tigers and lions and bears

i have a thing for tigers. and sometimes lions. and okay, sometimes bears too.

i have a statue of the hindu goddess, durga, who rides a tiger
i am tigers fan
they have the best jumper, black with yellow sash just like miss universe (this may be apt with the way they've been playing the last 10-20 years), and
the best song - do yourself a favour and have a listen here - nice bit of banjo in the background, lyrics here, and a bit of "vision" of the boys from a while ago singing their victory song after a game


my sister has knitted me three "yellow and black" scarves and last year i realised a dream when i was given footy socks. i promptly cut the feet off and wore them as arm warmers.

here are some snazzy onitsuka tiger sneakers by asics - mexico 66

i love blake's poem tyger tyger burning bright

and if i'd read the jungle book as a kid i'd probably love the fact that the tigers chased themselves into a frenzy of tiger-butter, too

and recently i purchased a wonderful book by Susie Green called Tiger, one of the Reaktion animal series

because i have a habit of buying books and not necessarily reading them in a thorough-going way, i was challenged to read and then report back on some of what i had read. this was fantastic because i actually remember something from the book:

• the paw-prints of tigers are called pug marks
• tigers will retrace their steps (walk in their own pug marks) when stalking to minimise noise
• tigers are the most heaviest and most powerful of the big cats - they are sprinters and so will not pursue their prey over long distances
• tigers didn't attack people until the last few hundred years - although they had always been hunted, this had been the privilege of the very rich. it was only when the colonial english began their trophy-hunting in numbers that tigers started to fight back, and even so, it was only after independence when the wannabe indian middle-classes emerged that tiger-hunting became a popular passtime that tiger numbers and habitats truly dwindled

over on another continent, there is the wonderful world of lions
lions are cool because they hang out in prides

i love that they are collective creatures
we're so used to cats being solitary animals that to see lions hanging out together, sleeping and sitting on top of one another, lapping all in a row, it's heart-warming

and it's nice to pretend they're just really big pussy-cats

a fantasy that is entirely encouraged by the whole born free joy & george adamson-elsa the lion love story


it's crazy how noble lions look, with their immense manes and big broad noses ace article on george adamson and his kinship with lions

hidden words

hidden words!

hidden words
hidden words!

as well as real lions, i also love the goofiness of chinese lions, with their huge fluffy eyelids and their manic "good luck" dances

just in case you wanted to know all there ever was to know about lion dancing

this illustration is a fragment of a larger drawing - it reminds me of some illustrations in polish children's books i loved as a child.

many of which had bears in the woods. there is a bear in this illustration too, just to the right, out of frame. i think this detail is the stronger image.

especially with the spooky disembodied owl eyes.

more about bears may be added, i just can't think of anything

maybe pooh, and of course tigger

plastic

who knew rubbish was so beautiful?

Changzhi, China: Birds sit on a tree among plastic rubbish

or that it could look so much like blossoms

Photographs: Reuters, Guardian 24 hours

swash-buckle yourself in

one of my favourite pastimes when i was a kid was watching old movies, and i especially loved good fencing scenes, up and down staircases, in and out of windows, backwards, forwards, in silhouette ...

1. basil rathbone has tremendous fencing credentials (and a tremendous villanous moustache) and therefore was the ultimate villain, sneering down his swordstick at all sorts of heroes, one of the best, errol flynn as robin hood:


2. the court jester with danny kaye. it has all the derring do you could wish for. capes and princesses, castles by the sea and insane swashbuckling, with the jester going point for point with the ever villanous basil rathbone


3. in the great race, the evil baron wears the black moustache required of all villains. the great leslie and the baron fence with foils and then swap to "a man's weapon", the sabre! huzzah!!


4. scaramouche! with stewart grainger in leotards and a silly mask.
here the villain exchanges a dark moustache for a powdered wig and they fence along the velvet ballustrades of an opera house, how dashing,


5. gene kelly in the three musketeers, a soupy, soppy movie, but has some beautiful overthetop costumes, and a particularly cheeky sword fight with kelly wiggling a saucy bottom


6. last but definitely not least, is the wicked & witty sword play in all about eve, tongues as sharp as rapiers...