Hippo Fecal Impaction

As the humdrum rainy days continue in a life filled with monochromatic greys, I have a singularly grotesque encounter to relate. I was out on a dog walk with my family, when drawing level with an old, disused sluiceway, I discovered that it was occupied by a bloat of hippopotami. On closer inspection, there were two different bloats, separated by a stone wall. One section of the sluiceway held pygmy hippos (Choeropsis liberiensis), whilst the other had their larger, more aggressive cousins, the common, or river hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius). It did not look like they were able to leave the water, being encircled entirely by a concrete barrier, yet all the same, I was concerned to see my daughter lean over and begin petting a hippo on the head.

I shouted at her to stop, then pulled her away. "Are they bad, daddy?" she asked me. I explained that they were unpredictable and dangerous. A crowd of other walkers had appeared, and they came to have a closer look. At the sight of so many people, one of the hippos raised its jowly head out of the water and yawned wide in warning, revealing a cavernous pink, marshmallow maw. I told Lucinda to take note of its yellow tusks, the sight of which caused her to shrink away in fear. As we were engaged thus in contemplation of these hideous beasts, there was a commotion in the water. One of the brutes, a great behemoth that must undoubtedly have been the beachmaster, or in this case, sire of the sluice, launched its hindquarters high into the air.

Two thirds of the behemoth's prodigious bulk was now revealed, full taller than a man, its stumpy hind legs splayed apart, flaccid tail spinning like a pinwheel. As any zoologist worth his salt knows, a hippo defecates by raising its rear in the air and scattering dung in all directions. Before I could take evasive maneuvers, I was appalled to witness the corpse of another animal half ejected from its swollen anus. I recognised the bony, desiccated body of a wildebeest, and realised with horror that the hippo must have swallowed it whole. Hippos are by nature herbivorous, although recent findings have discovered that they will sometimes eat meat in times of drought. Even so, I had never heard of one consuming an entire wildebeest in such a fashion.

The tower of fat bucked and trembled as it fought to discharge the rest of the wildebeest, but its victim's curved horns were lodged in the hippo's bowels and could not be shaken free. This sent the hippo into a furious panic and it churned the water up into a seething maelstrom, splashing the revolted onlookers in filthy sewage water and clods of filth. To witness such a primeval sight was to be unwillingly plunged into a state of abject unrest, I could not help imagining it as some morbid Dali painting illustrating all that is abject, corporeal, and shameful. A contemporary comparison may point to a certain scene from Poltergeist II (1986), in which the father disgorges a ballooning mezcal worm. After a battle fraught with agonised bellows, the wildebeest's broken head finally appeared with a wet crunch, and the exhausted hippo wallowed in a bath of putrescence.

Return to No. 29

As my former readers may remember, there is a house in the southwest of Albion where I spent some formative years of my childhood, and where I was first exposed to the sinister world of the supernatural. It was (and still is) an unassuming semi-detached house in a quiet neighbourhood on the edge of a wood. I could write at great length on that place, but I will refrain on this occasion. One day, I may disclose the house's true location, but for now, let us simply call it No. 29. Like many dreams before, I made the pilgrimage there, this time with my wife, child, and dog. The house had called to me over the years, like a beacon drawing me back. Unable to resist such magnetism, I had convinced my family to settle our affairs on the southeast coast and here we were, claiming ownership of the same house that had driven me out twenty years ago.

I walked through the familiar yet unfamiliar rooms, feeling the floor creak beneath my shoes in certain areas, and considering how much a place could be changed by those living under its roof. Barely any trace of my childhood remained. Dark, unattractive wallpaper had been put up, the carpets were unrecognisable, and a slightly fusty smell betrayed the uncleanliness of the previous tenants. Nonetheless, I resolved to fix the old place up and restore it as much as possible to what I remembered. As I completed my tour upstairs, I was relieved to discover that no trace of bad energy lingered, and whatever spirits may have plagued us back then, were long gone. Or so I hoped. It was time to inspect the back garden, where many a happy summer's day had been spent.

I was greatly surprised to discover that the entire garden and patio, formerly a tiered slope, was now covered in the blue polyester of a child's paddling pool/ activity zone. It was a vintage 'Fisher Price Penguin Run', designed to act as a water playground for young children. There were water slides, a ball pit, hoop games, and inflatable penguins marching up the slopes. I was told by the estate agent accompanying us that it had been found in the loft and meticulously restored by the last occupants. My daughter's eyes lit up at such a sight, and I gave her permission to go and play. Although the use of the garden had been lost, my daughter would have her own personal soft play area, and it seemed like a good trade-off. Memories of owning this 1980s play area suddenly came back to me, and I was astonished at how well preserved it was.

Lucinda was helped into her bathing costume by her mother, and ignoring the chilly grey sky, she scrambled up the bouncy slopes, splashed in the water, and grappled with the inflatable penguins, which were almost her own height. "I know this house is a bit small and shabby compared to the one we sold," I told my wife, "but look how much fun she is having. The Penguin Run is completely childproof, and she will be able to entertain herself whenever we want a break." My wife saw the wisdom in this and used it to overcome her initial dislike of the house. I had felt uneasy about lowering the lifestyle of my family in pursuit of this spiritual, some may say reckless, need to re-inhabit my poky childhood home, but the die had been cast. I turned to the estate agent and said, "We'll take it."

Farming with Anteaters

As the dreariness of the halfhearted government 'lockdown' drags on, my dreams become more fraught with anxiety and apocalyptic calamity. I dreamed that after discovering all of my old friends had disowned me, and feeling as wretched and alone as one possibly could be, I looked up into the night sky and saw a sight both awe inspiring and terrifying. Amongst the stars was an immense series of twinkling lights, in the pattern of a snowflake, sweeping across the broad expanse of space. This turned out to be an enormous fleet of extraterrestrial crafts that was here to wipe away mankind by turning the world into a swirling vortex. But this is not the story I wish to tell, for it is too bleak even for this blog...

In a later dream that same night, I was with my friends Gaby and Matt, and we stumbled into the back garden of a Wyvernhorn academic. As is to be expected from such tenants, the garden was in something of a sorry state. Sitting down in the overgrown grass, I had ample time to look about me. A long window communicated into the dwelling's kitchen-dining area and I observed copious amounts of marijuana sitting on the windowsill, along with an assortment of potted plants covered in brown paper. It looked as though they had not been watered in a very long time. What most caught my attention, however, were the two curious animals bumbling around in the garden.

They were giant anteaters (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), or 'sworders' as I used to call them as a child, going about their instinctive drive to collect as many ants as possible. The garden was in fact an 'ant farm', and some tents housing interested merchants had been erected so as to check that daily ant quotas were being met. I wondered how they stopped the anteaters from eating them all, and how many the animals needed to consume for themselves to continue functioning. (Some quick research indicates 30,000 ants or termites.) Perhaps it was similar to Chinese cormorant fishing, where a string tied around the birds' necks prevent them from swallowing any fish. The poncho-clad merchants got up from their easy chairs and left for lunch, leaving my friends and I alone with the animals.

