A second night in Norwich meant we had the day to ourselves with no driving to do, so we met up with friends and I had a sociable day. On tour I tend to shut down this side of my life and focus on the gigs or, if there is time, other writing work, so it was fun to have a day of activities and distractions planned.
We went to
Banham Zoo with my wife's best friend and her 2 year old daughter. The weather wasn't great and the schools are back so we practically had the place to ourselves. The zoo has a competition for kids where they are given a piece of paper as they go in and then have to find six places where they can stamp a picture of an animal into the relevant box - if they get all six then they win a medal. My wife's friend asked the lady at reception for an extra form, which she happily gave us even though we only had one child with us and then the form was surreptitiously passed to me. I was going to compete against a 2 year old to see who was the best at finding the stamping stations. I was determined to show this toddler who was the boss.
I noted that on the form it said that the free medal would only be given to children under 16 years of age, which was the worst kind of discrimination. If I managed to find all the stamps then I should get a medal and I would get a medal, even if I had to pretend that I had a seriously ill child at home who I'd done all this for. But I didn't have a seriously ill child and the medal would be going into my collection of awesome medals that I have received for running and being brilliant at rowing. And then when no one was around I would put them all on and prance around the house naked.
I was not going to mention that though. I thought the story about the seriously ill child would go across better.
I am a bit torn about zoos: it's awesome and educational to be able to see exotic animals close up, but then it always feels a bit cruel and that you're visiting the animals in prison for a crime they didn't commit. As with most complex issues and unlike the zebras and penguins, it's not black and white and as much as I felt sorry for them I enjoyed mocking some of the stupider animals for their incarceration, claiming I was better than them and hoping my hubris wouldn't end up with it being revealed that we were in an episode of the Twilight Zone and in fact we were the ones in the zoo and the animals had all come here to see us.
One of the first cages we passed contained some angry looking owls- but they were always destined to look angry because of the composition of their faces. But one of them did seem a bit cross too. It was in the middle of enjoying his lunch and embarrassingly he had a little food on his face which he didn't seem to be aware of - the feet of some other bird were dangling out of its mouth and down his chin (you know if an owl can be said to have a chin, which it clearly doesn't). It was a little bit terrifying to see this bird in the process of devouring another bird and was made moreso by the fact that the owl seemed to take a dislike to me and swooped down from its perch towards me, as if to warn me off, only being stopped by the bars of the cage that kept him or me locked away depending on whether this was the Twilight Zone. It's like he thought I was eyeing up his bird legs. "I don't want your horrible bird legs, we've got some sandwiches with no bird legs in them at all," I told him, but he still looked at me threateningly and made to attack me again. It wasn't the welcome I had been hoping for and I nearly reported the owl to the management. I was paying his wages here and it seemed wrong that he had such a bad attitude towards me, like he somehow resented humanity for putting him up and giving him free bird legs to eat. "You look like an idiot with those bird legs in your mouth," I taunted him, "Don't you even realise that you are a bird yourself? You've really let the side down here." His response was again to attempt an attack. He was too stupid to remember that he couldn't get me because of the cage. "You twit. Twit-twoo," I quipped, five hours later in my dressing room. If I had thought of it at the time I think it would have destroyed him.
The other animals were more passive, though one of the tigers seemed to be eyeing me up a bit later, not in a sexual way I don't think, but I am looking pretty hot, so you never know. I was doing pretty well getting the stamps and 2 year old Ellie was rubbish at spotting them. She had to have her mum to help her. Which wasn't a fair contest. I didn't get my mum to come and help me, did I? Why should she be allowed to? I don't think she'd have even got one of the stamps if her mum hadn't been there to assist. By the end I was more obsessed with getting the stamps than I was at looking at the animals and so was Ellie's mum, who ran off leaving her child to try and beat me to the discovery of each stamping station. But don't worry, even two against one they were no match for me and at the end I was declared the winner (by myself) and enjoyed rubbing my victory in the face of the tiny child I had defeated with my superiority. Luckily the woman handing out the medals didn't ask too many questions and we both got the solid gold reward. I was going to dob in Ellie and tell the lady that she had had adult help and so didn't deserve the accolade, but I am not childish and I rose above it. She has to live the rest of her life knowing that her medal is meaningless. Whereas I can wear it knowing that I found all of these myself, apart from the giraffe one that I would have missed had Ellie's mum not given the game away as to where it was. But that's not going to keep me awake at night, in terror that someone from the zoo will come and strip me of the medal. Though I am concerned that if the zoo authorities realise the con we played on them regarding my age that I might be banned from the zoo for life and be unable to return to collect the other medals in the series.
It was good to spend the day feeling superior to children and animals though. Ellie's favourite animals were a giant dinosaur model and a cartoon baby tiger on a charity collection pot, so you might argue that we needn't really have bothered taking her to a zoo at all, or maybe that zoos needn't have actual animals in them.
I enjoyed myself a lot though and only felt a little bit sad when I saw a bald eagle tied up on a small leash sitting feet away from us, though it was also impressive (I assumed to begin with that it was just a model, but then it moved and I didn't think the zoo would have money for anamatronics like that). It was all so exciting that I fell asleep in the car on the way back to Norwich.
