Competition -The National Animal?

A suggestion from Saul, following the news that Canadians are lobbying to change their national animal from the Beaver to the Polar Bear (so very âthis yearâ!) .
What animal would you choose to represent the Great British Nation?
There will be some sort of prize â donât hold your breath.
November 5, 2011 at 12:27
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For the political class definitely the pushmi-pullyu, whatever is in
charge, itâs still the same b****y animal;
the economically active, a
hamster, on a treadmill;
the subsidised underclasses, a weasel, or
something thatâs not averse to taking off the hand that feeds it.
November 5, 2011 at 08:44
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I was thinking of slugs, looking at some of the attitudes that seem to be
on the increase.
But I think the award has to go to the fox.
Cunning,
conniving, convincing conmen that carry themselves very well.
There is also
the strong, very decent core in the Englishman, but I think that belongs to a
belief system and code that is fading fast as we turn away from perceiving God
as anything more than a myth for the welfare of the
intellectually-challenged.
November 4, 2011 at 21:13
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What my mum used to call âa grey deedleâ. A woodlouse to you. One of those
dark, smooth ones that curl up into natureâs ball bearing. I like grey
deedles.
November 4, 2011 at 12:58
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The poodle?
November 4, 2011 at 10:32
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Iâd go with the Cockroach.
Not well loved, but persistent as hell. By jingo, itâll take more than a
nuclear holocaust â or Eurogeddon â to finish us off. All together now:
Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the wavesâ¦.
November 4, 2011 at 12:06
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Why is it you never see a Henroach?
Entirely concur with the underlying spirit of the comment, though.
âAnd did those feet in ancient timeâ¦.â
November 4, 2011 at 12:18
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I thought itâs, Rule Britannia! Britannia waives the rulesâ¦
November 4, 2011 at 10:28
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The Bandar Log?
SeeâKaaâs Huntingâ in the Jungle Book by Kipling â a carefully wrapped
polemic against scatter-brained liberalism/anarchy
âWe are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful
people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be true.â.
Here we go in a flung festoon,
Half-way up to the jealous moon!
Donât
you envy our pranceful bands?
Donât you wish you had extra
hands?
Wouldnât you like if your tails wereâsoâ
Curved in the shape of a
Cupidâs bow?
Now youâre angry, butânever mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs
down behind!
Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we
know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or
twoâ
Something noble and wise and good,
Done by merely wishing we
could.
Weâve forgotten, butânever mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down
behind!
All the talk we ever have heard
Uttered by bat or beast or birdâ
Hide
or fin or scale or featherâ
Jabber it quickly and all
together!
Excellent! Wonderful! Once again!
Now we are talking just like men!
Letâs pretend we are ⦠never
mind,
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind!
This is the way of the
Monkey-kind.
Then join our leaping lines that scumfish through the pines,
That rocket
by where, light and high, the wild grape swings.
By the rubbish in our
wake, and the noble noise we make,
Be sure, be sure, weâre going to do some
splendid things!
November 3, 2011 at 22:24
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Oh come onâ¦.. cheer up people! Enough with the misery already.
My vote is the Mongrel:
Mixed parentage, can breed an infinte variety of looks/ abilities from
doggy DNA, smarter than it looks, a certain low cunning, a survivor, prone to
bouts of silliness like chasing sticks and barking at squirrels.
November 4, 2011 at 06:47
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We bitch & moan, disgruntled us
We let it out like rancid pus
Bare the fangs & swing the boot
A tailored mode, a genre suit
The Eloi mode is not our way
Eff the lot itâs comment day
Penny dreadfuls widely read
The happy journals long since dead
November 3, 2011 at 21:20
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Amoeba.
November 3, 2011 at 19:34
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Way offtopic, but the wild internet waves said there might be a party on
the blogâ¦
Something I prepared earlier, Iâll give the national animal
contest a bit of thought later.
Always bring a bottle to the party. Hereâs some fine malt, matured for
years in the cask.
The sons of the prophet were hardy and bold,
and quite unaccustomed to
fear.
But the bravest of these was a man I am told
named Abdul Abulbul
Amir.
This son of the desert in battle aroused,
could spit twenty men on his
spear.