As soon as the ant merchants were gone, the anteaters came sniffing over to where we sat and began prodding us with their snouts. I told my friends not to be concerned, for they were mostly benign, peaceable creatures that only attacked if harassed. We tried to ignore then, but it was like the saddle-billed storks all over again, and the prodding continued. When asked if they could harm us, I admitted that they could open us up like sandwiches with their long fore claws if they chose to. There are only three cases in recent history of giant anteaters killing humans, but even so, we decided it would be best to leave. The secrets of the Wyvernhorn ant farm would have to remain hidden for now.

Seal on the Ouse

As I sit here ensconced indoors with my morning coffee, gazing outside at the falling snow, I sigh repeatedly for a hint of spring. It has been a long, bleak winter, made all the more claustrophobic with pandemic restrictions. It is therefore no wonder that a couple of days ago I dreamed of verdant pastures and sparkling rivers, blue skies and the fresh breezes of March. I had been having bitter quarrels with my wife, who being in an intractable mood, cast me outdoors to roam at will. Feeling upon me the vagrant pull of wanderlust, and eager to shrug off the hoary cobwebs of winter, I took myself along the River Ouse to Lewes, where I came upon a romanticised and Arcadian setting.

Clement weather had lured people out of doors, and they sat in joyful clusters on the green banks of the Ouse and its surrounding fields. Some people played ball games, others played guitar and sang folk songs, whilst still others followed the all pervading instinct of the war ape to create conflict with its fellow man. No sooner had I arrived on the scene and praised my good fortune at discovering it, than an old busybody gentleman aspiring for a seat on the town council began to harangue a group of of the aforementioned minstrels. They had placed four traffic cones around themselves, and the busybody complained that they were in repeated violation of some obscure trespassing clause. I moved on, unwilling to let the mounting ugliness of the scene intrude on my serene state of mind.

I walked closer to the river, enjoying the sight of the sun reflecting off its blue ripples, and the feeling of springy turf underfoot. A fisherman sat with his line cast in the water, oblivious to all but his bobbing lure. I noticed a disturbance in the water, a grey hump breaking the surface and wallowing close to shore. Seized by curiosity, I followed the hump as it left a V-shaped wake behind it, the smooth water gliding over its glistening curve as it undulated on its way. The fisherman sat by a large rock that protruded all the way into the water, so I had to circumnavigate them both to follow the hump, annoyed that he should be impeding me quite so much. When I came to the other side of the rock, a group of people had already beaten me there and were excitedly watching the creature.

It was a seal, that much was apparent now that it had raised its head out of the water, seemingly nonplussed by the small crowd. Over the heads of the gathering, I tried to make out what species it was. Judging by its round, blunt face, V-shaped nostrils, and distinctly non-equine shaped head, as is found on the grey, I deduced that it must be a harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). I was about to take a photograph and send it to my wife, whereupon I remembered our fight and thought better of it. After watching the seal gambolling in the shallows for some time, I grew weary of the noisy people and wandered off for some peace and quiet. I struck off towards a newly built facility made up of kick start business suites and dormitories.

There was no one around so I entered the building and went upstairs, inhaling that sharp scent of new upholstery and furnishings. I strolled through the smart offices, experiencing vague sensations of unfulfilled ambition, and a little envy towards the students who would soon be moving in to embark on promising careers. The afternoon sun filtered through the window of the dormitory bedroom I was in, creating a shaft of dust motes, and I looked out at the neat plants arranged in wooden planters around the inner courtyard. Suddenly I heard voices coming up to my floor, induction tours by the sound of it, so I made a stealthy exit through a back stairwell. I did not want to be caught snooping around, for despite the unlocked doors, the building was supposed to be off limits.

On my way out, I heard the security guard arguing with a middle aged woman about her rejected accommodation application. She was one of those insufferable, argumentative, completely hopeless types one often encounters in academic institutions, or anywhere else forbearing enough to tolerate them. They usually suffer from a mild psychosis and are just functional enough to avoid being sectioned. This lady was no exception, and I reflected that such a person was undeserving of such a nice apartment. I went to sit on a bench in the aforementioned courtyard amongst the succulents. I closed my eyes to better appreciate the sun on my cheeks and the smell of fresh resin when the annoying lady wandered in, all frizzled hair and frazzled expression. I got up and left, knowing there would be no peace here.

Storks on Safari

In 2016 I had a safari honeymoon in Kenya, which was the fulfilment of a lifelong wish. The experience was all I imagined it would be, and the desire to revisit has been strong ever since. Thanks to the current state of the world, opportunities to travel are non-existent, so I am left to visit the wilds of Africa in my dreams. Last night I was back on the Masai Mara, but it was a restricted sort of trip in that we were without a driver or tour guide and had to rely upon ourselves to get around. We had a rental jeep, however my wife forbade me from driving more than an hour away from base camp when I expressed a desire to seek out hippos. Since there were no large bodies of water for miles around, I had to content myself with what fauna lived in our immediate vicinity.

I drove the jeep around aimlessly, avoiding dense areas of scrub, yet contrary to my real life experience, the well worn roads were mostly barren of life. We decided to visit a small town some miles distant, hoping to stock up on supplies and see new animals on the way. A small herd of buffalo (Syncerus caffa) resembling brooding storm clouds watched us warily from the bush, swishing flies away from broad black flanks. Knowing the moody and unpredictable temperament of these formidable bovines, I made sure to give them a wide berth. Their more fragile cousins, the ungainly blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) famous for vast numbers during migration season, were also present, although most of them were corpses strewn about in various degrees of decomposition. Some were entire, recently deceased bodies, whilst others mere sun-bleached bones with scraps of leathery hide clinging to them. In spite of my best efforts, I ended up driving over many, crunching their bones to dust. I was worried lest one of their curved horns should burst a tyre, but they were no match for the robust four-wheel drive.

We passed a lone giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) browsing from a thorny acacia tree, its dappled hide reflecting the sun kaleidoscopically. Soon the road was closely hemmed in either side by bushes, and we were forced to abandon the jeep and continue on foot. It was only a short distance left to town, but being now completely defenceless, we were nervous about ambush by predators. At the end of the sunlit passage we espied a trio of large birds pecking around a yard on the edge of town. I pointed out the species to my wife. There was an excessively ugly marabou stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer), known also as the 'undertaker bird', and with it, two saddle-billed storks (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis). Where the marabou is a grotesque brute with a fleshy, wizened appearance and a swinging gular sack, the saddle-bill is one of the more attractive specimens of the stork family, sporting a handsome black and white plumage, and a striking orange bill topped by its namesake yellow saddle.

At this moment I was too intimidated about the approaching saddle-bills to admire them, for they reach almost 5 foot in height. I remarked to my wife that they were probably used to being fed by tourists, so we turned our backs on them and pretended to walk away. Unperturbed, the birds followed us closely, ogling us with liquorice allsort eyes. Even though we knew the birds were harmless, we were creeped out by their proximity, and tried to shoo them away by stamping our feet. This only caused to give them a brief spindly flutter, whereupon they immediately recommenced their stalking behaviour. I woke up before the scene resolved itself, realising I'd dreamed about these particular species of storks because they feature dominantly in a chapter written for my novel.

