0:00:02 > 0:00:04I know people do think that animals think like us
0:00:04 > 0:00:06and that the only reason why they don't talk to us
0:00:06 > 0:00:08is because they have some sort of speech defect.
0:00:08 > 0:00:10Really they are extremely eloquent.
0:00:10 > 0:00:13They are desperately trying to get their message across to us
0:00:13 > 0:00:18and their various noises are just in fact the noises made by a person
0:00:18 > 0:00:21who is actually trying to say something complicated but can't get it out.
0:00:21 > 0:00:23It's almost as if a dog's bark were...
0:00:23 > 0:00:28HE MUMBLES AND BARKS IN FRUSTRATION
0:00:28 > 0:00:33It's all like this, I can't get the...woof!
0:00:33 > 0:00:37But in fact one knows that the main reason why animals don't talk to us at all
0:00:37 > 0:00:40is that actually they have nothing to say.
0:00:40 > 0:00:46# Something tells me it's all happening at the zoo
0:00:46 > 0:00:53# I do believe it, I do believe it's true
0:00:53 > 0:00:56# Mmmm, mmmm
0:00:58 > 0:01:02# Whoa, whoa
0:01:02 > 0:01:05# Mmmmm
0:01:05 > 0:01:08# The monkeys stand for honesty
0:01:08 > 0:01:11# Giraffes are insincere
0:01:11 > 0:01:13# And the elephants are kindly
0:01:13 > 0:01:17# But they're dumb
0:01:17 > 0:01:23# Orang-utans are sceptical of changes in their cages
0:01:23 > 0:01:28# And the zookeeper is very fond of rum
0:01:28 > 0:01:32# Zebras are reactionaries
0:01:32 > 0:01:34# Antelopes are missionaries
0:01:34 > 0:01:37# Pigeons plot in secrecy
0:01:37 > 0:01:40# And hamsters turn on frequently
0:01:40 > 0:01:43# What a gas! You've got to come and see
0:01:43 > 0:01:45# At the zoo
0:01:45 > 0:01:48# At the zoo
0:01:48 > 0:01:51# At the zoo
0:01:51 > 0:01:54# At the zoo... #
0:01:54 > 0:01:56ROARING
0:01:56 > 0:02:00My earliest memories of the zoo are distant sounds heard in the early morning.
0:02:00 > 0:02:03I'm very often woken by the sounds of these animals.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07At about 5 or 6am, you could often hear extremely depressed sounds
0:02:07 > 0:02:10coming from the lion house, for example.
0:02:10 > 0:02:13Presumably, when there's no-one there to look at them
0:02:13 > 0:02:17and no-one there to see them, they really let their hair down
0:02:17 > 0:02:21because you can often hear the sounds of acute leonine depression
0:02:21 > 0:02:23echoing over the empty park.
0:02:23 > 0:02:26A sort of "Oh...God!"
0:02:28 > 0:02:31DESPAIRING YOWL
0:02:33 > 0:02:38GROANING
0:02:38 > 0:02:40Or later on in the morning,
0:02:40 > 0:02:44you can sometimes hear a tremendous shriek of hysterical laughter
0:02:44 > 0:02:47as if a joke has been told somewhere in the small mammal house
0:02:47 > 0:02:49which has been passed from cage to cage.
0:02:49 > 0:02:54You get these ripples of hysterical laughter passing around all the enclosures.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58It's as if perhaps a gerbil has heard a very small limerick
0:02:58 > 0:03:00or an elephant joke,
0:03:00 > 0:03:04and has passed it on to a skink and gradually by increments,
0:03:04 > 0:03:06it grows and passes around the zoo
0:03:06 > 0:03:10until the whole place is in an uproar of hysterical laughter
0:03:10 > 0:03:13which you can hear across the empty park.
0:03:13 > 0:03:19LAUGHTER BUILDS TO HYSTERICAL CRESCENDO
0:03:19 > 0:03:21POLITE CLEARING OF THROAT
0:03:21 > 0:03:24Quiet now, the public is coming in.
0:03:24 > 0:03:30All along the canal here, there are these small bird cages, the owl cages.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32I remember when I was a child,
0:03:32 > 0:03:35I always regarded this as the dull hors d'oeuvre
0:03:35 > 0:03:37of a visit to the zoo.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41Somehow, these were the drab, uncoloured animals.
0:03:41 > 0:03:42The English animals.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46The home, domestic animals and they weren't very interesting at all.
0:03:46 > 0:03:51They sat rather glumly on their perches with their large custard eyes looking out at one.
0:03:51 > 0:03:53It was a part of the zoo to be hurried through en route
0:03:53 > 0:03:57for the more dramatic things like the lions or the giraffes.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00Just on the other side, I remember that in the early days,
0:04:00 > 0:04:03they used to have all the giraffes.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06In the giraffe enclosure, they had the hippos as well.
0:04:06 > 0:04:11For a long time, I've been searching for the hippos and they've gone.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15But there used to be a marvellous enclosure where they kept the hippos.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19It was as if the hippos had invaded a waterworks
0:04:19 > 0:04:23which had then been surrendered by the metropolitan borough council.
0:04:23 > 0:04:26And said, "Right, the hippos are in, we'd better get out."
0:04:26 > 0:04:30They used to be there steaming and stewing in a huge bouillabaisse of their own excrement.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34There used to be these wonderful hissing, leaking noises.
0:04:34 > 0:04:39That's all gone now. Instead, there is a decent, rather modern, chic, trendy enclosure now
0:04:39 > 0:04:43where they keep the dromedaries, the giraffes and the llamas.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48And these very dignified, beautiful, aristocratic creatures had to behave
0:04:48 > 0:04:52as if they had not realised that next door,
0:04:52 > 0:04:56there was this great stinking lavatory enclosure
0:04:56 > 0:05:02with these half-deflated pink rubber bath animals.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06What you get with these delicate high-stepping aristocrats here
0:05:06 > 0:05:11pretending to say, "Don't notice a thing. Pretend it's not happening.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17"Don't sniff now. This is a time of great vulgarity,
0:05:17 > 0:05:24"and great raucousness and nothing makes me laugh nowadays.
0:05:24 > 0:05:26"Occasionally..."
0:05:26 > 0:05:31The sad thing about giraffes is that their appeal has been entirely destroyed
0:05:31 > 0:05:34by the fact that art has imitated nature
0:05:34 > 0:05:36and upholstery, having borrowed from them
0:05:36 > 0:05:42in the most vulgar possible form, and now assumes that these animals
0:05:42 > 0:05:45are as vulgar as the furniture which imitates them.
