This piece from the intrepid Sam Leith at the London Telegraph alerts us to a threat to public safety.
The latest menace in my corner of south London, I read this week, is the emergence of a community of crack-addicted squirrels. We're invited to imagine these little furry emanations of nature, jonesing in the corners of flowerbeds, red-eyed and jittery in the terrible dawn, scratching hopelessly at the earth in the hope of turning up another rock.
I must say, it seems unlikely to me. The outward symptoms of crack addiction - looking unhealthy, being kind of jittery - are rather close to the outward symptoms of Brixton squirrelhood. The explanation that they have been digging up rocks of crack stashed in gardens convinces even less.
Still, there is something melancholy about the very idea. Despite their atrocious press - "tree rats", carriers of disease - I find it hard to dislike squirrels. They are prudent with their nuts. They keep themselves largely to themselves. They are pretty in motion, their backs seeming to follow an invisible sine wave.
Even on crack, they aren't really a menace to us. The worst addict would find it difficult to steal your car radio, and harder still to fence it afterwards. "Psst. Car stereo? Tenner, no questions asked?" "Get lost. You're a squirrel. That could have been anywhere."
If you are yet sufficiently appalled by the injustice in the world, consider his comments a short film which features the ruthless bombing of a colony of Smurfs. By Smurf I don't mean unarmed U.N. Soldiers wearing uniforms the color of aquarium walls and tied to a tree by Serbian troops. I mean the original Smurfs, the cartoon characters that were among the more annoying samples of programing aimed at my children's brains.
Says Leith:
A short film from Unicef shows the Smurf Village being destroyed by aerial bombardment, its bright blue inhabitants strewn dead or dying amid the wreckage, and Baby Smurf howling as his home burns. This demonstrates that war is a bad thing.
News footage of burning houses, dead children, ululating human widows, columns of refugees and burnt-out tanks has lost its impact. We have compassion fatigue. We need images of these innocent little blue creatures, just three apples high, being wiped out by area bombing to make us face reality. The Smurfs caused untold suffering with their squeaky pop singing, you might think, but they did not deserve this.
I wonder. It seems more likely that the 25-second film will become no less a collector's item among cynics than Bambi Meets Godzilla. Anyone who ever rooted for the Smurfs' nemesis Gargamel will draw immense satisfaction from the idea that he finally stopped faffing around with magic potions and got in touch with Lockheed Martin.
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