Sorry, no fat chicks allowed
They come and make documentaries about you (The March of the Penguins), they make animated movies of you singing and bopping and grooving (Happy Feet) and all you really want is a normal life: fish, sex, snow, somewhere to bring up the kids.
Dolphins, till recently, were more modish, made into crystal dingle-dangles, ornaments and soft toys. But being seriously endangered has more cachet, and penguins are taking over.
Penguins make more convincing soft toys, and theyre so dinner-suit elegant. And for these attributes which they have no say in they get rich Kiwi men gate-crashing their environment, lying down among them, and having snapshots taken that will appear in newspapers back home.
I hope the jacket of Antarctic tour organiser Bill Day still reeks of penguin poo.
When I saw the news coverage of Mr Day lying among the king penguins last week, I had to wonder: can any rich person hire a boat to take a party of his mates down to Antarctica, as he had done?
Is this just something you can do on a whim, if youre wealthy? Is the last unspoiled place on Earth up for visits by any bunch of idle wits craving the thrill of a different experience, and with a platinum credit card?
Did anyone ask the penguins if thats okay? For that matter, is anyone keeping an eye on them and making sure just anybody cant go there and fool around with them?
Mr Days No Fat Chicks Tour hes a bit of a dag, as you can tell by its name cost $20,000 a head, and 50 friends joined him for it on a former Soviet icebreaker, the report said.
He is described as a maritime entrepreneur, so I guess he plans future jaunts. The group called at the Auckland Islands in search of the wreck of the General Grant, then sailed for Antarctica in search of adventure. Along the way, said the report, they hobnobbed with tame penguins, dived under sea ice, and mountain biked on the Ross Ice Shelf. It was a fabulous trip, said Mr Day.
How the silent wilderness must have relished the din of those mountain bikes as the ice melted all around. If theres one thing the worlds most remote places need, surely, its the whooping of the wealthy.
Among the merry throng were economist Gareth Morgan, his wife Jo and Sounds Air founder Cliff Marchant. I trust the penguins were polite, even if they were deafened.
The chums also visited the huts of explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton, who had to do it hard in Antarctica, without so much as a chardonnay to cheer them, and this was a profound experience, said Mr Day, because the group realised just how cold it really was down there. Staggeringly, there was no central heating.
Mr Day does not believe the trip damaged the environment, he says, and added that the group behaved responsibly.
We dont know what the penguins thought, but if I had strangers charging into my living room, flinging themselves down on my rug, and taking photographs Id have something to say about it. They should have blasted heavy metal music while they were at it. Remote places are just crying out for a party.
Then theres the fat chicks detail. Mocking fat women is always hilarious. The brochure for the tour included the question, How fat can I be and still be allowed to come? And the answer: If you feel you have to ask then you cant come. So what would be wrong with an arch, No Poorly Endowed Males tour, or a waggish, No Slovenians?
Id like to know lots more about such trips, like whether anyone can just walk into those famous explorers huts without having to get anyones permission?
How do you know for certain that you havent interfered with the environment there? Who would you ask? Or are all such questions redundant if youre thin and rich?
The rich are strange, and have quaint habits. I also read the other day about actress Demi Moores beauty secret. She has leeches attached to her skin, she confessed, to make it look youthful and glowing.
The leeches are, she said, specially trained. She surprised me there. In my neck of the wilderness, we call them gigolos.
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Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 5:50 pm under