0:05:45 > 0:05:50Gift suites are made up like giraffe and zebra skin.
0:05:50 > 0:05:55So the giraffes and the zebras who invented the damn thing anyway have lost out.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59"You see, the thing is, one starts with an idea,
0:05:59 > 0:06:02"a design notion which is in itself quite good,
0:06:02 > 0:06:07"then along comes a lot of these Times Furnishing, G plan,
0:06:07 > 0:06:11"borrow the notion, vulgarise it and one is absolutely left in the sh...
0:06:11 > 0:06:14"I think the zebras are, I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here,
0:06:14 > 0:06:17"are more or less in the same position.
0:06:17 > 0:06:22"You see, time was, the zebra had the whole striped field to himself,
0:06:22 > 0:06:26"but the whole Op Art thing has burst and the result is the zebra
0:06:26 > 0:06:30"is left looking very silly indeed with egg all over his face."
0:06:30 > 0:06:33This is Przewalski's Horse, so-called.
0:06:33 > 0:06:38I've always assumed since I became acquainted with this animal
0:06:38 > 0:06:41that this, in fact, was a possessive description,
0:06:41 > 0:06:46it in fact was Przewalski's Horse, who I have always assumed
0:06:46 > 0:06:52was one of the marshals fighting against Napoleon at the Battle of Marengo.
0:06:52 > 0:06:57And that finally, during the course of the battle, a cannon went off,
0:06:57 > 0:07:01the animal was frightened, threw Przewalski, who broke his neck,
0:07:01 > 0:07:07and after the battle, this horse went ranging through the battlefield of Marengo
0:07:07 > 0:07:10picking its way amongst the corpses looking for Przewalski himself.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14Who, unhorsed and epauletted, was himself saying...
0:07:14 > 0:07:19- AUSTRIAN ACCENT:- "Where is my horse, has anyone seen my horse?
0:07:19 > 0:07:24"That is Przewalski's Horse. Has anyone seen Przewalski's Horse?
0:07:24 > 0:07:26"Oh, for crying..."
0:07:26 > 0:07:32The most peculiar thing about the zoo is that in a very small area,
0:07:32 > 0:07:36right in the middle of very sober, business-like London,
0:07:36 > 0:07:39you've collected together these...
0:07:39 > 0:07:42all the most bizarre outrages of creation.
0:07:42 > 0:07:47All the animals in this enclosure all smell very nice.
0:07:47 > 0:07:51Whereas as soon as you get into any sort of carnivore
0:07:51 > 0:07:55or a mixed diet house, there's a foul smell.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59It's partly to do with the diet and the mortal attitudes of the animals as well.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02MONKEYS HOOT
0:08:17 > 0:08:22There is a feeling of sloppy, psychopathic delinquency about the monkey house.
0:08:22 > 0:08:25They are careless about their toilet.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30They defecate without shame and they masturbate without shame.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35They pick each other, they fidget. They steal.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37They take unfair advantage, they bite,
0:08:37 > 0:08:40they snatch food through the bars.
0:08:40 > 0:08:42They're rude. It's only in the monkey house
0:08:42 > 0:08:44that one feels that you ever find yourself
0:08:44 > 0:08:46using the terminology of blame.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49You find yourself thinking that monkeys are immoral in some way.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51They are naughty, or dirty.
0:08:51 > 0:08:56They are sufficiently close to us to make us want to try to make them into us.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59Therefore when they fail to come up to these standards,
0:08:59 > 0:09:02we feel that they are delinquent in some way.
0:09:02 > 0:09:04No-one thinks that polar bears are delinquent
0:09:04 > 0:09:07because they don't dress properly or because they don't eat nicely.
0:09:07 > 0:09:13No-one feels that lions or elephants or rhinoceroses are criminals,
0:09:13 > 0:09:17but that is because they are so utterly different from us.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20Their zoological distance is so enormous
0:09:20 > 0:09:23that we apply no sort of value judgements to them at all.
0:09:23 > 0:09:27But because monkeys are so close to us and look like us,
0:09:27 > 0:09:31it's very natural to think of all their failures
0:09:31 > 0:09:35to come up to our standards as being delinquencies of some sort.
0:09:35 > 0:09:39It's very hard to know what to feel about monkeys.
0:09:39 > 0:09:44And I think human beings have been ambivalent about the primates,
0:09:44 > 0:09:48partly because they're so near to us and because they're so clever.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51There's also a feeling they're too clever by half.
0:09:51 > 0:09:53And there's a curious feeling amongst certain people,
0:09:53 > 0:09:55certainly amongst certain writers,
0:09:55 > 0:09:58that there's something awful about cleverness. You find it in Kipling.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03One feels that if there was a Kingsley Amis or someone of that sort
0:10:03 > 0:10:08writing about the animal world, he would also pick on the monkeys
0:10:08 > 0:10:10as the sort of trendy lefties of zoology.
0:10:10 > 0:10:13The too-clever-by-half intellectuals,
0:10:13 > 0:10:16the people who are all talk and no action.
0:10:16 > 0:10:20The chattering, talking intellectual figures of the animal world
0:10:20 > 0:10:24who couldn't get anything done because they were always peeling grapes
0:10:24 > 0:10:26and talking and chattering and trying to be clever.
0:10:26 > 0:10:31The biggest crowds are always in front of the gorilla.
0:10:31 > 0:10:32Everyone goes to see Guy first.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36It's exactly the same way as our fascination with the moon
0:10:36 > 0:10:40is very much greater than our fascination with the most distant stars in the universe.
0:10:40 > 0:10:44I think in exactly the same way, we are fascinated by an animal
0:10:44 > 0:10:48which is so close and yet at the same time so far.
0:10:48 > 0:10:50We feel that we might be able to talk to Guy
0:10:50 > 0:10:52or that Guy might be able to talk to us.
0:10:52 > 0:10:58Therefore, his eternal failure to do so is somehow endlessly puzzling.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02How can he look so much like us and yet not be able to talk to us?
0:11:02 > 0:11:05We don't feel, as with a prisoner for example,
0:11:05 > 0:11:07that underneath Guy's bedding
0:11:07 > 0:11:09there is a huge pile of scrumpled notepaper
0:11:09 > 0:11:12with a whole series of intriguing gorilla memoirs.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16He has nothing to write about. One day is much like the next.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20Our days pile up on each other and leave a residue.
0:11:20 > 0:11:26Our years accumulate, and we sit on top of our pile of years,
0:11:26 > 0:11:28and are higher up each year,
0:11:28 > 0:11:33and can view our life from a mound of achievement.
