Compare the Meerkat: Seeing and being seen at the Zoo

Last Saturday I went to the human zoo (Headingley during the Otley Run)

This week I went to an actual zoo, one with animals. Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire.

I went for the monkeys but I was unexpectedly taken aback by three things I hadn't expected. A blue butterfly, a black Rhino and some Meerkats.

I did see some primates. I saw a chimp that the person next to me said looked really sad. I thought he was maybe just thinking. Possibly we were both right and he was thinking sad thoughts. I also saw a black spider monkey collecting up pieces of aubergine like a greedy person arriving first at the all you can eat buffet.

There was a sign on one of the animal enclosures which said something like 'Don't bang on the glass. You'll see more if you just remain quiet, watch and wait'. How much of human life is us just impatiently banging on the glass? I wondered

The butterfly and Rhino I saw were at opposite extremes. One was delicate and floating, a beautiful luminescent blue but incredibly fragile; it maybe only lives a few weeks and not even that if it gets swatted by a scared child. Having seen them fly around me, I can understand why Muhammad Ali used to boast that he could float like one.

The Rhino on the other hand looked like every movement was an effort of will and determination. He took longer to get himself in a lying down position than I do with my creaking middle aged frame. Although he had two horns, he could probably wouldn't need to gore me in a fight, he could just crush me. His body was massive, like he was carrying a car on his back. I was imagining the strain on his joints and whether he felt as heavy to himself as he looked.

On the day I went, all the zoo's big name attractions like the Gorillas and Tigers were asleep or hiding (hopefully hiding rather than escaped in the Tiger's case, Jurassic Park alert!) With the tigers missing, I liked the meerkats best.

They were the ones who had properly understood their jobs. Maybe they're just better at being around people since they started making car insurance adverts.

The meerkats uniquely seem to have realised that the point of a zoo is not for us to look at them, it's for them to look at us. The never-ending procession of humans with their packed lunches and snart phones and overpriced ice creams pushing small humans in pushchairs, constantly passing by for their entertainment. Based on the sunshine and showers weather situation on Monday meerkats must think that human behaviour consists largely of taking raincoats on and off.

For meerkats, there's always something worth seeing, and it's important to be able to see it from high up so that you can summon your friends if something interesting is going on.

A lot of the animals at the zoo looked fairly bored and largely underwhelmed. The meerkats look like they're constantly operating at the optimum level of whelmed-ness.

They are brilliant at just paying attention. And so a kind of stand-off developed between me and one meerkat in particular where I paid attention to him and he wouldn't stop watching me. It became like the World Staring Championships. We were having an attention off, a game of attention chicken.

Parents I overheard were often urging their children to notice things, maybe to get more value for money. Just tell them to be more like a meerkat, I thought.

I felt like the meerkat and I started peering directly into each other's souls. It wasn't a Pixar movie though, it was reality, so the meerkat never actually spoke.

But if he had, he might have said:

'Never stop being curious. Life is better that way. Just be still and pay attention, all the answers are there if you just look'

Maybe I shouldn't compare myself to a meerkat. Or to a butterfly or a rhino. But what's the point of having a supposedly bigger brain if you can't imagine or wish for things.

I wish I could move with the lightness of a butterfly, especially when I'm battling gravity going uphill on a run. I wish I could be more like the Rhino and accept uncomplainingly whatever it is I need to carry. And I wish I could pay attention to everything that's going on and not get lost in a world of thoughts, like the meerkat seems to be able to do.

 

The Otley Run: It's not a run and it's not in Otley.

The last time I went on a pub crawl in Headingley was 1986. I think in those days it was 5 pubs at the most. We used to call it the Headingley Mile. Woodies, the Three Horse Shoes, the New Inn, the Original Oak and the Skyrack. 5 pints at most and maybe a Chicken Korma at the Curry House near the Skyrack. Starting at around 8 pm. Last bus home at 11.

37 years later. WTF?

Now it's called the Otley Run, even though it is neither a run nor is it in Otley. It should be called the Leeds Fancy Dress World Queuing Championships. There are 15 pubs and if you make it that far alive it finishes at the Dry Dock near the University.

Even at 2pm on a Saturday, there are bouncers on the doors .It took us half an hour just to get in the door of Woodies, us being me and a group of mostly young people from the Roundhay Runners, most of them dressed as Foxes.

The euphoria of making it inside Woodies soon dissipated when you realised a) there was another half an hour queue for a drink. b) it had been better outside.

I eventually got settled with my first drink and found a seat when I heard 'Right, we're off now' 'Eh, I've just got comfortable'.

I'd been looking forward to going back to the New Inn (pub 3) as I spent most of my Friday nights there between ages of 16 and 18. There was no Challenge 25 in those days. There was barely Challenge 16. I went in there unchallenged to celebrate finishing my O levels.

I literally remember quiet nights in there in the 80s by the open fire, having actual conversations. No one had a phone. Maybe somebody would put a song in the juke box occasionally.

The inside of the New Inn at 3 o'clock on Saturday was like the scene of a ferry disaster. There was so much noise and pushing and shoving, and I couldn't see the cricket on TV because someone with an inflatable crocodile was standing in front of it .Also fighting for the lifeboats on this ferry were the cast of I'm a Celebrity, some golfers ,Hawaiians, minions, Ghostbusters, and football referees

I made brief eye contact with a disconsolate looking ninja turtle who looked a bit unsure of himself and then at everyone else who seemed to be loving it and I wondered how many people were hating it and just pretending to have fun.

I skipped the next pub (Headingley Taps) to go to Greggs for water, coffee, and a doughnut. They were playing shit local radio quite loud, but it was a relief. At one point, some cast members of Baywatch, an astronaut, and some Minions came in to fuel up on sausage bean and cheese melts. Next,

I literally punched the air with delight when the queue was too big at the Box to get in. Then when Becca the 28 year old doctor I was with got refused entry at Manahatta, I was positively jubilant. The bouncer said 'It's the Otley Run, we ID everyone'. Not me you don't, I didn't say. But then I probably looked like an overprotective dad trying to force his way in to reclaim a wayward child rather than an actual participant.

I found on the day, the only thing worse than queuing to get in places was actually getting in them.

The Skyrack wasn't too bad though. That's another one of my 80s favourites. We actually had time here to sit and have a chat. Mostly about shitting yourself while running. At one point I felt moderately attracted to someone dressed as a bottle of ketchup.

The Skyrack turned out to be my last pub. I wanted to regain use of my ear drums so went home at this point. By 8 pm, I was in pyjamas in a quiet room. The Otley Run carried on without me till about 2 am. Who had the stamina (or the money) for that. Not me!

It's not an age thing that I find noisy pubs and drunk people hard work. I felt similarly aged 17. And the pubs in Headingley are mostly full of young people. I envy them their energy and their hope.

People with their whole lives ahead of them who seem happy and carefree, and are looking ahead. A lot of my life is behind me now including the young me from the 80s. If I had a plan for how my life would work out, this isn't exactly it . But, if I could, would I like to go back to the New Inn circa 1986 and start all over again?

No, I don't think I would.

The thing I remember most about those evenings from the 80s are my friends and how much fun it was to hang out with them. 

And the thingI liked best about the present incarnation of the Otley Run was the young people I was out with on Saturday. Same as in the past I go to places that are a bit nuts because that's where people I like and who want to spend time with are going.

The Otley Run, also known as The Fancy Dress World Queuing Championships is a curious way to spend time with people, one that makes no sense at times, but ultimately the people are the best bit.

It's a different world now, a world of queues, bouncers, ID checks and people who've painted themselves yellow to look like the Simpsons.

But the people being the best bit hasn't changed.