David Warren: The monkey business

My reader may have been struck by an item of breaking news yesterday. Travis, the trained chimpanzee, star of Coca-Cola and Old Navy commercials, and of the pilot for a TV series, badly misbehaved at his home in Stamford, Connecticut.

For no immediately discernable reason, he attacked a favourite family friend, as she arrived in a car. She was seriously and permanently maimed. The 90-kilogram animal shrugged off a butcher-knife attack from his mistress, in defence of her friend. When paramedics arrived under police protection, the chimp attacked the police. He cornered one policeman in his cruiser, and was shot by him in self-defence. Travis then retreated into his house, where he was later found dead.

Apparently the woman lost both eyes, her nose, and part of her jaw in the attack.

Want a friend? Adopt a cat. Not an ape. There are zillions of cats at your local animal shelter. Most cats would love a good home. And they will not attack you. But if they did, it wouldn't matter. They are just kitty cats, okay?

As we used to say,

Cats are fine
Cats are great
Cats are clean
They clean your plate* ...

Go here for more from David Warren.

*When I was a child over fifty years ago, I used to watch my grandmother put out the dishes from dinner, for the domestic animals (dogs, cats) to lick clean, before we washed them. So there was no waste. We didn't do waste in those days.

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