0:11:33 > 0:11:35Nothing builds up for Guy.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39MONKEY HOOTS
0:11:39 > 0:11:43It's a very weird attitude that we have towards animals in this way
0:11:43 > 0:11:47and the way in which we project onto animals all our own feelings about human society.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51There is a sort of fascist love of eagles
0:11:51 > 0:11:54and of lions and of predators.
0:11:54 > 0:11:58A sense that these are the Teutonic nobles of the animal world
0:11:58 > 0:12:00who don't bother to think about ideas.
0:12:00 > 0:12:05All they have is clean, simple actions.
0:12:05 > 0:12:07I remember once visiting Apsley House
0:12:07 > 0:12:11and seeing all the heavy military plate
0:12:11 > 0:12:15and the tattered flags of old campaigns.
0:12:15 > 0:12:19And I feel the eagle's house is rather like one of these military residences
0:12:19 > 0:12:23where ancient generals can fall into honourable retirement.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27There is something about eagles which is similar to military men and military aristocrats.
0:12:27 > 0:12:30There's the dull, honourable grandeur
0:12:30 > 0:12:33of the eagle's stance, the eagle's appearance,
0:12:33 > 0:12:35the tattered magnificence,
0:12:35 > 0:12:39the remains of some sort of military stature
0:12:39 > 0:12:42which is falling into seedy decay.
0:12:42 > 0:12:45As they stand on these damp perches and are fed
0:12:45 > 0:12:51the remains of what might once have been a rather grand military meal.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53I don't know whether it is intentional
0:12:53 > 0:12:57but they have arranged the cage so it looks rather like Blenheim.
0:12:57 > 0:13:00It's got a great central Palladian middle part for the golden eagle
0:13:00 > 0:13:04and these two Palladian wings on each side.
0:13:04 > 0:13:07They are grace and favour residences for people who once served the Crown with honour,
0:13:07 > 0:13:11and have now been put into very honourable retirement.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14The eagles are like old guards colonels,
0:13:14 > 0:13:17who once had a good record at Alamein,
0:13:17 > 0:13:21or like Roman generals who saw very honourable service at Lake Trasimene
0:13:21 > 0:13:27and who have now been pensioned off into these magnificent shells of country houses
0:13:27 > 0:13:31which their pension couldn't furnish, so there are no sideboards
0:13:31 > 0:13:35and no magnificent chairs, no magnificent suites of furniture.
0:13:35 > 0:13:40On a military pension, all they can do is keep up their uniform.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43Here, one feels are the Alanbrookes, the Montgomerys,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46the Hannibals, the Beetys,
0:13:46 > 0:13:50the Jellicoes and the Caesars of the animal kingdom.
0:13:50 > 0:13:52IT CAWS REPEATEDLY
0:13:56 > 0:14:00In the first eight years of my visits to the zoo,
0:14:00 > 0:14:02the various accessories, things like chocolates and gifts
0:14:02 > 0:14:06and records were the main attraction of coming to the zoo.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09The animals were something that were thrown in for good measure.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12Now, bringing my own children to the zoo here in the '60s,
0:14:12 > 0:14:15it's very much the same sort of thing.
0:14:15 > 0:14:19As soon as you bring them along, all they really want is chocolate,
0:14:19 > 0:14:21and you try and distract them with lions,
0:14:21 > 0:14:23that lasts about a few seconds
0:14:23 > 0:14:26and then it's chocolate they want, and to hell with the lions.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29HE ROARS
0:14:29 > 0:14:31I often imagine that the lions really
0:14:31 > 0:14:35are rather like those slightly louche men you get in the circus
0:14:35 > 0:14:38who dress up in lion's costumes,
0:14:38 > 0:14:41who underneath their lion's costumes
0:14:41 > 0:14:46are actually rather starveling figures, rather like Norman Wisdom.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49With sleeked back, molten gramophone hair,
0:14:49 > 0:14:51who simply have these enormous lion heads
0:14:51 > 0:14:54which they screw on and then sit there.
0:14:54 > 0:15:00I often imagine on Sunday morning before one comes in that they are sitting there,
0:15:00 > 0:15:03crossed legs and lion's tail across their knee,
0:15:03 > 0:15:07with the head off on a small side table beside them, smoking,
0:15:07 > 0:15:10with these awful kipper-coloured fingers from smoking.
0:15:10 > 0:15:14- COUGHING - Reading The People.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18And then quite suddenly, "Quick, here comes the public!"
0:15:18 > 0:15:22COUGHING AND RETCHING
0:15:26 > 0:15:30GROWLING
0:15:42 > 0:15:46These animals here have always attracted a great deal of attention
0:15:46 > 0:15:52because people are always fascinated by the delinquent aspect of the big cats.
0:15:52 > 0:15:57There's a feeling that these are the master criminals of the animal world,
0:15:57 > 0:16:01and they are the perpetrators of unspecified crimes of great magnitude in the past.
0:16:01 > 0:16:05These are the man-eaters, the murderers,
0:16:05 > 0:16:08and therefore in this rather grim reformatory here,
0:16:08 > 0:16:10that these are the lifers of the zoo
0:16:10 > 0:16:13who will never get remission for good conduct.
0:16:13 > 0:16:18These are the ones who are in here for 30 years or 99 years and longer.
0:16:18 > 0:16:21I don't know what wonderful whim suddenly seized
0:16:21 > 0:16:24the designers of these enclosure here.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28It's the most marvellous Gropius, Bauhaus idea.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31In fact, these animals look like the steering committee of the Bauhaus
0:16:31 > 0:16:34who've gathered to praise their own creation.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38- GERMAN ACCENT:- "We are here, all gathered by the pool side.
0:16:38 > 0:16:44"Here is Moholy-Nagy, und Walter Gropius, und also Paul Klee,
0:16:44 > 0:16:47"who have come in zeir dinner jackets
0:16:47 > 0:16:50"to have a grand reception in which zey are deciding
0:16:50 > 0:16:55"who is to have ze award for designing ze penguin pool.
0:16:55 > 0:17:00"And zey are looking around und seeing it is magnificent.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02"Oh, so sorry about that.
0:17:02 > 0:17:08"Of course, what it also looks like is if this was a prize-winning design
0:17:08 > 0:17:13"for a modernistic urinal."
0:17:13 > 0:17:16The seals always frighten me in some ways
0:17:16 > 0:17:18more than any of the animals in the zoo
0:17:18 > 0:17:22because they sum up the whole ghastly loneliness of the animal world.
