Dancing bears

An item on a breakfast TV programme this morning debated the issue of using live animals in circuses, which raises two questions,

1. Who would go to see a circus that uses dead animals ?
2. Who would go to see a circus that uses no animals ?

Question 2 is probably easier to answer as my imagination just cannot stretch to envision a circus where clowns try to lift a dead horse through a large burning hoop, but actually, just thinking about that I think it could work.

There are circuses that don't have any animals in them at all but apart from a circus of horrors that was doing the rounds last year, I have never been of a frame of mind that would be tempted or attracted by the thought of spending an evening in a tent, sitting on a hard wooden bench, while some people in lycra did handstands or juggled plates in front of me.

When ah wor nobbut a lad the arrival of Billy Smarts Circus was a big deal and we always seemed to go without fail, and without fail the jugglers and handstand experts were by far the most boring bits of the circus, the only thing that us kids went to see were the big cats, the lions and tigers in a cage which was hurridly erected whilst clowns distracted your attention, so hurridly was the cage erected that with hindsight you have to wonder just how well constructed it was and whether or not it would have resisted the most determined of lions - I remember in particular one year when a lion was sitting on one of those big tub things right in front of us, waiting for its turn to jump through fiery hoops, when it turned around to face us and started knawing at one of the ropes that held the cage together. When you're five that is one of the most frightening and exciting things that you can ever see and so of course I still remember it today and still remember standing on my seat and screaming at the lion tamer with all the rest of the kids that one of his lions was going to eat us soon.

The debate on TV today was started by the son of the bloke who starred in the film "Born Free" who believes that all animals circuses should be banned, he runs a charity that reintroduces animals back into the wild and so had a sort of vested interest in the subject.

The owner of the circus in question was putting forward the argument that his animals enjoyed performing in the ring and that they were bred for the purpose and well fed and well cared for, and he may have had a point. What he should also have added was "if you take away the animals then no-one in their right mind would come and watch my jugglers and handstand experts on their own"

But the strangest argument that the circus man had was that his circus was a necessary part of wild animal breeding programmes which was a function and responsibility that I never imagined circuses to have.

The answer is plain for all to see.

Give the Born Free man a job in the circus.

They could form a new company in which animals are breed specifically to be trained with circus skills in order to be reintroduced to the wild in a few years time when crowds have tired of looking at them. When back in the wild these animals would be the main attractions in African wildlife reserves and tourists would pay a big premium to specifically seek out and photograph these particular creatures - its a win/win situation.

The one thing that has always put me off going on a safari holiday to the Masaii-Mara is that there is no guarantee that you will get to see lions or elephants and that when you do it is very likely that they will be lying down in the shade sleeping or munching slowly on a large bush, just imagine how different it would be if you could arrange for the tourists and animals to rendevous in a large clearing and then be entertained by a procession of lions who gladly and happily leapt through hoops, slide down slides and allowed selected tourists to put their heads in their mouths, or to have elephants who willingly let you ride on their backs or jokingly filled their trunks with water and squirted you while you watched the lions.

Sometimes I get such good ideas that my head hurts.