Return of the Pink Lady

Readers from the Before Times may recall when your long suffering narrator was tormented by a particularly malevolent entity known as the Pink Lady. For anyone interested in her likely origins, one can research the Greencastle Ghost. I blame her latest resurgence on my disturbed state of mind after reading Jude the Obscure just before turning in for the night. I had reached that most disturbing of chapters immediately guessable to anyone familiar with the book, and having not been acquainted with or forewarned of this plot point beforehand, I was thrown into a state of despondency heightened by the lateness of the hour and the increased vulnerability of my emotions.

I was with my immediate family, dog included, at the ancestral seat of Heartbreak Hotel, sojourning for the weekend with my parents and their pack of unruly hounds. Heartbreak Hotel is a ramshackle residence, falling apart at the seams, with a hastily added wing that had already begun to deteriorate before it was fully finished. Usually a companionable beast who shadows me everywhere, my dog had opted to spend the night downstairs nestled within the pungent cocoon of his fellow canines. Our child slept soundly in the adjoining room, whilst my wife and I occupied another in the aforementioned new wing of the house. It was a restless night, for I have never slept soundly in that place, and I soon discerned that I was not alone in my nocturnal vigil. My wife was also awake.

"There's something wrong with this house," she whispered. "I'm worried about Lucinda sleeping on her own, oughtn't we to check on her?" Before we could do so, the atmosphere in the room changed abruptly, arresting us with a stifling fear. In such situations one often reads of an icy chill permeating the room, yet in my experience, the reverse is quite usually the case. It is as though all the oxygen is suddenly withdrawn, leaving one as breathless and claustrophobic as though trapped in a tin garage on a hot summer's day. A wavering light had appeared at the foot of our mattress, and we perceived it to be a brown taper, floating quite independently of any hand. "Don't look at it," my wife instructed in a panicked whisper, but her warning had come too late.

Unable to tear my eyes from the candle as it bobbed closer, I was horrified when in its aura I beheld the wasted, spectral features of the Pink Lady. My persecution at the hands of this woman began back in my freshman years when she chased me down the corridors of the university campus one ill-fated night. Sometimes I can still hear the phantom clop of her hooves echoing down those empty halls. This night, only her face was visible, yet I knew it to be she by the all-too-familiar grip of suffocating fear she evoked, and those wild, abandoned eyes starting from deeply hollow sockets. I am not ashamed to admit I let out a cry of horror, cringing beneath the bedsheets in a shameful display of manhood.

When I eventually gathered the courage to look again, the Pink Lady's face was gone, but the hovering taper remained. This time I took my wife's advice and speedily averted my eyes, my breathing laboured in the closeness of the room, my legs feeling paralysed. Without a second assault on my nerves, I was able to rally somewhat, the paralysis left me, and I forced myself out of bed to hit the light switch. With the lights on, my courage returned and I shouted out a defiant challenge to the ghost, daring her to lay a hand on my family. A loud crash, followed by an audible pop of air pressure made me immediately regret my bravado. We checked next door and our daughter remained sleeping soundly.

Next we went downstairs and the dogs were likewise in an undisturbed state, groggily wagging their tails as we entered. Woken by the sound of my scream and our activity in the house, my mother joined us downstairs in her dressing gown and I told her what had happened. She seemed concerned, yet unsuprised by the news of the unwelcome presence. Since sleep was now impossible, she went about preparing to cook a meal in the kitchen. After all, it is far better to face up against the supernatural on a full stomach. A mousy professor of the arts from the nearby university was also staying at the house, for my parents took the occasional tenant, and she came to sit with us in the dining room.

"The Pink Lady was a great admirer of classical music," she explained. "Back when she was alive, the rigidity of the class system prevented her from enrolling on any degree, but after her tragic suicide, she haunted the antechambers of the music dons and many an orchestral performance was plagued by her shadowy presence, watching from the wings. Indeed, if you watch Disney's Fantasia closely, you can dimly make her out hovering next to Deems Taylor. They say she can still be summoned with music." With a return of my former recklessness, I decided to test this theory, and boldly went to turn on the stereo.

As soon as the local radio station began to play, the lights in the dining room and kitchen cut out, and a glowing golden orb appeared near the patio doors. A throbbing sickness overtook me, and I tried to scream, but nothing but a hoarse croak escaped my parched lips. My mother screamed, and all of the dogs began to bark in terror. "What have you done?!" the professor cried. "Tis Irene O'Hare, we are forsaken!" In the morning, when I awoke, my wife complained that I had woken her by screaming in my sleep, whilst on her other side, our daughter was laughing in hers. I fear this will not be the last I encounter of the dreaded Pink Lady.

Mammoths in the Snow

Allow me dear reader to relate to you a singular incident which lately occurred, and which you may find to be in some measure surprising, and perhaps even a little disconcerting. Over the winter holiday I was spending time with family at our Sussex home, hemmed in by both foul weather and the beastly yet strictly necessary curfew as occasioned by an ongoing pandemic. It was at a late hour that I occupied a room upstairs, listening to the most atrocious blizzard blowing outside and watching as sheets of snow struck the windowpane. I was thankful for being comfortably indoors, lamenting that it must be a wretched man indeed who would brave such Siberian conditions as those raging out there. With a mind to smoke a pipe and lose myself in a book, I was distracted by another sound above the howling of the wind. A low rumbling noise, followed by a terrible crash sent me over to the window to look out onto the street.

Due to the driving flakes of heavy snow and the light at my back, it took some time for my eyes to adjust to the darkness outside, but I was gradually to make out some looming shapes over by my neighbour's property. At first I assumed these to be some garish festive decorations, as we were in that period of gluttony and limbo between Christmas and New Year. I took out my camera, hoping by the flash to illuminate the darkness and get a better view of what I assumed would be some damage wrought by the storm. Imagine my stupefaction when, after clicking the shutter, I beheld two monstrous woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) intruding on the neighbouring lawn. As any self-respecting, half-witted fellow knows, these primeval pachyderms went extinct sometime between the Pleistocene and Holocene, so what then were they doing here alive in the modern day, and on my street no less?

Well, it appeared that, with the aid of their muscular trunks, they were plucking off the brightly coloured baubles and Christmas lights from an overhead wire and popping them into their mouths. In spite of my great alarm, I could not help thinking that such a meal must not only be exceedingly unpleasant, but also potentially harmful. I took all of this in during the space of a few seconds, for at the flash of my camera, the beasts startled and began to lumber out onto the road, blinking their small eyes. I called my family upstairs to witness this extraordinary spectacle, but before they arrived the mammoths were already retreating down the road into the blizzard. They were sped on their way by a man riding a dromedary (Camelus dromedarius), furiously beating them with some manner of riding switch. When I recovered my senses, I remembered that I had taken a photograph of the mammoths, bad though the quality was.

With a frenzy of excitement, I began to communicate with everybody I knew, telling them what had transpired. For reasons I could not fathom, nobody seemed the slightest bit interested in my experience, they dismissed it out of hand and showed signs of disbelieving me, even with my photographic evidence. I spent the rest of the evening in bitter reflection that extinct animals coming back from the dead was less exciting than political debate. In the morning, the footprints of the mammoths had already been covered by the snow, but the effects of their devastation were everywhere present. I was much aggrieved to find that my bicycle was crushed beyond repair, pieces of twisted metal poking out of the snow. I wondered if the mammoths were some ominous portent of things to come, or the results of hybridisation and cloning. Before I could ruminate further, I was called by my wife to the kitchen where we have a broad view of the countryside.