0:17:22 > 0:17:26Just looking at these creatures swimming around in this icy, blue-green water,
0:17:26 > 0:17:30you realise that they have got nowhere to go except outdoors.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33There's no other place for them to warm themselves.
0:17:33 > 0:17:35They've got nowhere to go indoors for a cup of tea.
0:17:35 > 0:17:40They've got no future to look forward to, no evening,
0:17:40 > 0:17:44no fireside to sit by, just the endless arctic wastes
0:17:44 > 0:17:47where they come from, where there are no dates, no times,
0:17:47 > 0:17:51no future and no past, just awful, endless, green infinity.
0:17:51 > 0:17:54It's like those awful boys I used to see
0:17:54 > 0:17:56coming out of municipal swimming baths
0:17:56 > 0:18:00who'd been there for six hours, with frightful, chlorinated eyes.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03And you realise that the only function of seals in nature
0:18:03 > 0:18:06is to keep an eye on nature to make sure it's there.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09It's like Bishop Berkeley's idea that if the world wasn't there to see it,
0:18:09 > 0:18:11it wouldn't exist at all.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14One feels that seals are the perceptual policeman of nature,
0:18:14 > 0:18:17who just simply swim around scrutinising the world
0:18:17 > 0:18:21to make sure that it continues to exist with their awful gluey eyes.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24I think it's an awful life being a seal.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27The elephants used to be housed in a nice Victorian enclosure
0:18:27 > 0:18:28over the other side of the canal.
0:18:28 > 0:18:33For some reason, they built this strange elephant Hilton about a year ago.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37I think they must have taken their theme from Doctor Who,
0:18:37 > 0:18:42on the basis that somehow the pachyderms were some sort of krotons or mechanical organisms.
0:18:42 > 0:18:47The result is that they have this strange, faceless, roughcast concrete surface,
0:18:47 > 0:18:50and this strange, mysterious door opens, a whirring sound is heard,
0:18:50 > 0:18:53and suddenly out come these creatures from the jungle.
0:18:53 > 0:18:57- ROBOTICALLY: - "We are going to annihilate you."
0:18:57 > 0:18:59TRUMPETS LIKE AN ELEPHANT
0:19:01 > 0:19:04I think one of the strange things about elephants
0:19:04 > 0:19:06is the way in which all the normal parts of a human being
0:19:06 > 0:19:10or the normal parts of an animal are somehow there but misplaced.
0:19:10 > 0:19:14Here, it has a distant mobile independent nostril.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17It's lost its lower teeth,
0:19:17 > 0:19:20and they've trans-migrated to the bottom of its feet
0:19:20 > 0:19:23so it has its dentures in its toes.
0:19:23 > 0:19:28He uses his nose as a hand and can wipe its face with its nostrils.
0:19:28 > 0:19:32The other thing I keep thinking of when you see an animal this size,
0:19:32 > 0:19:34and this opaque, with this sort of dull, thick surface,
0:19:34 > 0:19:39is the idea of this fantastic physiological turmoil going on inside.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42These are animals where you get the idea of complete futility of nature.
0:19:42 > 0:19:47You realise that 16 out of 24 hours is spent eating just in order to maintain the size.
0:19:47 > 0:19:49- GRUFF VOICE:- "If only I could break out of it, I'd do it,
0:19:49 > 0:19:52"but I can't, because I'm absolutely hamstrung.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56"I feel such a Charlie with a nose down to my knees.
0:19:56 > 0:19:59"Nostril on the move, morning, noon and night,
0:19:59 > 0:20:03"just in order to keep hay shoved up my face.
0:20:03 > 0:20:07"No, quite frankly, it's a dog's life.
0:20:07 > 0:20:12"I've got no lower set of teeth, my jaw's collapsed...
0:20:12 > 0:20:13"and what happens when you die?
0:20:13 > 0:20:16"They just saw off your legs and turn them into umbrella stands.
0:20:16 > 0:20:19"I feel like a bloody umbrella stand as it is."
0:20:19 > 0:20:23With elephants and rhinoceroses, there's something so peculiar
0:20:23 > 0:20:27about the tiny watery eye in the front of this enormous body,
0:20:27 > 0:20:31that you begin to feel in fact, both rhinoceros and elephants
0:20:31 > 0:20:36are operated by a very small animal located inside the head.
0:20:36 > 0:20:40A small naked mahout who sits there prodding their tongue with an ankus.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43In the zoo, you realise this pathetic asymmetry
0:20:43 > 0:20:46of the relationships of the visitors to the animals.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49You can talk till you're blue in the face to a rhinoceros
0:20:49 > 0:20:51and you won't get anything back from him.
0:20:51 > 0:20:56Look at the delicate, but rather sensitive, Anton Dolin hind legs,
0:20:56 > 0:20:59and then these rubber leathery tights.
0:20:59 > 0:21:02It's as unexpected to see blood on the face of a pachyderm
0:21:02 > 0:21:06as it is to see blood coming out of a hoover or a railway engine or a taxi.
0:21:06 > 0:21:10There's something so surrealist about a blood on a rhinoceros,
0:21:10 > 0:21:14its own blood. It's like watching beds fighting. Two four posters.
0:21:16 > 0:21:23- AS BOXING REFEREE:- "On my right, at 485lb, a Chippendale.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28"On my left, at 600lb, in unfair contest,
0:21:28 > 0:21:32"a Hepplewhite double poster.
0:21:34 > 0:21:36"May the best bed win."
0:21:40 > 0:21:43I've only just discovered a few minutes ago
0:21:43 > 0:21:45that rhinos make no noise at all.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49One expects with creatures of this size that there would be an enormous baritone voice.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52They've always been silent when I've been here.
0:21:52 > 0:21:54The first time I ever heard them this morning,
0:21:54 > 0:21:56making an extremely small falsetto squeak.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59FALSETTO SQUEAK
0:21:59 > 0:22:02- HIGH-PITCHED:- "Hello. Hello, darling. Hello!"
0:22:02 > 0:22:05It's quite ludicrous, it really is.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07Oooh!
0:22:11 > 0:22:15Well, this is the house where I always feel like the clockwork of nature
0:22:15 > 0:22:17has run down to a very, very low level indeed.
0:22:17 > 0:22:21It always makes me realise how very disturbed and upset human beings are
0:22:21 > 0:22:24by seeing inertia, and how much they'll pay to see movement.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27In fact, there's a nice economic illustration of that.
