Page two of the Guardian on Saturday had a picture of a monkey riding a bike, with a remarkably po-faced strap-line of outrage at the appalling cruelty being shown at the Chinese Animal Olympics. But the monkey looked pretty happy and the one liner seemed to want to have its cake and eat it. IE Show a great picture of a monkey riding a bike whilst complaining about it. Am I the only person who thinks that monkey weightlifting is GREAT and a GOOD THING and probably not much crueler, than I don’t know, killing an animal for food (which I am also pro – see Publog threads passim)?
Well I do seem to be alone, and the Guardian have the consensus. To the degree that other papers have leapt into the ring. The Daily Mail for instance were shocked, appalled and printed these two pictures. And then they followed up the story with Sickening Kangaroo/Human Boxing, with a handy link to an eleven image slideshow of said boxing.
The Kangaroo angle proves to be a popular one with Australian Newspapers, with quite in depth coverage of this match which could only be bettered if Sylvester the Puddy Tat was involved. But continuing a websearch I finally find a kindred spirit in the Providence New Bedford news site Turn To 10, where without judgement AT ALL you can watch a VIDEO OF THE MONKEY CYCLING. This was a bit of a let down when it appeared that they not only allowed a monkey unicyclist to take part but a bear too! That would never happen in the Special Olympics (which unfortunately the existence of the Animal Olympics renders ever so slightly less special).
What do we learn form this then. Outrage is the best form of coverage. The Daily mail itself has well over ten pictures of this shockingly CRUEL activities on its site, and its quite easy to use Google to piece together quite comprehensive coverage of the events involved. Almost as if people want to watch the travails of animals climbing up poles! For a more in depth view of how this story went from a hip column filler in a Chinese paper to Daily Mail ban this sick filth see Ken Carroll’s Chinese Pod Blog.