Great Bear News
Mon 8th Feb 2010
- Smarter than the average Bear
Today we are all excited here at the Birkenhead Bear Sanctuary because we have had some rather major news. It is all still a bit hush-hush so keep it under your hats. If you remember, back in October 2008, we revealed there was to be a major film made about a certain Bear who lives in Jellystone Park. We now have it on good authority the film has been completed and is now in post-production. For those of you who have no idea what we are talking about then let us reveal – there is going to be a Yogi Bear Movie!
The film centres on the fact that Jellystone Park has been losing business, so the greedy Major of Jellystone decides to close it down and sell off the land. That means that families would no longer be able to spend summer days in the wilds enjoying the natural beauty of the great outdoors. Even worse than that, Yogi and Boo Boo will be turned out of the only home they have ever known.
Faced with his biggest challenge ever, Yogi must prove that he is “smarter than the average Bear” and he and Boo Boo must join forces with their old nemesis, Ranger Smith, to find a way to save Jellystone Park from closing forever.
The film is shot in CG/Live-action 3D and stars Dan Akroyd as Yogi, Justin Timberlake as Boo Boo and Tom Cavanagh as Ranger Smith. It is being directed by Eric Brevig who also worked on “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” and should be in the cinema just in time for Christmas this year.
Remember, you heard it here first!
Musical Sundays #68
Sun 7th Feb 2010
Because Sundays are always boring; we decided, a while back, to turn them into Musical Fun Days. Each Sunday we will post a music video from an artist or genre that we think will be enjoyable to our subscribers. This weekend…
…we have someone we have featured before on BearTube because she is one of our favourites, Björk Guðmundsdóttir, or just Björk as she is more commonly known. Björk is an Icelandic singer-songwriter who was lead singer with the Sugarcubes before starting her solo career. She is best known for her expressive vocal range, diverse electronic music style and her eccentric costumes and music videos. The video we are featuring is from her album debut and is responsible for boosting her worldwide popularity, particularly in America. The video is an iconic vision of Björk dancing on the back of a flat-back wagon driving through New York City in the middle of the day.
Björk – Big Time Sensuality
Don’t forget, if you have any music videos you would like us to feature on a future Sunday then drop us a line. We are always happy to listen to requests from others, we can’t promise to feature any but we will try our best to find the videos if we think others will enjoy.
The Royal Iris: A Sad End
Sat 6th Feb 2010
Royal Iris: glory days
For 42 years, The Royal Iris was the pride of the Mersey Ferries until it was sold to James Jegede. He purchased the former ferryboat with plans of turning it into floating disco. None of his plans came to fruition and for the last few years, it has been left berthed on the Thames close to the Woolwich Ferry. It has been deteriorating during this time and now looks in very poor shape.
Last night, the Gravesend Lifeguard was called out after the boat started sinking and someone reported there were people onboard the decaying vessel. No one was found onboard, but the Royal Iris was swamped in mud and water up to the deck level.
RNLI Helmsman, Graham Tassell said: “We arrived to find an eerie scene – it was a pretty odd sight as everything was so calm and silent. We conducted a search alongside officers. Thankfully no persons were found to be onboard, although no one could check the lower levels due to water entry.”
Royal Iris: sitting in the mud
The Royal Iris was taken out of service and left the banks of the Mersey in 1991 and was towed down to Cardiff. She was going to be revamped into a floating nightclub but when permission was refused, she ended her days floating on the River Thames. It is believed the vessel, a diesel electric ship built for Wallasey Ferries of Liverpool in 1950, has been taking on water at every high tide as she sits on the mud. The Royal Daffodil, along with new ship The Royal Iris of Mersey, have become the flagship vessels now being used to cross the Mersey.
It is sad that one of Liverpool’s most cherished vessels has been left to decay and slowly sink into the mud of the River Thames. It is even sadder that current owner, James Jegede, has been contacted on a few occasions to talk about selling the boat and he has refused all offers from Liverpool Council and Mersey Ferries.
Aye-Aye
Thu 4th Feb 2010
I have offered admired just how handsome some of our Bears are. As we are all aware, Razzi even has people fighting over his affections and a number of times we have had catfights on the blog over his who loves him more. Just last night, Bears Friends Charlie and Alicia were squaring up to one another over who owns Razzi’s heart.
Imagine then, if our Bears were ugly. Would anyone love Razzi if he had big bat ears, a little rats face and long skinny witches fingers? I doubt it very much but who could love such a creature if, in fact, such a creature existed?
The Aye-aye; a bringer of death?
Well, such a creature does exist and it is called an Aye-aye. It is classed as a Lima and is a native of Madagascar. It combines rodent-like teeth with a long, thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker. It is the world’s largest nocturnal primate, and is characterized by its unusual method of finding food; it taps on trees to find grubs, then gnaws holes in the wood and inserts its elongated middle finger to pull the grubs out. The only other animal known to find food in this way is the Striped Possum. From an ecological point of view, the Aye-aye fills the niche of a woodpecker, as it is capable of penetrating wood to extract the invertebrates.
The Aye-aye lives primarily on the east coast of Madagascar. Its natural habitat is rainforest or deciduous forest, but many live in cultivated areas due to deforesting by man. The Rainforest Aye-ayes, the most common, dwell in canopy areas at upwards of 700 metres altitude. The Aye-aye sleeps during the day in nests built in the forks of trees.