A terrible creature, both sober and soused,
was Abdul Abulbul
Amir.
When they needed a man to encourage the van,
or to harass the foe from
the rear;
or to storm a redoubt they had only to shout,
for Abdul
Abulbul Amir.
There are heroes aplenty and men known to fame
in the troops that were
led by the Tsar;
but the bravest of these was a man by the name
of Ivan
Skavinsky Skivar.
He could imitate Irving, play euchre and pool
and perform on the Spanish
guitar.
In fact, quite the cream of the Muscovite team
was Ivan
Skavinsky Skivar.
The ladies all loved him, his rivals were few;
he could drink them all
under the bar.
As gallant or tank there was no one to rank
with Ivan
Skavinsky Skivar.
One day this bold Russian had shouldered his gun
and donned his most
truculent sneer;
downtown he did go where he trod on the toe
of Abdul
Abulbul Amir.
âYoung manâ, quoth Abulbul, âhas life grown so dull,
that youâre anxious
to end your career?
Vile infidel know, you have trod on the toe
of Abdul
Abulbul Amir!â
âSo take your last look at the sunshine and brook,
and send your regrets
to the Tsar.
By this I imply you are going to die,
Mr. Ivan Skavinsky
Skivar.â
Quoth Ivan, âMy friend, your remarks, in the end,
will avail you but
little, I fear.
For you neâer will survive to repeat them alive,
Mr.
Abdul Abulbul Amir!â
Then this bold mameluke drew his trusty chibouque
with a cry of âAllahu
Akbar!â
And with lethal intent he ferociously went
for Ivan Skavinsky
Skivar.
Then they parried and thrust and they side-stepped and cussed
âtill
their blood would have filled a great pot.
The philologist blokes, who
seldom crack jokes,
say that hash was first made on that spot.
They fought all that night, âneath the full moonâs bright light;
the
din, it was heard from afar;
and multitudes came, so great was the
fame
of Abdul and Ivan Skivar.
As Abdulâs long knife was extracting the life –
in fact, he was shouting
âHuzzah!â â –
he felt himself struck by that wily Kalmuck,
Count Ivan
Skavinsky Skivar.
The sultan drove by in his red-breasted fly,
expecting the victor to
cheer;
but he only drew nigh to hear the last sigh
of Abdul Abulbul
Amir.
Tsar Petrovich, too, in his spectacles blue,
rode up in his new crested
car.
He arrived just in time to exchange a last line
with Ivan Skavinsky
Skivar.
A loud-sounding splash from the Danube was heard
resounding oâer meadows
afar;
it came from the sack fitting close to the back
of Ivan Skavinsky
Skivar.
Thereâs a tomb rises up where the blue Danube flows;
engraved there in
characters clear;
âAh stranger, when passing, please pray for the
soul
of Abdul Abulbul Amir.â
A Muscovite maiden her lone vigil keeps,
âneath the light of the pale
polar star;
and the name that she murmurs as oft as she weeps
is Ivan
Skavinsky Skivar.
November 3, 2011 at 20:02
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Not the people of the country, but the political class are best
represented by a giant panda.
A cuddly friendly creature ?
Actually a
vicious bastard that will scrap rather than breed and is so stupid it will
refuse to eat anything other than a particular type of bamboo, and will
spend more energy searching for it than it gets from the food.
See the
Chi Chi and An An story from years ago. Natureâs joke species, only outdone
by governments who announce even more billions to be borrowed and pissed
away in Euro bailouts. Congratulations Cameron, start
beating up the No.
10 secretaries and youâll be as well liked as Brown was.
November 4, 2011 at 12:18
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Is it something in the air this week?
http://newgatenews.blogspot.com/2011/11/sledgehammer-rapier-or-firebomb.html
November
3, 2011 at 14:43
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The Jerboa.
November
3, 2011 at 12:38
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Ostrich â head buried firmly in the sand of the Fourth Reich
or perhaps a Sloth â living on benefits of course!
November 3, 2011 at 12:26
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The Dodo.
