Latest news with #Mish
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Digested week: It's summer, and I am a burnt smorgasbord for every bug
Peak bear performance was attained today, at Wildwood Devon near Ottery St Mary (also peak British placename performance, but that need not detain us here). Two five-year-old European brown bears, Mish and Lucy (no relation), escaped from their enclosure at the park and headed straight for its cafe's food stores, where they happily ploughed their way through a week's worth of honey before being gently lured back home with a bell and some other snacks, whereupon Mish promptly fell asleep. It's perfect. The Teddy Bears' Picnic (what a big surprise in the woods it must have been, especially to whoever was responsible for keeping the enclosure secure!), Winnie-the-Pooh, a suggestion of Paddington in the eminent reasonableness of it all, plus European brown bears being by far the cutest and most childhood-teddy-like of all. This is the good news story we need. Enjoy it. The year is shaping up … badly. Mish and Lucy were originally rescued from an Albanian snow drift. I am on my way to Devon to ask them for directions back there. Summer, the vilest of all seasons is properly here. Once again I appear to have neglected to get my air-conditioned bunker built in time and so I am stuck on this boiling isle, whose architecture, culture, working and retail hours are designed to cope only with temperatures of 'brisk' and below. I was born in a cardigan. That is how I need to live. Not least because when I am forced to expose skin to sun it not only burns but makes me an instant smorgasbord of haemo-delights for any and every passing bug. I say passing – I'm pretty sure some of them fly in specially, a date on their little bug calendars saying: 'Mangan meat feast begins'. Bastards. Venomous little bastards. From now until the end of August, I am an ambulant mass of swellings, slippery with hydrocortisone cream and stuporous with anti-histamine meds. 'Does not cause drowsiness' they say. They do if you take them by the boxful, fools. This year I plan to pay my child to rub me lightly with sandpaper all evening to relieve the itching, and to invest in a mosquito net while I draw up the bunker blueprints and break ground for 2026. People of Britain. *shakes head sorrowfully*. People of Britain, you are upsetting the brave asset management companies of this country. News breaks that we are saving too much. In cash, of all things! Instead of investing in stocks and shares – thereby helping the economy, and asset management companies – we are insisting on having ready access to a certain and definable store of our money so that we can ride out personal and professional crises as well as the boring, ongoing one apparently without end known as 'the cost of living'. Will no one think of the global funds and their traders (I hope I'm using these words correctly – could a rich person check)? If we all just keep hold of our cash and use it to pay for basic goods and services, where's the excitement? Where are the ecstatic highs and perilous lows of playing the markets? Is the economy just supposed to manage without our contributions? We're there to serve it, remember, not the other way round! I love the world of finance, in which everything is turned upside down and everyone looks at you as if pound coins are sentient and that this is exactly the way things are supposed to be. It enables me to look at the nugatory balance in my determinedly current account paying no interest and feel that at least I am by my simple absence from the FTSE 100 sticking it to The Man. 'What do you want for your tea when you come on Friday?' Mum asks me on the WhatsApp family chat because my sister and I taught her how to use the app after Dad died, heedless of the consequences because we weren't thinking straight. 'Chicken and mushroom, please.' 'No.' 'But you said you'd made some last week?' 'That was for the freezer.' Sensing the need for back up approaching, my sister joins. 'Are you saying – that it can't come out of the freezer? Does it have to stay in the freezer for ever? I remind you that we have power of attorney come the day we have proof your mental faculties have deteriorated to dangerous levels.' 'Not for ever. But it hasn't been in there long.' 'So – like not being able to sit on the sofa for two hours after you've plumped the cushions, we can't eat food from the freezer until it's been in there long enough for you to revel in the results of your labour?' 'Also, I've only done portions for three. There'll only be two of us.' '…' says my sister. '…' say I. We're having a Co-op fish pie. Break out the bubbly and throw on your glad rags – the wedding is about to begin! Jeff Bezos and his money have arrived in Venice to join with fiancee Láuren Sanchez in holy matrimony, at an estimated cost of between £34m and £41m, or about two hours and 40 minutes of the Amazon founder's earnings. It has everything a wedding should have. The Kardashians, a newly-single Orlando Bloom, and widespread protests at the multi-billionaire essentially renting the entire city for the three-day nuptial event. You have to hope, though, that at its heart it is the same as every other wedding. And I do believe that money cannot buy certain things. It cannot buy, I suspect, guests who truly want to take three days out of their busy lives and in uncomfortable shoes to watch two people say some vows in a church, however garlanded, and then be forced to celebrate their bliss for hours and hours thereafter, no matter how free-flowing or top quality the booze. Money can't buy an absence of boring relatives or freedom from the fear of being seated beside one. Above all, of course, money can't buy love. Though I am sure this precious state of grace is absolutely at the core of this extravaganza. The rest is noise. Especially from the Kardashian table, I suspect.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Watch: Bears escape park enclosure, eat a week's supply of honey
June 25 (UPI) -- A pair of European brown bears escaped from their enclosure at a British wildlife park and made their way to a food storage area, where they feasted on snacks including a week's worth of honey. Wildwood Devon confirmed on social media that 5-year-old bears Mish and Lucy escaped from their enclosure due to "an operational error" that allowed the bruins to access a behind-the-scenes area used for food storage. The park was closed as part of standard protocols and police were contacted, but zookeepers were able to "encourage both bears back into their enclosure without the need for any intervention," the post said. The park said the bears "posed no threat to the public at any point, enjoyed a selection of snacks -- including a week's worth of honey -- before being safely returned to their enclosure by the expert keeper team within the hour." Officials said both bears took long, food-induced naps upon returning to their habitat.
