Wildlife On The High Street

As the old Music Hall song has it, ‘Don’t put your okapi in the chemist shop, Mrs Cheesewire’, splendid advice, I’m sure we would all agree. For, if there is one place where such creatures of the wild should – ideally – not be, that is in any high street emporium selling items of a sometimes discreet nature, no matter what the reputation for quality of goods and services of the shop in question.

However, having said that, I’m sure that you would also agree upon the relative merits of the suitably-trained shopping tiger, as well as the use of a well-qualified parking leopard to assist in the acquisition of any disputed parking space, and/or subsequent negotiations with any traffic warden or car park employee.

Now, as for utilising a herd of Thompson’s Gazelles to walk your children to school, expert opinion is divided on the subject. Some say that the natural herding instinct of the school-age child makes such an arrangement ideal. However, others insist that children should not be encouraged to herd together as this leads to the unfortunate tendency during the teenage years of the child risking infection from fashion and other unfortunate herd-like manifestations of the teenage years.

As for the use of migratory wildebeests in the purchase of new shoes, you should always be aware that the necessity of displaying the varieties of stock available mean that quite often shoe shops can be quite cramped inside. Therefore one should always make sure that one’s herd of wildebeests is quite adept at manoeuvring in such confined spaces if one is to avoid cause a nuisance to other shoppers, especially if they have migratory herds of their own.