Edinburgh is another country and unlike Glasgow in almost every respect. It is a tourist city, full of restaurants and galleries, whereas Glasgow is a living, breathing, working city. Apparently there are lots of writers living in Edinburgh because it is so pleasantly bourgeois, but these people are idiot phonies. Secretly, though, I really like Edinburgh. More so now that I have been to the zoo.
We had to go there yesterday in order to sign some marriage paperwork. After that we had a superb lunch at Nargile, a Turkish restaurant on Hanover Street, where I was introduced to the delights of Turkish coffee and their exquisite lamb burgers. A feeling of Eastern decadence set in, to the extent that I insisted upon taking a taxi to the zoo.
The last time I went to a zoo, I was converted to the cause of animal rights — scandalized as I was by the small cages that the primates were forced to live in. Edinburgh zoo, with a few exceptions, has given their captives absolutely luxurious accomodation, better than the wild. A massive new centre, The Budongo Trail, is fantastically well-equipped for the Chimpanzees that lounge around there. You don’t see the desolate eyes anymore, indeed you don’t see much at all! It kind of defeats the purpose to have them so far away, but at least they are happy. I suppose that when the animals are almost extinct zoos really will do what they claim to do and preserve the species.
Anyhow, my favourite animals were the rhinos, with their Rio Ferdinand-esque top lips. They were great, coming close enough to the gawpers that we could almost smell their breath. Here is my footage of the bit where the rhino ripped off part of the roof:
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