The morning sun revealed a vast floodplain of many interconnected puddles, all glimmering in the golden light of dawn. An astonishing number and variety of waterfowl had settled on the waterlogged ground, as though some heavenly aviary had suddenly let loose all its flocks at once. Where outside the front of the house a fierce blizzard had blown, here at the back it had rained in Biblical proportions. My wife asked what the meaning of all these birds could be, and with grim foreboding I gleaned the truth. They were moving in to re-inherit the world from us humans. The mammoths too, were not the result of Soviet genetic engineering, but were in fulfillment of that prophecy as set down in the Book of Revelation which states 'all the dead will rise.' What could one do, but fall to one's knees and pray?

The Duke's Demesne

Welcome back to The Dreaming Dandy - a repository of ruminations on life and its counter realm, the dreamscape. My name is Aloysius Nightingale, a 21st century dandy and your faithful narrator through the often perplexing and sometimes frightening episodes of existence. In some instances, place names and character names will be altered for privacy protection, for one cannot be too careful when publishing information on the Wild West Web. Now that introductions are out of the way, let us without further preamble fling open the gates of horn and ivory and meet a singularly eccentric personage, and explore the curious locale wherein he rules as lord.

I have written before about zoos appearing in strange places, but let me tell you now about an arrangement that would not have been out of the pale in times past. Our destination is the rolling green grounds of Sussex University campus, where I was assisting with the installation of a new teacher. During this task, I made the acquaintance of another professor from the School of Media, Arts and Humanities, known only as the Duke. He was a roguish gentleman rather past the middle years, approaching that age in life where all things are permitted or overlooked. His careless appearance sporting tobacco-stained tweeds and rambunctious side whiskers bespoke of a type more at ease in the stables than the classroom, and a marked preference for the wine cup over the lectern. I soon learned that he was only contracted to deliver one lecture a year, and even this he grumbled about. In addition to his sparing duties, of which he demanded a hefty annuity, he resided on the campus grounds at the university's expense as though he were Vice-Chancellor. Why should this bloated remnant of the aristocracy suck dry the struggling coffers of the university? Due to his contribution to film in a more active phase of his career, the Duke was held in high esteem by the academic community. He had long ago fallen into slothful and disreputable ways, and yet the university persisted in their belief that they were "very lucky to have him."

After complaining to the faculty about his upcoming lecture, the Duke left the teaching block to return to his manor, but not before inviting some staff and students, myself included, for a tour of his estate. On the way to the park on the edge of campus, where the 1960s Brutalist concrete gave way to the bucolic greens of National Heritage South Downs, I was surprised to discover a paddock of zebra (Equus quagga) and hear their distinctive whooping barks. It was explained that they were overspill from the Duke's private menagerie, which we would shortly be seeing more of. My interest thus piqued, we proceeded beneath a decorative archway to the tree-lined avenue that led to his domain. The Duke strolled a little ahead of the group with a haughty air, deigning not to exchange words with his guests. Everywhere one looked there were topiary hedges sculpted into upright phalluses, giving one a telling glimpse into the Duke's nature. In addition to his other vices, the Duke was a predatory invert who notoriously coerced male students to their defilement at his lair. His patrons turned a blind eye to these unsavoury incidents.

The Duke's park was a heavily wooded one, made up of superb beech and elm trees. The sun filtered through this leafy canopy, suffusing everything with a golden green glow, lending an impression of a sylvan grotto. One may well have believed themselves to have entered Circe's enchanted glade, for imagine my great astonishment when we came upon the ornate cages of exotic animals. Some way to the left through the trees was a wrought iron cage with green painted bars in the Victorian style, behind which paced a great tawny lion (Panthera leo). Even from this distance, I could tell that the beast was of a formidable size not often seen today. Hard by the lion cage was a meshed, multi-levelled compound housing a troop of mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) with their iconic painted faces and rumps. Directly in our path was another enclosure separated by a narrow moat and populated with enormously overfed brown bears (Ursus actos), their wet black noses snuffling expectantly for food as we got closer. To the right of the avenue, opposite the bears, was a dome-topped temple for gorillas (Gorilla gorilla), dimly glimpsed sifting through their hay as hulking black shadows.

I was much struck by the prodigious largeness of all these animals, and upon hearing our appreciative comments, the Duke turned around to boast that they were "Beasts of empire selectively bred from prime imperial stock, not like the piddling specimens found in modern public zoos." Like a spoiled child showcasing his toys, he gestured towards a red and gold oriental pavilion past the gorilla house, proudly asserting that he also kept giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), prestigious gifts from the Chinese government. From an unseen lake came the honking cries of waterfowl, many of which in his philanthropy he had donated to the university for free. He lamented that this was all that remained of a once thriving collection. We were given leave to wander at will whilst he returned to his sprawling stone mansion beyond the menagerie. The Duke spent much of his time indulging his introverted passions of animal husbandry and tinkering with toys. A miniature track had been set up around the grounds, along which he raced radio controlled cars. I was disappointed to learn from a groundsman that the park was normally strictly off limits to visitors, as I had hoped to spend an occasional lunch break there.

The reek of the animals and their copious amounts of waste was overpowering in its mammalian pungency and had attracted large swarms of flies that worried the faces of the resident bears. An American film student with tanned skin, white teeth, and blonde hair, perhaps a future victim of the Duke, posed for a selfie in front of the bears, and soon his face too was covered in flies. The huge animals loomed over a railing I worried was far too low to contain them. When they rose to stand on two legs, they presented a wall of matted fur and brawn eight feet high. Before I had an opportunity to explore the other exhibits, we received word that the tour was over and the Duke kindly requested we vacate his premises. The party dispersed and I made my way back alone, quite overwhelmed by all I had seen. As I exited the park and drew near the zebras, the unmistakable laughing grunts of hippos (Hippopotamus amphibibius) reached my ears, and I saw something I had missed earlier. Part of the Duke's lake extended down to the campus proper, and an enclosed section of the water was hemmed in by teaching buildings.

Hippos have long been a favourite animal of mine, and I walked over for a closer look. I was not alone in hoping to get a sight of them, a Muslim man and his young children were excitedly pressing against the rails. Preferring such experiences alone, I tarried until they should move on, but unaware of the danger presented by these African juggernauts, in a brace of shakes, the children had scaled the fence and were down in the mud and water. Their delighted cries turned to screams of fear as they were boisterously harassed by two junior hippos. The broad grey bulk of a full-grown adult hippo cruised through the water towards the children. Like any father worth his salt, the man was over the fence and floundering to rescue his offspring. A crowd of bewildered spectators gathered, and with their assistance, the family were dragged to safety not a moment too soon. The avenging hippopotamus erupted from the pool, chomping its fleshy jaws and splashing everyone with muddy backwash.

I reflected on the university’s indulgence of the Duke, the dangers that his animals represented, and the less than sanitary conditions in which they were kept. It was evident that before long, a more serious incident would occur, and that would be the end, if not of his unorthodox position, most certainly of his bestiary. I do hope that you enjoyed this surprising tale of a man out of time, and that you will look forward to more such adventures in the years to follow. For now, I bid my gentle readers a happy and prosperous New Year. May the less than exemplary conduct of the Duke stand as warning to your own.

