Ursine musings.

[Beardy]

What with all the talk of BEARS on the forum and not a few pictures in what people proclaim to look like being of the same, I’ve been thinking.

I like BEARS. It’s not really something I’ve thought about before, but on reflection, I’ve always liked them. They’re kind of cool.

Of course the ultimate representation of BEARS in popular culture is Baloo in the original Disney retelling of Rudyard’s little tale of the Scout Association, although with the notable exception of that smug little tosser, Rupert, most fictional BEARS are as cool as their real life counterparts.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Black bears, brown bears, grizzly bears, polar bears, Himalayan sun bears...

Bristol bears are in dazzle camouflage. It helps them sneak up on zebras, I suppose. You can tell it's successful because there are no zebras left here at all.

[rogerzilla]

It's really to stop U-boats coming up the Bristol Channel and torpedoing them.

[andrewc]

My favourite illegal immigrant.





Bears are cool.  Apart from when you are camping in bear country USA,  then every little noise outside the tent is a hungry carnivore waiting to rip your face off & gnaw you to Deth!

[ravenbait]

Bristol bears are in dazzle camouflage. It helps them sneak up on zebras, I suppose. You can tell it's successful because there are no zebras left here at all.

I recently sold a story in which all the characters existed in a sort of augmented reality and used avatars, and I referred to dazzle. The editor asked me to change it because she couldn't follow the slang. I was really surprised, because I thought the concept of dazzle was fairly well known.

Sam

[Cudzoziemiec]

Bristol bears are in dazzle camouflage. It helps them sneak up on zebras, I suppose. You can tell it's successful because there are no zebras left here at all.

I recently sold a story in which all the characters existed in a sort of augmented reality and used avatars, and I referred to dazzle. The editor asked me to change it because she couldn't follow the slang. I was really surprised, because I thought the concept of dazzle was fairly well known.

Sam

Had she never listened to HHGTTG? There's a section there where, after making God disappear in a puff of logic, man goes on to prove black is white and get himself killed on a zebra crossing.

Okay, it doesn't actually mention dazzle camouflage. And I suppose you have to be pretty old now to know HHGTTG.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Back to bears. We also have these bears in Bristol:

and they do eat people. Sometimes they fight tigers, sharks and, bizarrely, wasps. Perhaps one day all four species will fuse together into one hyper-dangerous, grizzly, growling, biting, stinging mud ball? Then nothing will save the zebras!

[Beardy]

Back to bears. We also have these bears in Bristol:

and they do eat people. Sometimes they fight tigers, sharks and, bizarrely, wasps. Perhaps one day all four species will fuse together into one hyper-dangerous, grizzly, growling, biting, stinging mud ball? Then nothing will save the zebras!

But you said the zebras were all gone, so what will they eat?

[Cudzoziemiec]

As I said, they eat people. But only when they can't get marmalade sandwiches or jars of hunny.

[rogerzilla]

Dazzle camouflage is still a thing.  One of the River class gunboats* we sent to frighten the dirty Frenchies** the other week is in dazzle.

*about the size of a big trawler, with a 30mm cannon for making holes in defenceless vessels.  USS Iowa, it ain't.

**actually to boost the Tories in the elections the following day

[Mrs Pingu]

Bears.
I like to hug them.
IMG_9808_01 by The Pingus, on Flickr

[andrewc]

https://twitter.com/notesfrompoland/status/1398599017513242628?s=21


And people here complain about the occasional fox...

[hatler]

My BiL got the job or raising an orphaned spectacled bear in the Andean foothills of Bolivia. They called him Baffin ('cos they want him to be wild). Things were going well but one night he slipped his leash and toddled off. He had a radar collar and they tracked him for a few days until they found a very dead Baffin. He had strayed into another bear's territory and they are apparently fiercely territorial.

All very sad.

[Jurek]

https://twitter.com/notesfrompoland/status/1398599017513242628?s=21


And people here complain about the occasional fox...

I've been on holiday in Zakopane.
Didn't see any bears.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Ditto. Didn't even see any in the mountains in September. I expect the town has grown quite a bit since I was last there though (I think it was 2002) so perhaps it's extended into what the bears regarded as their territory.