0:22:27 > 0:22:31The way in which people can't bear to see animals or nature inert.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34So they will throw their pennies in an effort to disturb the creatures,
0:22:34 > 0:22:37to try and get them to perform some characteristic trick,
0:22:37 > 0:22:39just as long as they move, something.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43Just look at that fixed, malignant smile they have, too.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47A sort of embalmed malice. Life going at a very slow pace indeed.
0:22:49 > 0:22:51Frozen malice.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54Just watch, for example, the way that crocodile can stand for hours,
0:22:54 > 0:22:55leaving its mouth open.
0:22:55 > 0:22:58If we haven't got anything to say, our mouths close.
0:22:58 > 0:22:59But it's got stuck like that,
0:22:59 > 0:23:03because the whole mental life is moving so slowly.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07- MONOTONE AUSTRALIAN ACCENT:- "There's no motive, so why close your mouth?
0:23:07 > 0:23:11"If it's open, leave it open, I say.
0:23:11 > 0:23:18"If it's closed, then let it remain closed. So I'm half-submerged.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21"All right, fair enough."
0:23:21 > 0:23:24I think it's quite possible that when you're an animal
0:23:24 > 0:23:26the whole world is Australian.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29It's the lazy way. It's also the way when you come from a very dry land
0:23:29 > 0:23:32where everything moves very slowly and stickily,
0:23:32 > 0:23:36and some of the animals are neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring.
0:23:36 > 0:23:39In fact, in view of the total indifference of these animals,
0:23:39 > 0:23:42it's rather touching that the zoo has gone to such expense
0:23:42 > 0:23:47to build up this peculiar version of the animal's own habitat on the back walls.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51It's all that South American nightclub decor they build up for the reptiles.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53That sort of cha-cha-cha bongo drum feeling.
0:23:53 > 0:23:55CHA-CHA MUSIC PLAYS
0:24:05 > 0:24:08# Cha-cha-cha, cha-cha-cha, cha-cha-cha... #
0:24:08 > 0:24:10The reptiles themselves don't live up to it at all.
0:24:10 > 0:24:14It's "cha...cha...cha,
0:24:14 > 0:24:21"we're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave."
0:24:21 > 0:24:25Where in human life would you get people lining up like this
0:24:25 > 0:24:27with their feet in each other's faces?
0:24:27 > 0:24:31You wouldn't get it in the House of Commons with people standing on top of one another,
0:24:31 > 0:24:34simply because they couldn't be bothered to move.
0:24:34 > 0:24:40- POSH VOICE:- "I say, I wonder, Harold, if you'd mind shifting a little.
0:24:40 > 0:24:45"Your very scaly foot is in my eye."
0:24:45 > 0:24:49"I see no reason why it should be necessary for me to move my foot
0:24:49 > 0:24:51"in view of the present situation as it stands."
0:24:51 > 0:24:56In fact, most of these animals remind me how pleased I am to live in England.
0:24:56 > 0:24:59There's a bland, easy, moderate quality about English animals.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02Above all, they don't go round with these vicious, malignant sacks of poison
0:25:02 > 0:25:06which happens with animals as soon as you move south of the equator.
0:25:06 > 0:25:10Why is it the notion of poison is somehow so much more unsettling
0:25:10 > 0:25:14than being killed by claws or teeth?
0:25:14 > 0:25:17No-one likes the idea of being killed at all,
0:25:17 > 0:25:20but somehow the idea of being killed by an animal with claws or teeth
0:25:20 > 0:25:21is much less frightening
0:25:21 > 0:25:25than the idea of being surreptitiously killed by one which injects its poison into you.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29It's even reflected in the way in which the law regards the poisoner.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32And the way in which the law punishes the poisoner more severely
0:25:32 > 0:25:34than we punish the murderer who uses other weapons.
0:25:34 > 0:25:37It's partly because poison shows how the whole act is premeditated,
0:25:37 > 0:25:41So one feels that an animal which walks around with poison inside,
0:25:41 > 0:25:44especially prepared and already distilled in sacks inside its head,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47must already have malice aforethought.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49So perhaps our horror of snakes is simply because
0:25:49 > 0:25:52we feel that they themselves are distillations of undiluted malice.
0:25:52 > 0:25:54Why else should they creep around
0:25:54 > 0:25:57with this little vial of mischief inside their mouth?
0:25:57 > 0:25:59By now, I suppose we all know now
0:25:59 > 0:26:02that natural selection is what makes animals develop into
0:26:02 > 0:26:06the various creatures that they have developed into.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08And that mutations, one by one, occurring at random,
0:26:08 > 0:26:11are gradually winnowed out by natural selection
0:26:11 > 0:26:15and produce the enormous variety of the physical creation.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18And that all seems very fine until you come to this house
0:26:18 > 0:26:20and see birds like this.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23It's very, very hard to imagine, I think,
0:26:23 > 0:26:25that this sort of development,
0:26:25 > 0:26:28that sort of nose, that sort of bill,
0:26:28 > 0:26:32that sort of fantastic excrescence of horn on the top of one's head
0:26:32 > 0:26:35is going to confer any sort of selective advantage on anyone.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38Most of these animals look as if they've somehow been
0:26:38 > 0:26:41looking for dog ends in a wastepaper basket,
0:26:41 > 0:26:44which has got stuck on their face and they can't get it off.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47And they're always rather peculiar wastepaper baskets.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52They look like the sort of wastepaper baskets which you get in rather chic boutiques in Chelsea,
0:26:52 > 0:26:55in rather trendy pastel colours.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57And that the animal has been drawn to this,
0:26:57 > 0:27:00and looking around for titbits in the bottom of the basket
0:27:00 > 0:27:02has finally got his head stuck and can't get it out,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05and all that remains are his eyes peering around each side
0:27:05 > 0:27:08of this extraordinary basket. And they are howling for help.
0:27:08 > 0:27:10There's this extraordinary, resonant, echoing voice
0:27:10 > 0:27:12which comes from inside this horny container.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15And that they are really asking for help to get out of it. "Help, help.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18"Help. Help, get me out of this, someone."
0:27:18 > 0:27:21HE SQUAWKS
0:27:21 > 0:27:23Hello, hello.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27Hello. BIRD CROAKS
0:27:27 > 0:27:31Oh, did you hear that? It made a noise. Hello.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34There is this tremendous impulse that people have
0:27:34 > 0:27:36of trying to make animals talk to them.
0:27:36 > 0:27:39Parrots, in fact, are the only animals in the world
0:27:39 > 0:27:42which really play up to this tremendous human vanity
0:27:42 > 0:27:44because they are whores, parrots.
0:27:44 > 0:27:49And they'll, if poked and persuaded and paid,
0:27:49 > 0:27:53they will play up to human vanity and talk back to human beings.