Loch Ness Camping

Loch Ness is a place I've always wanted to visit and never been able to, but that hasn't stopped me from going in my dreams on various occasions. I got to visit again last night after stealing a police helicopter with Li and my sister Dana. Unfortunately we were shot down after taking off from the helipad. The shell of the main chopper fell away into the sea, but we remained suspended in a flimsy gyrocopter which managed to skim out of range from the police missiles and cross north into Scotland. We were there within minutes, looking down on bright green swampland, rolling hills, and the sparkling blue water of the loch itself. We saw a lot of fibreglass sculptures of the legendary Nessie, marking the site as a popular tourist destination.

Another of my sisters, Camella, had been camping on the banks of the loch alone for some days as part of a science project, and we intended to touch down nearby and join her. Dana was piloting the chopper, so I directed her to touch down on a cramped green sward close to the campsite. It was a crisp, bright day at the end of winter and the ground was boggy underfoot. There wasn't a whole lot of space on shore for the landing. A hedge ran across a long spit of land cutting across the loch, and it was halfway along this that Camella had set up her campsite. I was wearing expensive work brogues, and I suggested that we return to Essex before disembarking in order to change our footwear. Li told me to stop being ridiculous, and we proceeded on our way, my shoes promptly ruined by the sticky mud. "Forget about it!" Li snapped, "we're here now!"

The geography of the loch was not at all in keeping with its real world terrain, there being some lovely blue mountains rising in the distance and lots of marshland on the edges of the water, with duckweed and water fennel clogging up the ground. As we traipsed single file along the narrow spit, following the hedge, I felt something crawl up my trouser leg and sting me on the shin. I yelped and shook it out, seeing a small, waspish creature buzzing away. "What the fuck was that!" I yelled, rubbing the sore spot. When we joined up with Camella, the sisters immediately started messing around and being immature, so I butted in and complained about the bite. Camella explained that they were called droxies, and that there were swarms of them all over the swampy areas, including a nest next to her campsite. "Keep your trousers tucked into your socks, but they'll probably still sting your face and neck. They're much more threatening than the Loch Ness Monster."

"Does it really exist?" Li asked.

"Nobody knows," I told her, "but keep an eye out for it just in case!" Li looked nervous at that point, so I told her it probably only ate fish, and Irish monks. She didn't understand the reference. After helping Camella gather up her belongings, we returned the way we had walked and repaired to a village inn overlooking a natural bay. My extended family in Nottingham were due to join us there for lunch. In the meantime, I looked out of the restaurant windows at the small fishing village, and the lapping waters of the loch beyond. I spotted some black humps breaking the surface in the distance, swiftly followed by a tall dorsal fin and white patches. It was a pod of killer whales. I beckoned everyone over to look, and fumbled for my digital camera. Unfortunately, the shutter was unresponsive and I missed the shot. "Piece of crap, I only bought it three years ago!" I complained.

The whales swam closer to shore, and one of them even beached itself onto the shingles. It was the perfect opportunity for a photo, but still my camera refused to cooperate. By now a big crowd had arrived for the lunch buffet, and everyone was at the windows pushing for a closer look. There were also penguins waddling out of the waves onto the shore, as though purposely tantalasing me for being unable to take photos. My relatives turned up and I was forced to abandon my failed nature photography in order to exchange the necessary courtesies. Sandwiches were passed round, coffee was brewed, and the penguins and whales swam off. I scratched at my swelling droxy bite and lamented my ruined brogues.

Life in Moscow

A few nights ago I had a dream that I was in Moscow visiting an old friend, completely fictitious, but who nonetheless shared some similarities with an existing person. Initially we were sitting separately in an old man's boozer, which might perhaps be more appropriately likened to a tavern, it being a quasi-period themed dream, as we had failed to recognise one another. I was dressed in the height of Moscow men's fashion; a rather worn waistcoat and dark grey work trousers, with a baggy sleeved, open necked shirt, and sturdy riding boots. The man I had come to see lit up a cigarette and ordered a beer from the bar, at which point I knew him as my comrade and went over to say hello. He was a grizzled, stubble-faced git, with careworn features and a shabby wax jacket. Nonetheless, deep feelings of kinship existed between us, and we embraced one another with affection.

Before uttering a single word, he went back to the bar and ordered an extra pint of what he was drinking for me. We then sat down at his table to drink and reminisce. The rest of the tavern was relatively bare, only a few old men coughing into their vodkas. What we talked about was not important. As the afternoon wore on, more people began to enter the tavern, including two young women in elaborate silk, ruffled dresses. I ignored them and continued my conversation, asking after the health of my friend's ailing mother. He talked about her meagre existence mending straw soled shoes and eating potato soup for dinner, of which it was his job to procure. "We're so poor right now that she can't afford to replace her hairbrush, and it's falling to pieces," he mumbled.

Soon it became clear that our conversation had attracted the attention of the two young ladies, who were tittering on a booth some distance away. I caught one of their eyes, and they both sidled closer to us. (Never give eye contact.) After a while, the one in the green dress leaned over our table and produced a beautifully carved, mint coloured hairbrush, decorated with a fine filigree pattern and delicate alabaster swirls. She put it into my hand, told me it was her late mother's and that we should give it to my comrade's sick mother. She was a hawkish lady, heavily made-up, her hair bundled high on her head with a plume bobbing on top. Her friend in pink had blonde, girlish curls, with demure eyes and rouged cheeks. I thanked them for the gift of the hairbrush, after making the necessary polite objections.

Little by little, they encroached onto our table until we were all drinking and joking together. Something in their forward manner made me realise that they were prostitutes, or in the vernacular of the time, wenches, probably of a lowly station trying very hard to pass themselves off as cultured salon sophistos. It also dawned on me that they were probably after the contents of our wallets, but they were pleasant enough company for the time being and made us forget the oppressive gloom of my comrade's troubles. My drunken jollity combined with the novelty of the situation made me want to post a photo on Facebook of our motley gathering, but when I suggested taking a selfie, they seemed very confused. Remembering that this was a period dream and smart phones were not yet invented, I let the subject slide.

More time passed and it was now snowing hard outside. The door to the tavern slammed open and a band of heavily armed, burly men with straggly black hair, scarred faces and tattooed biceps trooped in, demanding booty. "Here come the Flintstones," I muttered to my companions. Everyone in the tavern kept silent, watching as the ruffians looted the place clean. Because they didn't attempt to rob anyone personally and they seemed intent on only stealing the taxidermied animals hung on the walls, the punters and landlord remained compliant. When they'd filled their swag bags, they marched out again, in slow motion to the tune of black metal, and everyone went back to their drinks.

The pink prostitute couldn't keep her eyes off me, and I suspected that I might have a problem with her later on. I decided to call Li to join us, whose plane had recently landed. (Yes, modern technology was creeping in by this point.) Despite Li's eventual presence, they seemed unperturbed in whatever it was they were planning, although they did let out effusions of "Oh, how lovely!" when she joined us. "Let's all go to see the new Star Wars film!" one of them later suggested. After making plans to go to the city cinema the next day, we parted ways and retired to our respective abodes, but not before Pink secretly squeezed my hand during parting and gave me a suggestive silk handkerchief.

