LUV & HAT

LUV - How unlikely are penguins?

No, let me back up. How unlikely are birds, for a start? How contrary is the idea that birds - quick-eyed, tiny, twittering birds that dart through the air and fill the sky with song - were once the cyclopean earthbound titans that were dinosaurs?

Dinosaurs. You know, all teeth and scales and RAWR. Became birds. Let’s all sit back for a second and ponder the sheer brain-fudging absurdity of that.

Never mind the notion that those selfsame feathery sky-botherers oiled up their wings, webbed their feet, brushed up on their breast stroke, and took to - not only the water, but the ice. Penguins mastered the sea just as their ancestors conquered the air and then - just because things weren’t tricky enough already - they set up camp in the South Pole, looking for all the world like a team of caterers who got stranded on an ice floe and decided to try and make a go of things.

Penguins are testament to the adaptability of life despite the most inhospitable of environments and the odds stacked overwhelmingly against it. Whereas a latte without sugar will set your entire day off at a weird angle, and just this weekend you threw a tantrum when you upgraded to Windows 7 and found a single toolbar out of place.

So THINK ON THAT.

Also, penguins are so spiffing. They’re always turned out in their best black tie outfits, not like you with your ridiculous Primark poncho and that suspect stain on your trousers you thought none of us could see but that we were TOO POLITE TO MENTION.

In addition to being paragons of stylish versatility, penguins also sound good, communicating across the ice with a sort of friendly vuvuzelal tootling, and then there’s the word ‘penguin’. Say it with me a few times. Penguin. Penguin. Penguin. How much fun is that? It sounds as though you’re cheering on a Biro. And the French version, ‘pingouin’, is yet more pleasing to wrap your tongue around: PANGWANG.

Plus penguins are cute and blubbery and, with the males keeping the eggs warm while the females hunt for food, they’re feminists, too. Feminist penguins. Brilliant. Femiguins.

With all this in mind, who could hate penguins? Only a mean-spirited miser with a lump of coal for a heart; someone who shuns all that’s good and wondrous in this glorious, incandescent world and spends their days locked in a rancid, airless room arbitrarily picking topics to mindlessly rant ab— oh.
- Robyn Wilder

HAT - Have you seen Frozen Planet? Amazing, isn’t it? Majestic even. It’s soaring and evocative and awestruck. No matter which part of Frozen Planet you watch - the efficiently ruthless killer whales stalking their prey, the bison and a wolf locked in a devastating battle for survival - the emotional impact is profound. You feel humbled and small, but also overwhelming proud to live in a machine that works as perfectly as planet Earth.

And then along come the penguins.

Along come the fucking penguins.

David Attenborough, usually so hushed and respectful, lets his guard drop. “Oh GOD” he cries, “Not this shower of cunts again”. Even the music changes to welcome the penguins. Until now, Frozen Planet’s score has managed to perfectly invoke the beauty and ferocity of mother nature, but at first sight of a penguin, it starts going “OOMpah OOMpah parp parp WHEE!” like the theme-tune to a terrible ITV sitcom from the 1970s about a hilarious racist.

“This again? Seriously, these bastards are DREADFUL,” Attenborough wails as he’s confronted with another ten-minute segment of penguins waddling around in circles and falling over and bumping into things and puking up into other penguins’ mouths and yelling “WERP! WERRRRRRP!” at all the other fucking penguins all the fucking time for no fucking reason at all.

“No, David, you don’t understand,” a simpering Frozen Planet producer tries to explain. “Penguins are funny. People like penguins. They’re like funny little waiters.” But Attenborough isn’t having it. “They’re NOT like funny little waiters, Jonathan,” he thunders. “They’re like little cunts. Little useless cunts. They can’t even FLY, for fuck’s sake. You know what I’d like to do to penguins?”

“No,” sighs Jonathan, pretending that he hasn’t already heard this a million times before.

“I’d like to kick them in the minge. Right in the fucking minge.”

“OK David.”

“No, I would. I’d like to kick all penguins right in the middle of their fucking minge. Coming over here and messing up my fucking documentaries with their inept fucking waddling idiocy, the beaky dicks. I used to win awards, Jonathan. I used to be a national treasure. But look at me now. I may as well be narrating a fucking Mr Bean episode. In fact, I’ve had enough.”

“No David, don’t be foolish. It doesn’t have to come to thi…”

But it’s too late. David Attenborough is already on the way to the airport, so he can fly to the antarctic and attack it with a hairdryer and a chisel until the penguins don’t have anywhere to live any more. And you know what? The penguins deserve it. Because penguins are dicks.
- Stuart Heritage