0:27:53 > 0:27:55But again, always in this raucous, slightly drunken,
0:27:55 > 0:28:01old-fashioned, 50-year-old, 1920 Beggars Opera sort of way.
0:28:01 > 0:28:05"Hello, darling, how are you? Yeah, come on over.
0:28:05 > 0:28:07- "Have a good time, ducky." - HE SQUAWKS
0:28:07 > 0:28:10- PARROT:- Hello!
0:28:10 > 0:28:15There's something very odd, I think, about the way in which these birds have been taught to speak.
0:28:15 > 0:28:20It's almost as if human beings regard animals as an alter ego,
0:28:20 > 0:28:23and particularly as a version of their more obscene selves.
0:28:23 > 0:28:27The result is that birds somehow have always been taught
0:28:27 > 0:28:29first of all to say slightly rude things,
0:28:29 > 0:28:31or else they've been taught to swear,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34or else they've been taught to use drink terminology.
0:28:34 > 0:28:36Almost all the things birds say are things like,
0:28:36 > 0:28:39"I don't mind if I do, I'll have a mild and bitter."
0:28:39 > 0:28:41Or, "Bugger off," and so on and so on.
0:28:41 > 0:28:47It's almost as if we do regard birds as sort of metaphors
0:28:47 > 0:28:48of our darker selves.
0:28:48 > 0:28:51What we do is walk into these houses and teach them the things
0:28:51 > 0:28:54that we would like to be able to say to other people,
0:28:54 > 0:28:57all the more animal instincts which we then project onto them.
0:28:57 > 0:29:01These in fact are flying versions of our own subconscious, really.
0:29:01 > 0:29:03It would be nice if one did walk in here
0:29:03 > 0:29:08and hear the parrots with perfect elocution saying, "Hello.
0:29:08 > 0:29:11"Here are one or two of Shakespeare's sonnets," really well modulated.
0:29:11 > 0:29:14They say the wonderful thing you can do is teach parrots to talk,
0:29:14 > 0:29:17but you can't teach parrots to do anything at all.
0:29:17 > 0:29:19Parrots have got these appalling voices.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22You can teach them to talk but you can't teach them to speak properly.
0:29:22 > 0:29:25You can't say, "No, no, no, not hello, darling."
0:29:25 > 0:29:28- MORE POSH:- "Hello, darling." - MORE COARSE:- "Hello, darling."
0:29:28 > 0:29:30It's always, "Hello, darling."
0:29:34 > 0:29:37The other thing which must be very peculiar indeed for a parrot,
0:29:37 > 0:29:39or for any bird as bright as this,
0:29:39 > 0:29:43must be to have this brilliant cosmetic appearance to your face
0:29:43 > 0:29:45which you can't ever take off.
0:29:45 > 0:29:49It'll never run if you cry, never smear if you go out in the rain,
0:29:49 > 0:29:53but the fact is you can't alter your make-up from start to finish of your life.
0:29:53 > 0:29:55These animals are fixed in this gaudy appearance
0:29:55 > 0:29:58for the full length of their natural lifespan.
0:29:58 > 0:30:01And there's a curious sort of tragedy about that for them.
0:30:01 > 0:30:03They are the most marvellously brilliant colours,
0:30:03 > 0:30:04but they can't change them.
0:30:04 > 0:30:08What's awful about parrots, present company excepted,
0:30:08 > 0:30:11is the awful monotony of a parrot's mind.
0:30:11 > 0:30:14It's that... All they can think to say is, "Hello."
0:30:16 > 0:30:17"Er...hello."
0:30:20 > 0:30:21"Hello."
0:30:24 > 0:30:25"Hello."
0:30:27 > 0:30:31Also, there's the a feeling of them being minor Australian actresses
0:30:31 > 0:30:34living in the Earls Court Road, waking up in the morning.
0:30:34 > 0:30:38So much... "Hello."
0:30:42 > 0:30:45- AUSTRALIAN ACCENT: - "A bit red round the eyes.
0:30:45 > 0:30:46"Hello.
0:30:47 > 0:30:49"Blue liner."
0:30:53 > 0:30:57"Oh, Christ. Got a tissue, darling?"
0:30:59 > 0:31:01"Right, that'll do."
0:31:05 > 0:31:08"That's better.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11"Well, I feel just about ready to face the day. Hello."
0:31:11 > 0:31:14PARROT: Hello. Hello.
0:31:14 > 0:31:18I think what's very nice about flamingos, that extraordinary colour they have,
0:31:18 > 0:31:21that slightly gaudy tint all over them.
0:31:21 > 0:31:23Well it wasn't until about a year ago that I discovered
0:31:23 > 0:31:25this colour has to be maintained by diet.
0:31:25 > 0:31:28There's a can down in the front of the enclosure there,
0:31:28 > 0:31:31which every now and then they walk rather quietly over to.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36They take a mouthful that goes rather lumpily down their long necks.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39In fact, that diet is a special diet of shrimps,
0:31:39 > 0:31:43which has to be kept up in order to maintain this pink tint.
0:31:43 > 0:31:45And if they didn't have this shrimp diet daily,
0:31:45 > 0:31:47this flamingo scampi,
0:31:47 > 0:31:50they would become unspectacular and off-white.
0:31:50 > 0:31:55"Oh. It's going a bit, isn't it?
0:31:55 > 0:31:57"Another dose of the scampi, I think."
0:31:57 > 0:32:00HE GULPS
0:32:00 > 0:32:02"Does your mouth good."
0:32:08 > 0:32:10This is the backstage of the aquarium.
0:32:10 > 0:32:13It stands as a sort of metaphor of the world in some way.
0:32:13 > 0:32:15And there must be some view of our life
0:32:15 > 0:32:19where you can see human beings and animals from a view
0:32:19 > 0:32:22where it was never intended that they should be seen at all.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25It's like it's described in Little Dorrit.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29There's a wonderful description there of the backstage
0:32:29 > 0:32:34of a theatre in the 1850s,
0:32:34 > 0:32:37in which Dickens describes it as being
0:32:37 > 0:32:39the sort of seamy side of the universe,
0:32:39 > 0:32:44with bits and pieces of scenery and odd bits of lamps and wires,
0:32:44 > 0:32:47where the whole thing didn't hang together properly
0:32:47 > 0:32:51because it was not a view, it wasn't the side of the universe
0:32:51 > 0:32:54from which things were meant to be viewed.
0:32:54 > 0:32:59And I always feel this is very much like the aquarium is,
0:32:59 > 0:33:01seen from this angle.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04This is the first time I've ever seen the aquarium from the top here.