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- General
- Boston Globe
‘Naughty' bears escape, steal a week's worth of honey and take long nap
Advertisement But the 5-year-old bears, much like most human 5-year-olds, appeared to want snacks more than anything else. The bears never made it beyond the staff-only food storage area, where park staff monitored them both on the ground and via CCTV until they voluntarily returned to their enclosure. Related : The food delivery had just arrived an hour before, Habben said in an interview, and the bears bypassed the vegetables to head straight for the sweet treats. 'Just like kids,' he laughed. The brother and sister plowed their way through the apples, bananas, and peanut butter before discovering the honey. They ripped the lid off the plastic container and took turns dipping their paws into the golden goo, 'making a right old mess,' Habben added. Advertisement European brown bear siblings Mish and Lucy were rescued from a snow drift in the Albanian mountains when they were just cubs. Wildwood Trust With all the park's carnivores, the keepers do what is called recall work to condition them to return to their enclosures, Habben said. Hence, Mish and Lucy understand to return at the sound of a bell followed by the sound of their enclosure door sliding open, Habben explained. Mish immediately ran back into the enclosure at the sound of door sliding open, Habben said, with Lucy following at the sound of the bell. They then proceeded to romp around their enclosure in the throes of a sugar rush before promptly falling asleep in what appeared to be a sugar crash coma. 'They're naughty bears,' Habben said. 'They're very naughty bears.' This sort of 'incredibly inquisitive, playful, and adventurous' behavior is fairly typical for Mish and Lucy, who are still considered young bears, said Paul Whitfield, director general of the Wildwood Trust, in an interview. 'Them doing exactly what they're not supposed to is sort of what we expect from them.' Related : Mish and Lucy are European brown bears, which are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a species of least concern, although the group notes that 'there are many small, isolated populations that are threatened.' In Albania, where Mish and Lucy were rescued, European brown bears are classified as vulnerable. The bears were so young when they were found abandoned in a snow drift that their rescuers had to bottle-feed them, according to Whitfield. Their rescuers tried to release them back into the wild after they were weaned, 'but all they did was look for the people who were trying to release them,' Whitfield said. They arrived in Wildwood Devon in 2021, where they now live in a 1.5-acre natural enclosure where they can play, climb trees, and be fed fresh salmon in the autumn, in addition to the nuts and berries they receive year-round, Whitfield said, describing them as 'incredibly pampered and spoiled bears.' Advertisement Mish and Lucy will soon be living with two more cheeky young bears. Malenky and Nanuq are 2-year-old siblings who were born in a sanctuary in Belgium to a mother bear who had been rescued from the conflict in Ukraine.
