Allowed myself a little indulgent chuckle at some recent news. RonRon (or it might be Futa - I'm unsure) the red (or lesser) panda has apparently taken to strolling around his enclosure at Yokohama (or it might be somewhere else - truly, the various reports have confused me) on his back legs ‘just like a human’ it says here. A photo printed in today’s スポーツニッポン (Sports Nippon) had me giggling at my staffroom desk. I reproduce it here - the photo, not the giggling:



RonRon/Futa, on the left there - maybe, might not be him at all -, I find particularly amusing. Bit of the Hoth Wamper about him. His playmate, name withheld, appears to be dropping a potato in response to, presumably, the paparazzo’s flash.

I’m reliably informed that red pandas have often been known to have a bit of a morning constitutional in the bipedal manner although not quite as consistently and naturally as Futa a.k.a. RonRon sets about it. Looking forward to further coverage of his capers. Perhaps he will soon don a rather fetching smoking jacket and pad about the zoo enjoying the other animals on display, pausing briefly at the chimpanzee enclosure to partake of a little rough shag from an exquisitely scrimshawed whalebone pipe. He may even get broadband at some point and engage in a Google vanity search in which case it’s not inconceivable that he could end up looking at this very page.

In other news, I have just now watched a woman apply a sanitary pad to herself in the park below my balcony. I kid you not. Half hoped a red panda would sidle up from behind and goose her.