0:33:06 > 0:33:09It's always been something down below.
0:33:09 > 0:33:12And it's always been sealed off and illuminated from the correct angle.
0:33:12 > 0:33:15It's really rather like seeing,
0:33:15 > 0:33:19in some ways it's rather like going backstage at The Talk Of The Town.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22You can see all these chorus girls chattering
0:33:22 > 0:33:24and putting on their make-up before rushing on
0:33:24 > 0:33:27and appearing before the public out there, who are invisible to us.
0:33:27 > 0:33:30I think there are two things I like about the fish.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33One of the things is the fact that they are sealed
0:33:33 > 0:33:35in a separate medium from us.
0:33:35 > 0:33:38And therefore that they are completely silent.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41One never gets the impression that fishes are acting with enormous restraint
0:33:41 > 0:33:45and that they could have a tale to tell if they put their mind to it.
0:33:45 > 0:33:48You have a feeling that fish are primevally silent.
0:33:48 > 0:33:51That they have nothing to say.
0:33:51 > 0:33:54And that their entire animal energy is put into their appearance.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57The other thing which I like about fish is the fact that
0:33:57 > 0:34:00they live in this completely independent medium from us.
0:34:00 > 0:34:03This quivering, quicksilver roof,
0:34:03 > 0:34:05through which they can poke their snout.
0:34:05 > 0:34:09But they seem to be pushed backwards into their own medium again,
0:34:09 > 0:34:12and they die when they come out of it and we die when we go into it.
0:34:12 > 0:34:14In some ways, it's the same sort of puzzle we get
0:34:14 > 0:34:17about the separation between the world of the dead and the living.
0:34:21 > 0:34:23There are two ways of viewing fish.
0:34:23 > 0:34:27Fish, when seen from above, from our world.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30And fish when seen from underwater like this.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32When the medium itself is invisible.
0:34:32 > 0:34:33It is a very frightening fish,
0:34:33 > 0:34:38it's got that Captain Nemo, Nautilus feeling about it.
0:34:40 > 0:34:41The wonderful thing about fish
0:34:41 > 0:34:45is they are the most primitive of all the vertebrates.
0:34:45 > 0:34:49And therefore you get this highly simplified, harmonic motion.
0:34:49 > 0:34:52Once creatures get up onto land and get four limbs,
0:34:52 > 0:34:53the movements are more complicated
0:34:53 > 0:34:55because of the movement of the limbs.
0:34:55 > 0:34:58Here, all you have is the simple, harmonic motion of a spine.
0:35:00 > 0:35:01This is the moray eel.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10I always think turtles are very peculiar.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14It's like watching animals... I'm thinking of turtle soup.
0:35:14 > 0:35:16Somehow seeing turtles afloat like this,
0:35:16 > 0:35:20it's like watching an animal which is already boxed in its own terrine.
0:35:20 > 0:35:23It's like those Christmas puddings you get from Fortnum's,
0:35:23 > 0:35:26where they come actually in the bowl that you are going to eat it out of.
0:35:26 > 0:35:29I really have a curious, snobbish feeling
0:35:29 > 0:35:31that the animals of the Mediterranean
0:35:31 > 0:35:36and all waters south of a line, say from the Bay of Biscay,
0:35:36 > 0:35:38a sort of indescribable vulgarity
0:35:38 > 0:35:40sweeps over the animal world at that point.
0:35:40 > 0:35:43I always regard a tropical fish as a tremendous...
0:35:43 > 0:35:47It's a mixture of dentist's waiting rooms, the entrance to nightclub lounges.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51They always seem to me to be like vulgar chinoiserie.
0:35:51 > 0:35:55Sort of little ivory ornaments which people collect.
0:35:55 > 0:35:59Nouveau riche, or Nouveau fish.
0:35:59 > 0:36:03It's almost as if nature has somehow forgotten her tact
0:36:03 > 0:36:07and taste south of the Tropic of Capricorn.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11These things here, these angelfish. Odious little spivs.
0:36:11 > 0:36:15Little parvenus of the animal world.
0:36:15 > 0:36:19They get dressed up in awful Carmen Miranda clothes.
0:36:19 > 0:36:22They play maracas, they wear loud make-up
0:36:22 > 0:36:25and dance very vulgar dances.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29And exist in a hot, flea-ridden, malaria-ridden, dysentery-ridden,
0:36:29 > 0:36:35noisy, vulgar world of sort of nightclub hostesses.
0:36:35 > 0:36:36Whereas up in the North,
0:36:36 > 0:36:40there's a sort of dignified sobriety about the fish.
0:36:40 > 0:36:42The water is cool, it doesn't overheat the senses,
0:36:42 > 0:36:46it doesn't produce nasty, lewd ideas.
0:36:46 > 0:36:50And the result is that these very tweedy, neat,
0:36:50 > 0:36:53sober fish ride around in the Atlantic swell,
0:36:53 > 0:36:58with never a raucous thought to disturb their sobriety.
0:36:58 > 0:37:00And that's what I like about them.
0:37:00 > 0:37:03I like the cod, the dench, the rudd.
0:37:03 > 0:37:06All firm, 18th century, squire-ish names.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09And all the animals themselves dressed in very good,
0:37:09 > 0:37:13squire-ish tweeds and no-nonsense. And they usually face the same way.
0:37:13 > 0:37:17They are quite honestly called the bleak, European fresh waters.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21"Yes, I'm bleak and proud of it."
0:37:21 > 0:37:23"I'm moving in decent, cold waters
0:37:23 > 0:37:26"that are flushed at least four times a day.
0:37:26 > 0:37:28"All facing the same way.
0:37:30 > 0:37:31"Together, chaps.
0:37:31 > 0:37:33"Tremendous team spirit."
0:37:34 > 0:37:36The same thing goes for the North American fish.
0:37:36 > 0:37:40While they have a sort of Yankee decency,
0:37:40 > 0:37:42they come from Massachusetts, one feels.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45There's no nonsense, they dress at Brooks Brothers
0:37:45 > 0:37:48and do not wear gaudy clothes.
0:37:48 > 0:37:52- BOSTON ACCENT:- "Well, hi there. We're from Massachusetts, actually."
0:37:52 > 0:37:56Whereas if you go into the tropical hall, there is a sort of mad,
0:37:56 > 0:37:58wild, undisciplined, raucous individualism,
0:37:58 > 0:38:01as opposed to the quiet, disciplined, English manners
0:38:01 > 0:38:04of the northern fish. And I applaud that.
