The unbearable cuteness of being... a polar bear
Many young children like bears. This may be because of teddy bears. As far as I remember, my second-oldest fluffy toy was a brown teddy bear. (The oldest was a monkey that I now remember as rather threadbare.) But my particular thing about bears wasn't teddy-based. And it wasn't just about any bears: it was polar bears that fascinated me. Baby polar bears.
This is the book that did it:
I was given it when very young. As you can tell from the fact that I scanned the cover a few days ago, I still have it. It contains no fewer than 35 chapters, each one a poem, article, fable, comic, story, etc. - about bears. One of them was a real-life story about Pipaluk, a baby polar bear born at the London Zoo.
Look at him:
Now I don't know what effect that photo has on you. Probably you think it's cute. But you can't have the faintest idea how profoundly it affected a very young me. It wasn't just cute; it was the Platonic ideal of cute. I imprinted on that picture.
It was the beginning of years of obsession. In my mind I created a polar bear cult. I knew for sure that the cutest thing possible in all existence was a baby polar bear. Or "pewwa bear" as I referred to them long after I had any developmental excuse to do so. (I also decided that pewwa bears said "Maa". I have no idea why. This syllable started their national song, which was loosely based on a christmas carol and the trumpet part from Handel's Messiah. Really. But I digress.)
My mental cult didn't maintain a separate category for adult polar bears, which is why people sometimes found it strange that what they thought was a lethal half-ton stealth predator, I knew was the cutest manifestation of cuteness that ever there was. Maa, maa, maa!
Anyway, this may explain why, in early 2007, when someone suggested mercy-killing a baby polar bear called Knut who'd recently been born in a German zoo, I wasn't much affected by the collective "aaahhhh" that ran around the world. I had done "aaahhhh" over baby polar bears with a depth, duration and intensity that these part-time bunny huggers couldn't begin to comprehend. I regarded global Knut-fever with a kindly, paternalistic little smile.
I did genuinely wish the cub well but that didn't stop me giggling at the following song by Mitch Benn, which I heard on The Now Show back when
trippingowl, crackityg and I used to listen to it at home. It's 2 minutes long. Spoken intro first, then singing. I recommend you don't bother watching the pointless youtube visuals. This is meant to be radio.
Of course Knut did die, but only 4 years later, after a sadly troubled life. That was a week ago on Saturday, and that's what got me thinking about all this.
As for Pipaluk, he lived happily enough in the London Zoo; moved to Poland in 1985 (as one does); and eventually died there in 1990.
I leave you with a non-polar bear story - because my horizons have broadened, honest. By way of balance, this bear was Polish (in nationality though not in origins) and later moved to the UK after fighting the Nazis. Seriously. I give you Private Wojtek of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company.
This is the book that did it:
I was given it when very young. As you can tell from the fact that I scanned the cover a few days ago, I still have it. It contains no fewer than 35 chapters, each one a poem, article, fable, comic, story, etc. - about bears. One of them was a real-life story about Pipaluk, a baby polar bear born at the London Zoo.
Look at him:
Now I don't know what effect that photo has on you. Probably you think it's cute. But you can't have the faintest idea how profoundly it affected a very young me. It wasn't just cute; it was the Platonic ideal of cute. I imprinted on that picture.
It was the beginning of years of obsession. In my mind I created a polar bear cult. I knew for sure that the cutest thing possible in all existence was a baby polar bear. Or "pewwa bear" as I referred to them long after I had any developmental excuse to do so. (I also decided that pewwa bears said "Maa". I have no idea why. This syllable started their national song, which was loosely based on a christmas carol and the trumpet part from Handel's Messiah. Really. But I digress.)
My mental cult didn't maintain a separate category for adult polar bears, which is why people sometimes found it strange that what they thought was a lethal half-ton stealth predator, I knew was the cutest manifestation of cuteness that ever there was. Maa, maa, maa!
Anyway, this may explain why, in early 2007, when someone suggested mercy-killing a baby polar bear called Knut who'd recently been born in a German zoo, I wasn't much affected by the collective "aaahhhh" that ran around the world. I had done "aaahhhh" over baby polar bears with a depth, duration and intensity that these part-time bunny huggers couldn't begin to comprehend. I regarded global Knut-fever with a kindly, paternalistic little smile.
I did genuinely wish the cub well but that didn't stop me giggling at the following song by Mitch Benn, which I heard on The Now Show back when
trippingowl, crackityg and I used to listen to it at home. It's 2 minutes long. Spoken intro first, then singing. I recommend you don't bother watching the pointless youtube visuals. This is meant to be radio.Of course Knut did die, but only 4 years later, after a sadly troubled life. That was a week ago on Saturday, and that's what got me thinking about all this.
As for Pipaluk, he lived happily enough in the London Zoo; moved to Poland in 1985 (as one does); and eventually died there in 1990.
I leave you with a non-polar bear story - because my horizons have broadened, honest. By way of balance, this bear was Polish (in nationality though not in origins) and later moved to the UK after fighting the Nazis. Seriously. I give you Private Wojtek of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company.