Nanny statement

The doco "Lizard Kings", screened on ABC1 on the Sunday just gone, was prefaced by a disclaimer: "VIEWER ADVICE - The following program contains animals hunting and eating prey in the wild." This annoyed me for a few reasons. Firstly, it's a given that a wildlife program about predatory reptiles will contain such scenes and, therefore, that fact should go _without saying_. Secondly, it's an example of Auntie mollycoddling her audience. (The warning would be somewhat understandable if the show was broadcast during the day when tiny tots might be watching and get upset, but this was a 7.30pm starter.) And thirdly, it suggests that the ABC may have been prompted to display the message by past complaints from cretinous individuals wishing to live their lives wrapped in cotton wool. End of rant...except to add that "L/K" was extremely enlightening. Monitors (or goannas, to us Aussies) were shown to "intelligently" plan ahead when hunting and, under laboratory conditions, quickly and successfully adapt to choice-making tasks. It was even alleged that creatures studied have performed feats that required counting as high as six! The footage of the London Zoo handler whistling up his 10-year-old komodo dragon charge and scritching it like a dog - attention the animal clearly relished - was nothing short of astonishing.


Reading: "Spud: Learning To Fly" (2009) by John Van De Ruit
Listening: "@#%&*! Smilers" (2008) by Aimee Mann (her censored swear, not mine - lest you cry hypocrite)