The Cunning of the Penguins

Sometimes you have no choice but to start by mentioning the penguins. Sometimes, though, you can get away with not mentioning them until the last paragraph. Other times, and these do seem to be becoming more common as time goes by, you can actually get through the whole piece without mentioning a single penguin.

However, the penguin is a wily creature and it can so easily insert itself into all manner of discourses, often without the writer of the aforesaid discourse noticing that the penguin has secreted itself in the discourse, until it is too late.

After all, who can ever forget the last time they saw a TV detective about to reveal the identity of the murderer, only to be confounded by the sudden appearance of a penguin into the script, that no-one, especially the scriptwriter knew was there?

It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway, if only to squeeze a few more sentences out of this topic, that penguins often appear in nature programmes.

Such is the cunning of the penguins, that a naturalist will set off with the intention of having a bit of a wander around the Serengeti to see what the wildebeests are up to, only to find his plane and his film crew have for some reason ended up in Antarctica. Not only that, it soon becomes apparent that it is the season when the Emperor penguins are at their moist photogenic.

I’ll tell you now – that is no mere co-incidence.