The dream skipped over to the next day, and we were all on the cold sunny streets of Moscow, making our way to a shabby downtown cinema. At the side of the main thoroughfare, Li and I were distracted by a throng of people watching dancing Russian bears. The bears were heavily malnourished, their bones protruding, and they had brittle, hay-like fur with numerous bald patches. Through rings in their noses, they were yanked this way and that by bulhooks, the trainers flogging those that were slow to respond. After much goading, they were manipulated into climbing on top of one another until they had formed a pyramid stack. A tattered poster blowing in the breeze read, 'Witness The Incredible Bear Pile - Only In Moscow!'

Suddenly a rotten cabbage flew through the air and hit one of the trainers. This was followed up by a shout from a group of Green Peace activists who had appeared on the scene. "Murderers! Barbarians!" they shouted. I noticed that those bears too old or exhausted to perform were being hanged by the neck from wooden scaffolds, to the extreme amusement of the watching peasants. Li tried to drag me away as we were losing our group, clearly such spectacles were daily occurrences here, but my blood had risen and I shook her off. Sensing trouble, the trainers made a protective barrier around their animal commodities and began to draw cudgels. I decided that it was better not to get involved, but I did flip them off and shout "Peasant scum! Murderers!" before running off like a coward. Such is life in Moscow.

Chinese Circus

In my first memorable dream of 2016 I was visiting another Chinese zoo with family and as usual, running out of time before closing. I began in the aquarium which was a darkened area punctuated with the glowing green windows of tanks. In a parallel to the scene featured in The Drunk Tank, I saw a bloated eel, this time a green moray, swallowing a small zebra fish. I called my sisters over to watch, repulsed by the abject sight of the eel's bulging, squirming throat and the zoo's lax management in keeping predatory species in the same tank as defenceless prey. An announcement in Mandarin declared that the zoo would shortly be closing, and as I was eager to see the hippos before it did, I split off from my family and went my own way towards the back of the zoo.

To reach the pachyderm yards, I had to navigate past a huge sports hall that was being used to train staff and animals for the circus acts that the zoo regularly put on. Rehearsals were underway so I determined to go the long way round to avoid interrupting or drawing attention to myself. Before I did so, I peeked through a curtain and saw a troupe of acrobats, some dogs, a chimpanzee in clothes, and a hippopotamus of prodigious size and fatness, its legs like stumpy sausages barely able to support its massive weight. The mammoth beast was the size of an elephant and of an obesity I had never imagined possible, its fatty sides rolling in mounds of quivering flesh, the shape of its whole body like a barrel tub, Posters on the wall indicated that the hippo was a popular animal celebrity called Big Boy, with a long performance history.

I decided that I would rather see the more normal hippos in their enclosure, so I pressed on, descending a winding stairwell which I hoped would bring me outside of the building. I got to the bottom level and found myself in a concrete yard, fenced off as far as I could see by a green mesh fence. A groundsman eyed me suspiciously, so I asked him the way to the hippo enclosure to prove I had nothing to hide. He gestured for me to go back into the building and up several floors to a higher level and before I knew it, I was back at the circus hall. Rehearsals were still going on, with the human performers undertaking a variety of rolls, tumbles, and flips on sports mats. The dogs were made to jump through hoops, whilst the chimp tottered around on two legs in its gaudy outfit. The hippo stood placidly by, obediently following the instructions of its trainer when called to.

I think I woke up before I made it to the hippo enclosure, but I decided that it was time to publish my real life experiences in Chinese zoos on here.

Green Hand

In last night's dream I was working my drudge of an admin job which was strangely situated in my parents' back garden. Next door there was a lush and blooming community garden maintained by a team of conservationists called Green Hand or something, and I had had my eye on their organisation for a long time. I arranged to do some volunteer work with them on my lunch break, and was recruited by a kindly, plump middle-aged lady with rosy cheeks. It was a hot summer's day and the two gardens were baking beneath a fierce sun. When my lunch break finally came around, I closed down my desk, and unravelled the hose pipe. My task was to top up the water in the pond next door, to maintain the biodiversity and ensure there was enough moisture for the amphibians living there.

In the community garden, I was about to start filling up the pond when I saw two salamanders mating. Such a rare occurrence called for a photo, so I took my phone out of my pocket. Just at that moment, my boss turned up and asked why I had abandoned my post. I tried to explain that it was my lunch break and I was supposed to be helping out here, but she led me away saying there were more important, work-related matters to discuss. I begrudgingly threw the hose down and followed her out of the garden, biting back resentment. I cast a quick glance at the many toads and frogs swimming beneath the surface of the pond, or sprawled out over lily pads.

When my shift ended, I explained to the Green Hand lady that I had been unable to complete the task she assigned me. However, she cheerfully told me that another job awaited should I feel up to it. In the fields behind the house, a herd of zebras had strayed too far from their pasture, and she wanted me to corral them back in. I went out into the fields, long yellow savannah grass tickling my bare legs. The zebras would run off as I got closer, so I circled round behind them and began herding them back towards where they needed to be. There were a number of foals with fuzzy manes and velvety muzzles, and all the animals were bathed in a soft golden glow. A feeling of intense well-being and contentment swept over me as I completed the job.

The Drunk Tank

In possibly the strangest dream I've had concerning the crowded tank motif, this time I was sitting in an Irish pub getting my drink on. Because I left it a few days before writing this dream down, I've forgotten quite a few details, such as who I was with and what the occasion was. Drinking some strange concoctions that were a mixture between Guinness and absinthe, I noticed that there was a large water filled tank in the centre of the pub. The water was murky green but I became aware of a glowing moth that had fallen in and was somehow fluttering about underwater. I was overcome with a desire to rescue the moth, but at the same time, I was afraid to go near it.

There was a net on a long handled pole nearby, so I scooped this into the water and tried to snag the moth. Whilst sifting through the sludgy water in an attempt to grab it, I became aware of all the other creatures inside. These other animals, mostly fish, were making half-hearted attempts to swallow the moth, but it managed to avoid them. At the bottom of the tank was a swollen conger eel with a venomous looking head and glassy, glaring eyes. The sight of it filled me with crippling terror, and I dropped the net into the water. The eel opened its tapered jaws and swiped at the glowing moth, but it managed to evade death once again.

Suddenly a stream of bubbles gurgled up to the surface of the tank, and a sperm whale bobbed into view. It was of course, much reduced in size, having the proportions of a big seal. The whale opened its mouth wide, showing gums that were peeling away from the teeth, and a tongue festering with infection. Something green and unwholesome oozed from the creatures mouth as it rested its chin on the side of the tank. It let out a low, lingering sigh, and died. As it did so, the head began to decompose, and a squishy set of inner jaws came burbling out, as though emitting a diseased tumour. The whole repulsive spectacle was like a hangover personified.

London Wildlife Park

In my dream last night I aimlessly walked the streets of London like a flaneur, waiting for Li to finish a conference meeting. It was a cold but sunny afternoon and, perhaps drawn by the greenery, I eventually found myself near Regents Park and the zoo district. Adjacent to the zoo was a dilapidated public garden called London Wildlife Park. A signs on the premise indicated that it was an extension to the zoo which had been built a long time ago during Victorian times. It was however, poorly maintained, overgrown, and with a general air of mildew hanging over it. Several ponds, lakes, and water fountains dotted the area, with paved walks interconnecting them.