The Aye-aye is classically considered anti-social, but recent research suggests that they are friendlier than once thought. It usually sticks to foraging in its own personal home range, or territory. The home ranges of males often overlap and the males can be very social with each other. Female home ranges never overlap, though a male’s home range often overlaps that of several females. The female Aye-aye is dominant to the male. They are not monogamous and often compete with each other for mates.
The Aye-aye is an endangered species not only because its habitat is being destroyed, but also due to native superstition. Besides being a general nuisance in villages, ancient Malagasy legend said that the Aye-aye was a symbol of death. Public contempt goes beyond this. The Aye-aye is often viewed as a harbinger of evil and killed on sight. Others believe that should one point its long middle finger at you, you were condemned to death. Some say the appearance of an Aye-aye in a village predicts the death of a villager, and the only way to prevent this is to kill the Aye-aye.
Incidents of Aye-aye killings increase every year as its forest habitats are destroyed and it is forced to raid plantations and villages. Because of the superstition surrounding it, this often ends in death.
The Poor Aye-aye!
Saint Erasmus Of Formiae
Wed 3rd Feb 2010
The Bears nearly choked on their jammy toast this morning when Edward announced at breakfast that Razzi was a Saint. They did show some signed of recovering when he added that it was not our own Razzi. We should explain. Edward had been on the Internet last night researching for some articles we were planning for the blog, when he discovered Saint Erasmus.
St Erasmus of Formiae
Saint Erasmus is a Christian saint and martyr who died in 303. He is venerated as the Patron Saint of Sailors. According to his legend, Erasmus was an early Christian bishop in Italy when the persecutions by the Emperor Diocletian began. Erasmus was called before a judge, beaten around the head, spat upon and “besprinkled with foulness.” He was then beaten with leaden mauls until his veins broke and burst. Erasmus suffered all of these punishments with tremendous willingness and showed no fear. This made Emperor Diocletian so mad he had Erasmus thrown into a pit of snakes and worms, and boiling oil and sulphur was poured on him but he lay there pretending he was having a bath and thanked the Emperor for being so kind.
Then thunder and lightning came and electrocuted everyone except for Erasmus who was protected from the lightning. This made the Emperor Diocletian even angrier with Erasmus and he had him thrown in another pit filled with snakes. On this occasion, an angel came and slew all the vipers.
Erasmus would not cease preaching the Gospel, even though he was in great pain from having rosin, pitch, brimstone lead, and oil poured into his mouth. Erasmus stayed brave and never shrank away from his tormentors once. Erasmus then had a searing hot cloak and metal coat put onto his body before an angel eventually carried him away to safety.
This made the emperor so angry he had Erasmus enclosed in a barrel full of protruding spikes, and the barrel was rolled down a hill. Another angel healed him this time but more tortures ensued; his teeth were plucked out of his head with iron pincers, they bound him to a pillar and whipped his skin with iron shards, they roasted him upon a gridiron, they hammered sharp nails of iron into his fingers, they poked out his eyes with their fingers.
After this, they laid this holy bishop upon the ground naked and stretched him with strong ropes bound to horses and wrapped around his neck, arms, and legs, so that all his veins and sinews burst.
Erasmus still recovered and fled to Mount Lebanon and survived on what ravens brought him to eat. When he was recaptured, he was brought before the emperor and beaten and whipped, then coated with pitch and set alight and still he survived. Thrown into prison with the intention of letting him die of starvation, St Erasmus managed to escape.
He was recaptured and tortured some more in the Roman province of Illyricum because he continued preaching and converted numerous pagans to Christianity. Finally, according to the legend, his stomach was slit open and his intestines wound around a windlass.
A windlass is an apparatus for moving heavy weights and is typically used for the loading and unloading of ships. This is the reason that, to this very day, Saint Erasmus is the Patron Saint of Sailors. It is said that he watches over sailors and he uses Saint Elmo’s fire (the glow accompanying the brush-like discharges of atmospheric electricity that appears as a tip of light on the masts of ships during stormy weather) as the visible sign of his guardianship over them. Erasmus is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints conjointly venerated in medieval Germany.
When we told our Razzi the story he went a little pale and said he did not really want to be a saint if you have to go through all that. He would rather just be normal Razzi, thank you very much!
Groundhog Day
Tue 2nd Feb 2010
Punxsutawney Phil
For those of you who have seen the film Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray, you will know that on this day every year Punxsutawney Phil the Groundhog predicts the weather forecast for the next six weeks. What you may not realise, is that this is a real ceremony that takes place every year in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on the 2nd February.
On this day, Punxsutawney Phil the Groundhog is woken from his temporary burrow – a simulated tree stump at the rural site of Gobbler’s Knob – and, so the legend tells, if he sees his shadow then we will have six more weeks of winter. On the other hand, if he does not see his shadow then we will have an early spring and temperatures will rise.
The forecast is read by Phil’s handlers and interpreters as they translate Phil’s prediction from Groundhogese for us to find out what the groundhog’s prediction is. We can report that this morning over in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania – Punxsutawney Phil did indeed wake from his slumbers and this is what his interpreter had to say:
This February Punxsutawney Phil, the seer of seers, prognosticator of prognosticators emerged reluctantly, but alertly in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and stated in Groundhogese, “I definitely see a shadow.” Sorry, folks - six more weeks of winter.
Therefore, we are sorry to report, no early spring this year!
This year’s prediction proved so popular that Punxsutawney Phil’s website http://groundhog.org crashed because of the sheer volume of visitors. It seems everyone wants in on Phil’s predictions. Somehow, I cannot see Fred the Weatherman having as much interest on Granda Reports!