0:38:04 > 0:38:06One of the things that strikes me about animals,
0:38:06 > 0:38:08when you stand outside enclosures,
0:38:08 > 0:38:11if you stand for a length of time and just simply watch the animals
0:38:11 > 0:38:14just wading around in their cold water...
0:38:14 > 0:38:17I mean, these in particular.
0:38:17 > 0:38:21It's how featureless the timetable of animals is.
0:38:21 > 0:38:24Our day is divided up into things like breakfast time, lunchtime,
0:38:24 > 0:38:27we have engagements and appointments.
0:38:27 > 0:38:31We have dinner time and we go to sleep. And we have a calendar.
0:38:31 > 0:38:35The year is divided up into, er,
0:38:35 > 0:38:37strange, regular features of one sort or another.
0:38:37 > 0:38:39But I think if you watch animals...
0:38:39 > 0:38:44there's a desolate, featureless quality about their day
0:38:44 > 0:38:47which is a very reproving experience for humans to watch.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51Just watch these animals. All they do, they move their wings, they eat.
0:38:51 > 0:38:54There's no particular time for eating,
0:38:54 > 0:38:56you spread the eating out through the day,
0:38:56 > 0:38:58you spread the walking out through the day.
0:38:58 > 0:39:02You walk around in the cold water, you eat a shrimp or two.
0:39:02 > 0:39:03Then the night comes down.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07Often if you come here in the evening when the dark is falling,
0:39:07 > 0:39:09the animals are still doing exactly the same thing
0:39:09 > 0:39:12that they would have been doing in the bright sunlight earlier.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15You can recognise what humans do at each time of the day.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18You can recognise the time of day according to our behaviour,
0:39:18 > 0:39:20but you can't do this with animals at all.
0:39:20 > 0:39:22It's the monotony of the animal's life.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24They haven't got a calendar or a timetable,
0:39:24 > 0:39:26which I think makes them so different from us.
0:39:26 > 0:39:29They haven't got a history either, and that's very peculiar, I think.
0:39:29 > 0:39:31One doesn't feel that they grow old at all.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34They just simply reach their maturity, walk around,
0:39:34 > 0:39:36stretch their wings, eat shrimps, then die.
0:39:36 > 0:39:40BELL RINGS
0:39:44 > 0:39:50'The zoo is now closing and visitors are requested to leave immediately.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53'Visitors who wish to travel by the 74 bus
0:39:53 > 0:39:58'for Camden Town Hall, Baker Street should leave by the north gate.
0:39:58 > 0:40:04'For the 3 and 53 buses to the West End, the south or main gates.
0:40:04 > 0:40:06'North gate, 74 bus,
0:40:06 > 0:40:12'south and main, 3 and 53 buses. Good night.'
0:40:20 > 0:40:22HOWLING
0:40:33 > 0:40:36I think there are several reasons why society needs zoos.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39If we confront ourselves face-to-face as human beings,
0:40:39 > 0:40:42it's often very difficult to realise quite how human we are.
0:40:42 > 0:40:44Whereas if we concentrate all the animal world into one place
0:40:44 > 0:40:47and fasten them into little enclosures like this,
0:40:47 > 0:40:51where we can watch them behaving in their reduced, rather primitive, simple, instinctive animal way,
0:40:51 > 0:40:54our own humanity is emphasised,
0:40:54 > 0:40:56and we can emerge from the zoo with a sense of human pride
0:40:56 > 0:40:58and a sense that we're something special.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01Distinctions and extraordinary achievements
0:41:01 > 0:41:02which animals could never aspire to.
0:41:02 > 0:41:05It's rather the same way that if prisons didn't exist,
0:41:05 > 0:41:08it would be extremely hard for ordinary citizens to feel that
0:41:08 > 0:41:10they were as virtuous as they would like to be.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13If wrongdoers were mingled at large with the rest of the community,
0:41:13 > 0:41:18one might even feel that one might in fact oneself be a miscreant or wrongdoer.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21But by having all the wrongdoers confined in special places
0:41:21 > 0:41:25set apart for them, you can feel by contrast and by comparison,
0:41:25 > 0:41:27everything that's outside must be virtuous.
0:41:27 > 0:41:31In exactly the same way, by confining all the lower orders
0:41:31 > 0:41:34of creation to one fixed place, we can feel that everything outside
0:41:34 > 0:41:36must therefore be lords of creation,
0:41:36 > 0:41:40which testify to our own, whizzing, superb humanity.
0:41:40 > 0:41:42But it's a spurious sense of our own superiority
0:41:42 > 0:41:45we get by looking at these simple cages and domestic enclosures.
0:41:45 > 0:41:48Whereas a species, human beings are a very bad lookout.
0:41:48 > 0:41:53Of all the species, we're the only ones who systematically persecute and torment each other.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56I suppose animals can be ferocious and wild and stupid and silent,
0:41:56 > 0:41:59but they never torment each other in the way that we do.
0:41:59 > 0:42:02At least they don't set up systematic engines of torment.
0:42:02 > 0:42:05It's not that I wish I were a penguin or a seal
0:42:05 > 0:42:07or a tiger or a parrot or a fish, I don't.
0:42:07 > 0:42:10I'm very pleased to be dressed here in the clothes that I'm wearing,
0:42:10 > 0:42:13with appointments to keep and things to do and diaries to look at
0:42:13 > 0:42:16and people to worry about, and even a destiny of sorts.
0:42:16 > 0:42:18Perhaps that's the difference.
0:42:18 > 0:42:20This feeling that animals have no destiny and no history.
0:42:20 > 0:42:22Each of their days is much like the rest.
0:42:22 > 0:42:24Whereas when I go away from here,
0:42:24 > 0:42:28their day is going to be very much the same as it was before when I came in here.
0:42:28 > 0:42:30No appointments to keep, no diaries to look at.
0:42:30 > 0:42:32There isn't a destiny to realise.
0:42:35 > 0:42:40# Orang-utans are sceptical of changes in their cages
0:42:40 > 0:42:44# And the zookeeper is very fond of rum
0:42:46 > 0:42:49# Zebras are reactionaries
0:42:49 > 0:42:52# Antelopes are missionaries
0:42:52 > 0:42:54# Pigeons plot in secrecy
0:42:54 > 0:42:57# And hamsters turn on frequently
0:42:57 > 0:43:03# What a gas! You have to come and see at the zoo
0:43:03 > 0:43:05# At the zoo
0:43:06 > 0:43:08# At the zoo
0:43:08 > 0:43:11# At the zoo. #
0:43:11 > 0:43:13Subtitles by Red Bee Media