A flock of bedraggled and pale feathered flamingos sulked beneath a weeping willow, and other water birds mooched sullenly across lily pads. Sea-lions and small crocodiles basked in the warm patches of sunlight that filtered down through the trees. A groundsman appeared on the scene with a bucket of feed and began to prepare the afternoon meal. Immediately the animals roused themselves from their inertia and kicked up an excited clamour. The flamingos squawked and called to one another, the sea lions bobbed up and down with expectation, following the keeper's movements, and even the crocs craned their heads in the direction of the lunch pail.

I took my camera out to take some photos of this unexpected menagerie just as one of the crocodiles lunged for the nearest sea-lion. They got their jaws locked together and thrashed about in rage, but were ineffective in inflicting serious injury. As I was about to take a photo, a young man in tight pink spandex blocked my view with his head and asked what I was doing. I tried to angle the camera around him but he thwarted me a second time, at which point I lost my temper and told him to get out of the way. "You don't want to go on a date with me do you?" he asked scornfully, and I assured him that I did not.

Missing my opportunity to photograph the fighting beasts, I tucked my camera away and decided to visit the main zoo to kill some time, but the young man persisted in following me. "What do you want?" I asked. "I think you're attractive," he said. "Well the feeling's not mutual, so piss off!" I retorted, but he refused to budge. He began telling me about the wildlife park and how it was reserved for aquatic animals, with the more interesting ones such as 'big cats' next door. I told him that I happened to prefer aquatic animals, at which point he wandered off and I was free to continue my visit.

Tywin's Trilobites

In this dream I was attending a sea lion show at another zoo with family. For some reason, my family are always present in zoo dreams these days, even though they've traditionally been lonesome experiences. I generally don't get on well with sea lions in dreams, having been badly mauled on two previous occasions, and last night's was no exception. It started with us watching the demonstration at a poorly attended show, sitting on concrete concentric rings around the main stage. There were three pinnipeds at the performance, a black sea lion, an albino fur seal, and a strange hybrid, a creature with the iconic spiraling tusk of a narwhal but the body of a walrus.

About halfway through the show I suddenly remembered that sea lion performances were cruel and so chivied my family into protesting. Our protest was probably one of the weakest and most impotent demonstrations ever made in the history of animal rights campaigning, and mostly involved us not clapping with the rest of the audience. A trick that the staff were particularly fond of making their animals perform was a maneuver involving the sea-lions balancing on their throats whilst raising their bodies and hind quarters vertically into the air and balancing in this position. It caused tremendous pressure to weigh down on their necks and spines.

Near the end of the performance, the white fur seal broke out of the arena and came galloping towards me. I decided that the best tactic was to show no fear and stand my ground, but this time it had no effect. The seal rammed into me like Pierre, our standard poodle, and began chewing on my arms and torso. I tried to push its head away but it kept bouncing back to deliver more bites on my hands. I attempted to run but it maintained a firm grip on my arm, so I started punching it in the head. As soon as it released its jaws for a second, I took the opportunity to run for the car as fast as I could, but the seal came after me in hot pursuit, honking and hollering in fury. I woke up before more damage could be done.

Tywin desperately wanted to devote more time to his passion, but matters of war kept him busy. Close-by the study was a cinema featuring a primitive projector showing films and documentaries about the history of life on Earth. I'm not sure where the electricity came from. I was an eager yet sometimes distracted student who spent a lot of time daydreaming, an unfortunate habit Tywin lost no time in punishing severely. I can't say he was a particularly pleasant master to be indentured to, but turn his mind away from war and onto his favourite subject and he would momentarily forget his ire to animatedly discuss biology. Get the facts wrong however, and he spared no quarter on discipline. In other words, I lived under the constant threat of torture and execution. Not an awful lot happened in the dream and I never got to venture beyond the walls of Casterley Rock, bound as I was to the tending of the trilobites.

Pinniped Protests

In this dream I was attending a sea lion show at another zoo with family. For some reason, my family are always present in zoo dreams these days, even though they've traditionally been lonesome experiences. I generally don't get on well with sea lions in dreams, having been badly mauled on two previous occasions, and last night's was no exception. It started with us watching the demonstration at a poorly attended show, sitting on concrete concentric rings around the main stage. There were three pinnipeds at the performance, a black sea lion, an albino fur seal, and a strange hybrid, a creature with the iconic spiraling tusk of a narwhal but the body of a walrus.

About halfway through the show I suddenly remembered that sea lion performances were cruel and so chivied my family into protesting. Our protest was probably one of the weakest and most impotent demonstrations ever made in the history of animal rights campaigning, and mostly involved us not clapping with the rest of the audience. A trick that the staff were particularly fond of making their animals perform was a maneuver involving the sea-lions balancing on their throats whilst raising their bodies and hind quarters vertically into the air and balancing in this position. It caused tremendous pressure to weigh down on their necks and spines.

Near the end of the performance, the white fur seal broke out of the arena and came galloping towards me. I decided that the best tactic was to show no fear and stand my ground, but this time it had no effect. The seal rammed into me like Pierre, our standard poodle, and began chewing on my arms and torso. I tried to push its head away but it kept bouncing back to deliver more bites on my hands. I attempted to run but it maintained a firm grip on my arm, so I started punching it in the head. As soon as it released its jaws for a second, I took the opportunity to run for the car as fast as I could, but the seal came after me in hot pursuit, honking and hollering in fury. I woke up before more damage could be done.

Zoo Freaks

The other night I returned to the zoo featured in Eccentric Exhibits with my whole family. The zoo turned out to be in Japan and I had a fuller sense of its layout and attractions this time round. We began our tour by entering the same zone as the previous dream, only the chimps had been moved on and replaced with a large pangolin exhibit. I remember somebody commenting, "What the hell is a pangolin?" They sat curled into tight balls on the branches with their backs to us, fine white hairs jutting out from the cracks between their armour scales. Nearby was a terrarium holding frilled lizards from Australia only these curious specimens had a mantle of peacock feathers around their necks as opposed to the customary skin ruff. When they opened their frills, the feathers vibrated and rattled in a menacing manner like the Dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park. Other oddities in this revamped section were pale axolotls lying slumped on the floor of their tank with glazed expressions.

Eager to experience more of the zoo before I woke up, I left the building to see some outside exhibitions, accompanied by my eldest sister. Peafowl roamed loose about the grounds, but the overall park was far from scenic, being something of a drab concrete place with artificial waterways in dugout canals. Boat tours operated around the zoo, carrying passengers from one area to the next. Normally I'm not a fan of these sort of things, preferring to explore zoos on foot, but this one looked quite fun, chugging through flocks of waterfowl and penguins. Hoping to take a ride later, I went over to the 'Apple Zone' and saw a spacious cage holding what appeared to be two domestic tabbies. They lay alongside one another, giving each other head massages with their paws. Paradoxically, an albino ligeress was cramped in a tiny holding cell nearby. I tried not to get too close because it looked like she could easily escape should the notion take her. I noticed that her eyes did not match, one being green, the other lilac. Next to the liger was a sleeping normal tiger. I use normal to denote species, because this creature was far from regular. The information panel called it the Sega tiger, and sure enough, the cat's forelimb had been tattooed with the Sega symbol. More electronic brand advertising had been applied to its other leg. I remarked to my sister on how 'chavvy' the tiger looked.

