Rate this enormous black and white teddy bear

The following review was penned by the lovely Debs, many thanks!

Pandas

Pandas. What a marvellous bundle of black and white furry fun they are. The Giant Panda (or ‘Daxiongmao’ to use the Chinese word) has been my favourite animal ever since I saw Chi Chi on the BBC News at the age of 3. The shrieks of joy and delight that emitted from my mouth were enough to make my parents make the very unwise decision of buying me a toy panda (Paddy). Nineteen years later and the collection of stuffed pandas has grown some what to 104, and the collection has expanded to include panda related books, videos, ornaments and novelty panda items. I’ve seen my pandas get married, have panda cubs and also in a world first, discovered the ‘long lost Uncle’ in my toy Panda Kingdom. Yes, the long lost Uncle of my original panda (Paddy) got in touch (via letters in handwriting bearing close resemblance to my Fathers) and travelled across the world in order to make it home for Christmas. Now that’s dedication.
When I was about 11, my Panda research informed me that sadly the Giant Panda was an endangered species and there were only about 1000 left in the wild. Angered and saddened by this information I made the decision there and then that I would adopt every single panda in the world. In my logic this was a do-able task, after all there were only a small amount left in the wild and I wanted to do my dammed hardest to help my furry friends. But in doing this I uncovered something about the Giant Panda. There is a darker side to the lovely, cuddly panda we all know – pandas are not all they appear to be.
I adopted my first panda – Zhu Xiong through the WWF. About a week later the adoption pack arrived which included a certificate, newsletter and photos of my newly acquired Panda. I was joyful, I was happy, I had taken my first step to achieving my dream of adopting every panda in the world. Or so I thought.
The time had come for me to adopt my second panda, and so I went through a different charity to adopt. The same process ensued and about a week after my Father had set up his direct debit – my second adoption pack had arrived. The day that pack arrived was a dark day, it was the day I realized I had been scammed by Pandas. In my hands I held a picture of my adopted panda, except my so called new panda was the same panda that I had adopted previously. I was outraged!! I had been ripped off!Somewhere in the mountains of China, Zhu Xiong would be there, wearing a smoking jacket, chugging away on a cigar living off my (well my Fathers) money. That panda was probably spending my money on nights out with other pandas living the high life – toasting the poor innocent fool that i was with vintage champagne paid for by me.
But alas, whilst I have had my fingers burnt by pandas, I cannot help but love them. No other animal appears in the news in such bizarre stories. My particular favourite was when scientists had decided to show pandas videos of other pandas having sex – ‘panda porn’ – in order to help them to mate. I also recently read that pandas were going to be trained by fighter dogs so they would stand a better chance of survival in the wild. My favourite panda fact is that when marking off their territory, male pandas lie on their backs and do a sort of backwards handstand in order to urinate up a tree (apparently the higher the pee goes determines whose territory it is).
So yes, pandas may be con-artists, they may take money from innocent children, but the entertainment factor they provide for me overrules all of that. I suppose you could call the panda ‘a lovable rogue’.

Cute factor: 7 out of 7
Ability to con small children: 7 out of 7
Overall ability to make those ripped off want to give them a big hug anyway: 7 out of 7

Rate this terrible lizard

Dinosaurs

Bernard Shaw once said that America and England were “two nations separated by a common language”. I don’t think Shaw meant exactly what he said, I think he was talking about Man and Dinosaur. By “nations” he of course means “species” and by “a common language” he means “65 million years”, but the impact of Shaw’s immortal phrase is nonetheless powerful. Dinosaurs really did seem to get a lot done, they were around for millions of years while mankind is only really just getting started in evolutionary terms. Such diversity as well, from the tiniest chicken-sized lizards to huge hulking forest-eating mobile landmasses dinosaurs have shown us that world peace is truly possible. Sure, some dinosaurs had to eat other dinosaurs but you cannot fail to marvel at this graceful system which continued unabated, with only the odd change here and there as new species cropped up, for the best part of 160 million years. It really is staggering when you try to comprehend this fact, that civilized society has only been around for several thousand years or so which amounts to nothing more than a blink of a Tyrannosaurus’ eye while he was kicking it across the continents. They were big, tough, hard-working, team players and above all, they rocked.

Rated: 6 out of 7