dinner, the sun is out and it’s barbeque time. Londoners are confused, a little like Christchurch folk; at the first sign of a good day they will abandon all sense (and sometimes clothes) and try and stay outdoors long into the evening. Christchurch has its easterly wind to combat and in London it simply doesn’t get hot enough to justify venturing too far outdoors, but nevertheless we have bought the chops and sausages for what will be our second barbeque inside a week. But here’s a rub, we feel as though these barbeques are something of a socio-ecological contradiction. On one hand we feel good because we buy Fair Trade instant barbeques from the Co-op which use charcoal from Namibia sourced “only from unwanted trees, allowing overgrown land to become productive again”. We are told that the charcoal producers get three times the minimum wage and access to health-care and interest free loans. But on the other hand, these are throwaway barbeques with non biodegradable aluminum foil bases and grill which, after twenty or thirty minutes use, are dispatched to the local landfill. Thank goodness summer is such a brief affair in London; if not we would have to resolve this dilemma.
We learned something quite new this week and that is there is an animal called an Okapis. The guidebook describes them as secretive animals, with people in the Western World only learning of their existence early in the 20th century, first in 1901. Given that we were born a little later than that, we thought we may have heard of them, but not so. They look quite like horses with a Zebra’s rear end, but are actually the closest living relative of the giraffe.
We learned this when we took the Moodie children to the London Zoo, and we learned a few other things too including that the name gorilla derives from the Greek word gorillai meaning a tribe of hairy women. We would not make this up. Also in the mix at this particular zoo was a wide range of animals we have never previously seen: Giants of the Galapagos, the largest tortoises in the word which live to 150 years of age, can weigh up to 250 kilograms and look to be about 1.2 metres across the shell; Komodo dragons; warthogs and bearded pigs; black-capped squirrel monkeys into whose enclosure the public is allowed; Toucan birds which we don’t think we’ve seen before but which look exactly like the ones on the Guinness beer ads; the Scarlett Ibis which is a stunningly vivid red but refuses to sit still to be photographed; hornbills; African hunting dogs; an anteater; and vultures, some with amazingly coloured heads. Then there were the standards: tigers and lions, the latter with some very cute little cubs, pelicans and flamingos, penguins and parrots, and the little meercats. But perhaps what caught our eye, unexpectedly so, were the otters who frolicked in their pool and showed off to the crowd. They were quite a delight.
By the time we reached home there were two more exhibits on display, the elderly couple who took the children to the zoo snoozing, exhausted, on the couch.