We're Goin' To The Insane Creationist Zoo, Zoo, Zoo, How About You, You, You?

A couple of weeks ago, I was given a letter by my 6 year old son's teacher, highlighting a school trip to Bristol Zoo. Only a fiver. They requested I go along too so I could look after him and his asthma. Okay, another fiver. Since it coincided with my day off, I asked if I could take my 3 year old daughter along too. And so on. I was looking forward to it; it's almost like a rite of passage as a father, as I was my son's age when I was last taken there. There are photos. If I manage to get my folks to find them, I may share one day.

So, on Monday, my son boarded the coach with his classmates and a few other parents and teachers, and Keira and I were relegated to the back seat of a crappy little minibus, sat behind a chavvy mother whose features were so distorted, she might as well have been looking into a spoon. As we rattled along the motorway, this woman kept banging on about holidays she's been on and stuff that she owns, and, on one of the most sweltering days I've ever experienced, she decided to close the only window on the minibus, without asking anyone, "'cos it's blowing". Selfish fucking idiot. Oh well, Ahmed's mother opened it back up again half a minute later. Nice one, Ahmed's mother.

Anyway, whilst crossing the Severn Bridge, the teacher who was driving was asked by someone if it was Bristol Zoo we were going too. You know, Bristol Zoo, like it said in the letter, very clearly. "No, we're not going to Bristol Zoo, but we're going to a zoo." Ah. Foiled again. So, where were we going? I wouldn't know until we got there. Looking at the signs along the roads, I could tell we were moving away from Bristol slightly.

So, Somerset, then. Not too far out. Still, any zoo that was there would be slightly misleading if it had the "Bristol" prefix. We finally arrived, and my Spider-Sense started tingling as soon as I saw the sign. Here's a flyer.

Something was bothering me, and it wasn't the absence of a possessive apostrophe. Noah's Ark. Noah's fucking Ark. Why was that triggering such a bad feeling? Surely this couldn't be that place I'd heard about? The one from the BBC investigation? The UK's only Creationist zoo?

What were they thinking, letting me go along?

The first problem I've got is that had I not gone along, I wouldn't have been any the wiser as to where my son was. The permission letter clearly said Bristol Zoo, not Insane Anti-Darwinian Religious Zealot Zoo. But that's an issue I'm raising with his school, so we'll leave that one there for now.

Now, I'm not a fan of zoos for the usual reasons, so I won't go into that, but I wanted at least for my kids to see some exotic animals, which they did. Walking past the gibbon enclosure and seeing a poster highlighting the differences between Man and Apes in a Creationist context was now making my Spider-Sense cause a severe migraine. This is an example of the sort of thing I'm talking about:

My son has an extraordinary gift for reading and writing, but I'm not overly bowled over by the thought of him, at the tender age of six, reading about clitorises, so any of this religious propaganda that I saw, I steered my kids away from. I'm all for religious tolerance and understanding, being a balance-minded atheist and all, but to have this kind of voodoo, which falls down when examined by cold, hard, scientific fact, anywhere in modern society, is irresponsible at best, dangerous at worst. Some people are very easily swayed and believe anything they read. Those people are either children or Sun readers. It's the reason we have the government we've got, after all.

Further research reveals that this place was expelled by the zoo industry's regulatory body, BIAZA, for bringing the association into disrepute, following the BBC investigation, and alleged links to the Great British Circus. Amongst other things, following the death of a tigress a week after giving birth to three stillborn cubs, her head was filmed by the BBC in a freezer, and, against DEFRA regulations, the carcass was buried illegally on the Farm's land, except for the paws, skin and aforementioned head, kept for the purposes of display.

But still, somehow, my son's school either thought that all of this was okay, or they didn't do their research. All will become clear either way.

My kids enjoyed themselves nonetheless; I'll let them decide on their own path as far as religion or atheism goes, scientific fact or arrogant superstition which places Man above Beast, and the cruelty of zoos. I'd be a bad parent if I didn't give them that opportunity first and humiliate and ridicule them later whilst tutting disapprovingly.

If it turns out that somebody at my son's school has a religious agenda, leading to this particular trip, I'm going to suggest they take the kids to Techniquest or something next time, to even the balance between fact and woefully inept fiction. I admit that religion does have a place in the world, but I don't think that that place is a zoo.

Oh, and the chavvy mother, who blows the whole Creationist theory apart, was going to spend an hour under the sunlamp when she got home, if you're interested.

Keep voting for Shit Britons! See previous posts for details. Closing date for votes is 30/6/10. I'm getting votes for Amanda Holden, the Krankies and Cheryl Cole at the moment, still no votes for Paul Daniels, quite surprisingly, Geri Halliwell or Tess Daly. Vernon Kay's only had one vote that I can see. Vote as many times as you like for different people; James Corden's still 'winning', so if you want that changed, there's still time.