The next part of the zoo promised real life dragons, and not Komodos either. A long runway fenced on one side with wooden panels with spy holes set into them was crowded with Japanese visitors angling for a glance of the legendary beasts. Whilst there were in fact real baby dragons on the other side, they were something of a disappointment. Squinting through the hole, I saw one of the plastic looking creature's waddling along clutching a large egg to its chest. The animal had stunted wings folded across its back, a dull bronzen glint to its scales, and a stance resembling a cheap garden ornament. A big furore concerning the arrival of some new dragon eggs was in operation and the guests seemed more interested in taking photos of these than the actual dragon juveniles guarding them. I decided that dragons were boring and woke up before seeing more. 

Cockatrice and Cassowary

A weekend dream featuring more animal visitors to the back garden, this time during the day. With threats emerging on campus in the form of ISIS arsonists, I was granted the day off and went home to the safety of Hao House. It was a blindingly hot summer's day, the sort that only ever really happens in dreams, and the garden was bathed in a fierce golden glow with a brilliant blue sky overhead. I stood in the kitchen looking out on the back lawn with Li when a loud cockerel crow broke the silence of the afternoon. A large creature with speckled brown feathered wings and a long reptilian tail flew in clumsy circles outside, crashing into the neighbours' trees and flapping around in the bushes like an oversized wood pigeon. I dismissed it as a "cockatrice, or basilisk" and focused my attention on an even larger creature right at the bottom of the garden, near the back fence.

It was a giant Southern, or double-wattled cassowary, a male, nearing the size of a Gastornis 'terror bird'. Its head and neck was a vivid toy box blue and its hair-like plumage a blueish black. The bird stalked out a small territory along the fence, as though patrolling an assigned area to protect. Knowing the highly aggressive nature of the Southern cassowary in Australia, I told Li that the mammoth bird must die, whereupon I began to arm myself with garden tools. As I gingerly approached the bird, anticipating a gruelling battle, I took note of the sickle-shaped helmet and javelin beak which could make short work of me, along with razor spurs on its legs which could eviscerate with a single kick. With my pitchfork at the ready, I got within striking distance and prepared to thrust.

Unexpectedly, the bird ignored my presence and seemed in no way alarmed or distressed. My resolve first began to falter, and then drop altogether when I realised the cassowary was harmless. Li came outside to join me and we inspected the surrounding area. Despite the great weight of the bird, the lawn was mostly untrampled and there was no damage to speak of. Some plastic portacabins which hadn't been there before had appeared, but other than that, we were content to leave things as they were. It was then that we discovered a nest hidden among the flowerbeds, with a solitary egg in its centre. As the cassowary became used to our presence, it allowed itself to be stroked, and eventually hugged. We decided to keep it on as a  pet to drive away unwanted intruders, yet it was also free to leave through the same way it had entered, through some broken slats in the fence to the meadows beyond.

The cockatrice, on the other hand, was not to be tolerated.

Silberrad Lions

The End is a big student party that takes place on campus once a year at the end of exams. Typically the squares are heaving with students who have been drinking since the early afternoon and in recent years, a small army of security guards have maintained a presence to control who enters and leaves. On the day of the End, university staff are advised to leave work an hour early in order to avoid the lockdown.

Last night I dreamt that the festival would be taking place predominantly in the new Silberrad student centre, where I work full time. I was working during the event on the ground floor, whilst the Vice Chancellor entertained distinguished guests on the first floor, and the SU decorated the building in the manner of an old-fashioned Italian town. It was already dark outside by the time the first of the students made their appearance, and despite security's perimeter barricades, some townies looking for a fight had somehow managed to slip in.

Two of the men started following me around and giving me grief, but because I was in work mode, I was not allowed to break protocol and defend myself. I reported them to security but they had their hands full and were unable to help. Some hours later, I heard a scream, followed by a roar, and the next thing I knew, the centre was overrun by lions. For some odd reason, the fact there were lions was not so much surprising as the fact that they were able to get past security without anybody noticing.

As the chaos unfolded, I took the opportunity to revenge myself on the two townies. I picked up a broken drinks tray and gashed the bigger of the them across the back of his neck, severing his spinal chord with its sharp side. He slumped to the ground gushing blood and his friend came running at me in rage. I lured him away to the lobby where I knew the lions were and left him to his fate, then made my escape up a back stairwell.

Having a more detailed knowledge of the new building, I was able to avoid a good mauling, at least until the end of the dream when dawn broke and the lions started hunting me properly. Just as they had me cornered, a park ranger dressed as a great white hunter turned up commanded them to lay off me. He told me not to show any fear, as they were just like big dogs, with more bark than bite. Looking about me, I saw that many students were already dead or dying, and the car park was full of ambulances and police cars.

My attempts to stand up to the lions were pitifully meek, my gaze deflected by their glowing amber eyes and enraged, wrinkled snarls. Sensing my fear, they came running at me again, nipping my arms with their fangs and raking my back with their claws. The ranger told me to stick my elbows out and push them off, but the experience was too traumatic so I decided to wake up. This is not the first time I've dreamt about lions being a threatening presence.

Below is an image from Giovanni Battista Piranesi's 'Imaginary Prisons' series which I'm convinced has wrought a strong effect upon my dreamscapes over the years.

Japan Aquarium

I recently returned from a two week holiday in Japan, where some of the aforementioned zoo and aquarium dreams came to pass, most significantly the latest one involving a hippo attack. I may blog about it at a later date. However, it is not just dreams that have a habit of forming my reality, the reverse also occurs. The other night I had a dream influenced by my last day in Japan, where I visited an aquarium in Sunshine City, Ikebukuro, Tokyo. The aquarium was on the roof of a high rise shopping mall, yet in the dream it was part of a leisure centre, or onsen.

In the dream, it was my penultimate day in Japan, and I went to the swimming pool with my family. The indoor pool was enclosed by glass panels, on the other side of which was a restaurant and expansive aquarium tanks holding many species of tropical fish and manatees. It was time to leave however, so I made the decision to return the following day with Li to explore further. True to our plans, we came back the next day and paid our admission. It was a wild, stormy day with a pink sky and frequent squalls of rain, a typhoon on its way.

The aquarium was divided into three zones: tropical, coastal, and polar. The largest zone, the tropical, was the one I had glimpsed the day before, with the fish and manatees. Because I had entered from a strange angle, I was unable to find this particular section again. The coastal zone was situated outside, adjoining the sea, and a number of sea-lions frolicked in pools and performed tricks. There was also a fun fair here with rides, arcade machines, and various cafes. The polar zone was indoors and was essentially a massive tank filled with floating ice floes and polar bears. There did not however, seem to be any solid land for the bears to climb onto.

Over the top of the polar tank was a fancy restaurant where diners could look through the glass tables  and see the bears swimming around beneath. Some of the tables had holes cut into them where cubs could poke their heads through and be fed and petted. I stroked the neck of a polar bear cub and it felt warm, despite the freezing water it had emerged from. I snapped a few photos of the other polar bears performing underwater acrobatics, then spent the rest of the dream trying to access the manatee hall but getting lost in gift shops instead.