Genuine Cornish Bears!

This is a genuine Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant. Often known just by its initials (TDE).

(Eraser included for comparison purposes only.)

No really. It is. It is a Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant. Have another look. It is a Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant. Just tell yourself this as you take another look. It's latin name is Loxodonta Tasmana Pumilius Pumilio. It's a very rare species of elephant, so it's possible that you've never seen a photograph, or even seen the latin name for it before. But life is all about learning new things. So here's your new factoid for today. The genuine Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant.

There's a story behind this genuine Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant. I bet you guessed that would be coming. It's not to late to move on to another blog.

We went to Tasmania in 2004 for a two week holiday. It was the first time that we took more than one week of holidays at a time and that we decided to do more than just encamp in the one location. We travelled around Tasmania in our car, having driven to Melbourne and then catching the impressive ferry to Tasmania. We had a blast, and saw lots of non-elephant related things. Although we did see this elephant-themed sign which still gives us the giggles years later. Some might say we giggle easily but they don't know us very well. Our giggles begin deep within us and usually manifest themselves as an amused smile or a hearty chuckle. Mark occassionally even laughs - which most people find disturbing.

It's a great sign. But, on reflection, it's a bit of a tangent from the very important story of the Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant (or Loxodonta Tasmana Pumilius Pumilio to give its Latin name, but you can shorten it to just TDE if you find either 'Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant' or 'Loxodonta Tasmana Pumilius Pumilio' too cumbersome for everyday use).

The story goes like this. One day in Tasmania we stopped at a medium sized town (for Tasmania) and, among other things we did there, entered a larger than average Newsagency (for almost anywhere, unless you happen to be in a place given over to unusually large Newsagencies, in which case you might want to write a blog entry on it - people are writing blog entries about all sorts of meaningless chaff these days).

In this Newsagency was a largish stand given over to a range of animal themed, casted plastic toys/models by a company with a European sounding name. The animals (the toys/models, not actual animals, of which there weren't any in this very civilised larger-than-normal Newsagency) were of varying quality - some looking remarkable lifelike, once one factored in the fact that they were significantly smaller than the genuine article.

Jennie likes elephants. Really really likes elephants. They're in her top three animals (unlike cows, which she considers a kind of mould). So we bought her one. The one in the photograph as it so happens.

We stuck it on the top of the dashboard of our car. From time to time people travelling in our car would ask us, "What's up with the elephant on the dashboard?" A not unreasonable question to ask when someone is transporting you at high speeds in a metal box - it doesn't hurt to vet the driver carefully. But perhaps doing it before you get in the car would be advised.

We would answer triumphantly, "It's a genuine Tasmanian Dwarf Elephant!" Being the perfect joke for us. We would lay the irony on thick (not easy to do when pronouncing an exclamation mark at the same time) and the joke would reference something only we knew anything about, thus preserving our general batting average for our jokes (somewhere just slightly above a perfect run of golden ducks - yes folks it's an animal themed post today).

Until one day.

One day our passenger (an Australian, as it happened) replied brightly, "Really?! I didn't know they had elephants in Tasmania!"

There was stunned silence from Baddelim for fifteen seconds as we processed the words, reprocessed them, turned them around and processed them again just in case we were missing some really fiendish reverse irony. Then through the dawning horror we had to work out what to do. The whole point of the joke was to have a small laugh at the Baddeleys as it was obvious there is no such thing as a, wait for it, Loxodonta Tasmana Pumilius Pumilio (but its friends just call it TDE for short). It wasn't supposed to set people up for social embarrassment (apart from being exposed to such lame humour). We didn't have any contingency plans ready. How does retrieval ethics work in this situation, when the good of humour has been lost? (Small Moore College ethics joke there.) Digging the person out of their hole seemed impossible, but just letting it go would leave them open to potentially much greater embarrassment down the track. We undid the damage we did. Unsurprisingly, the person has never spoken with us again about any elephant related topic.

We've never enjoyed our joke the same way ever since. And, like war, you can't be only half-committed to a joke.

With this little back story in place, we would like to share with you, gentle (and stubbornly persistent, if you've reached this far) reader Baddelim's latest English expeditionary discovery. Presenting a sleuth, or sloth if you prefer, (yes, those are the right collective nouns for bears, only polar bears have the collective noun 'pack', presumably because it is too cold for either detectives or sloths in the polar regions) of genuine Cornish bears!
And I bet you didn't know that they had bears in England. That's two new things you learned today. So now you're ahead for tomorrow as well. (Please, let the reader understand!)

MDB (JMB didn't think I could turn the story of:

1. we bought a toy elephant in Tasmania.
2. years later, we saw some life-size wooden bear statues in Cornwall.

into a soaring epic with a little lesson about the vicissitudes of life and laughs. She was obviously right, but I sure spent some electrons proving it.)