USA Today
3 days ago
- USA Today
Pair of mischievous bears escape enclosure, eat 'week's worth' of honey
A pair of young European brown bears named Mish and Lucy broke out of their enclosures at a southwestern England wildlife park and pulled a heist of a week's worth of honey, park officials said. Mish and Lucy, both 5 years old, escaped on June 23 and headed "straight for their food stores," the Wildwood Devon park said. There, the bears indulged in a variety of snacks, including about a week's worth of their allotted honey, before they were returned safely to their enclosures within an hour, the park said in a post to social media. The bears never posed a threat to anyone's safety, but park staff escorted all visitors to a secure building until they were contained. Staff had eyes on the bears through CCTV footage the whole time, the park said. Footage shared on social media shows Lucy rooting through supplies and looking chuffed. Both bears "passed out" after the escapade, the park said. Wild bear freed: Black bear roamed Michigan with plastic lid on neck for 2 years "We can now confirm that this was the result of an operational error, which allowed the bears to briefly access a staff-only food storage area," the park said in an update on June 24. The staff followed safety protocols and were able to use recall training to safely coax the bears back into their enclosure without the need for any further intervention, the park said. An investigation into the escape was underway, Wildwood Devon said. "While the structural integrity of the bear enclosure remains uncompromised, we take any operational lapse extremely seriously," the park said. The park, which closed the day of the escape, was back open and operating normally the next day.
IOL News
3 days ago
- General
- IOL News
Runaway bears steal honey and sleep it off
Two young bears named Lucy and Mish escaped from their enclosure earlier this week and headed straight for their food store, where they gobbled up a week's worth of honey before falling asleep, the park said on social media. IN the fairy tale, Goldilocks enters the home of the three bears to eat their porridge and sleep in their beds. But at the Wildwood Devon conservation park in Britain, it's the bears who are doing the breaking and entering - and sleeping. Upon learning about the two escapees, staff quickly escorted the 16 visitors on-site to a secure building, following the park's 'code red' protocol, said Mark Habben, the director of zoological operations at Wildwood Trust, the conservation charity that runs the park in southwest England. The police arrived, as did the emergency team armed with firearms, prepared for the worst, he said. But the 5-year-old bears, much like most human 5-year-olds, appeared to want snacks more than anything else. The bears never made it beyond the staff-only food storage area, where park staff monitored them both on the ground and via CCTV until they voluntarily returned to their enclosure. The food delivery had just arrived an hour before, Habben said in an interview, and the bears bypassed the vegetables to head straight for the sweet treats. 'Just like kids,' he laughed. The brother and sister plowed their way through the apples, bananas and peanut butter before discovering the honey. They ripped the lid off the plastic container and took turns dipping their paws into the golden goo, 'making a right old mess,' Habben added. With all the park's carnivores, the keepers do what is called recall work with them to condition them to return to their enclosures, Habben said. Hence, Mish and Lucy understand to return at the sound of a bell that is followed by the sound of their enclosure door sliding open, Habben explained. Mish immediately ran back into the enclosure at the sound of the door sliding open, Habben said, with Lucy following soon after at the sound of the bell. They then proceeded to romp around their enclosure in the throes of a sugar rush before promptly falling asleep in what appeared to be a sugar crash coma. 'They're naughty bears,' Habben said. 'They're very naughty bears.' This sort of 'incredibly inquisitive, playful and adventurous' behavior is fairly typical for Mish and Lucy, who are still considered young bears, said Paul Whitfield, the director general of the Wildwood Trust, in an interview. 'Them doing exactly what they're not supposed to is sort of what we expect from them.' Mish and Lucy are European brown bears, which are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a species of least concern, although the group notes that 'there are many small, isolated populations that are threatened.' In Albania, where Mish and Lucy were rescued, European brown bears are classified as vulnerable. They were so young when they were found abandoned in a snow drift in the Albanian mountains that their rescuers had to bottle-feed them, according to Whitfield. Their rescuers tried to release them back into the wild after they were weaned 'but all they did was look for the people who were trying to release them,' Whitfield said. They arrived in Wildwood Devon in 2021, where they now live in a 1.5-acre natural enclosure where they can play and climb trees and be fed fresh salmon in the autumn in addition to the nuts and berries they receive year-round, Whitfield said, describing them as 'incredibly pampered and spoiled bears.' Mish and Lucy will soon be living with two more cheeky young bears. Malenky and Nanuq are 2-year-old siblings who were born in a sanctuary in Belgium to a mother bear who had been rescued from the conflict in Ukraine. They are currently living in a separate part of the enclosure, Habben said, and the keepers had been distracted watching them play with a tractor tire when Mish and Lucy made their great escape through a part in the enclosure that hadn't been properly closed. It's unclear at the moment which sibling pair will be the worst influence on the other, given that Malenky and Nanuq's main hobby at the moment appears to be digging up their pond and locating pipes in the concrete. 'They are also very naughty,' Whitfield said. 'It looks like we'll have our hands full in the future.'