November 3, 2011 at 10:45
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The squeezed cash cow and the troughing pig
November 4, 2011 at 10:10
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@Oberon â No âtroughing pigsâ allowed in Cambridgeshire!-
//A council removed all references to âsnoutsâ and âtroughsâ from an
online debate after councillors approved a 25% pay rise and voters accused
them of greed ⦠and they were repeatedly accused of acting like âpigs to the
troughâ.//
[Telegraph, 03-11-11 http://tinyurl.com/3n6swfk
November 3, 2011 at 10:43
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The slug.
November 3, 2011 at 09:43
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The Pussy
November 4, 2011 at 19:49
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Thank you, Mick; that was my thought too. Especially when I heard how an
illegal-immigrant criminal with several aliases was awarded £17,000 (I
think) of tax-payersâ money because detained by the H.O. four months longer
than some risible law permits whilst it tried to figure out whence the hell
he had come from. Jesus f******* wept! Î Î
November 3, 2011 at 08:44
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On a more serious note surely our national animal should be
The Money Spider.
It represents the British belief that money can just be magicked up from
nowhere because they heard a myth once that it canâ¦.
November 3, 2011 at 08:41
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the rare Ed Balls Boar represents Britain perfectly –
Economically
illiterate.
Addicted to debt.
Sponges off the
state.
Rude.
Ugly.
Fat.
November 3, 2011 at 07:48
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The rabbitâ¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦â¦ in headlights of course!
November 3, 2011 at 07:44
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The adder. Elegant, sinuous and not far from extinction; one of the few
reptiles with which one can build a friendship.
November 3, 2011 at 07:37
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Homo Chaviens
November
3, 2011 at 06:41
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The weasel. Weâve already put them in charge.
November 3, 2011 at 05:43
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Britainâs ânational animalâ for the 21C must beâ¦â¦â¦â¦..
â¦â¦â¦â¦..John Prescott (vagina vulgaris).
Overpaid, idle, incoherent, incompetent, unpleasant, aggressive,
self-pitying, self-absorbedâ¦â¦â¦
November 3, 2011 at 00:31
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I think three are required.
The Cowardly Lion.
The Sheep
A rat.
Who they represent is left to the reader.
November 2, 2011 at 23:14
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The elephant in the room.
November 2, 2011 at 23:03
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Unicorn â often shown collared but with a broken chain because it cannot be
tamed and will always break free. Eventually.
November 2, 2011 at 22:35
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The mouse that roared?
Tin hat on and gone for the day
November 2, 2011 at 22:34
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the tapeworm or the cuckoo
November 2, 2011 at 20:36
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The mole. Blundering along in the dark at the bottom of a hole.
November 2, 2011 at 20:34
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The Three-Toed Sloth. . Or maybe the Garden Slug..?
November 2, 2011 at 20:19
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Iâve always been partial to a nice beaverâ¦..
November 2, 2011 at 20:32
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Well, someone had to say itâ¦
November 2, 2011 at 20:02
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It used to be a lion â these days itâs a mouse.
As for the Canadians, Iâd have thought that a caribou would be more
appropriate.
November 2, 2011 at 19:54
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Ireland is adopting the Headless Chicken
November 2, 2011 at 19:46
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The Fox.
Some love to hunt him, some love to hunt the hunters; he knows both country
and town, heâs resourceful and cunning, handsome, fleet of foot, a fine hunter
himself, and he enjoys a chicken dinner.
November 2, 2011 at 19:50
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PS. That goes for Vixens as wellâ¦.
November
2, 2011 at 19:45
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Any invertebrate would sum us up nicely these days I think.
November 2, 2011 at 19:41
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The Ostrich or the Lemming have to be prime candidates.
November 2, 2011 at 19:40
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Baa.
All animals are equal.
Baa.
November 2, 2011 at 19:31
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The hedgehog ~ lovable, prickly and flattened.
November 2, 2011 at 19:22
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The badger â each one of a different stripe, but some seen to be diseased
so that culling is seen as the only acceptable option.
November 2, 2011 at 19:18
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The Lemming
November 2,
2011 at 19:15
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We already have one, donât we? The British Bulldog!
November
2, 2011 at 19:09
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An animal to sum up todayâs Britain?
The meerkat, surely!
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