Archive News
Performing pandas fail to make most of their chances
Date Published: 11-Apr-2012
Occasionally there are still moments which bring you right back to the embarrassment of that first ever teenage chat about the birds and the bees – and last week’s blow by blow account, so to speak, of the efforts of Edinburgh Zoo’s giant pandas to produce a baby panda certainly had the squirm factor by the spade load.
As it turned out what it didn’t have was a sufficient amount of another word that sort of sounds like squirm, because the best efforts of Yang Guang and Tian Tian to leave a lasting legacy came up, well, short.
For those who missed all the excitement and embarrassment – and indeed the build-up – to this tryst, these two pandas are on a ten year loan from China for the last four months and in case you’re thinking about renting your own panda you might need to know that this costs around $1 million a year.
So obviously then the sooner you can grow your own the better – but the female panda is fertile for only two or three days each year, usually at some time between March and May.
So there was daily testing of Tian Tian’s hormone levels and regular reports about her mate’s yen for bamboo before Edinburgh Zoo opened the love tunnel for Britain’s only pair of giant pandas.
No detail was left unreported – although the zoo did turn off the panda cam and covered the glass on the viewing gallery for the duration – but the loving couple were allowed five liaisons during the day, each lasting five minutes. By the end of that first day, their meetings had been physical and playful; they coupled more than once, but failed to reach the summit.
And we’re not talking about two bears in the first flush of romance either because Tain Tain has previously given birth to twins and Yang Guang is a daddy on the front too.
But in the end, the zoo confirmed the bad news in a press release headlined simply ‘close but no cigar’ but so far management is resisting proposals to use artificial insemination to ensure a pregnancy, for this year at least.
Still, the upside is that the couple now has eleven months and three weeks to grow to understand each other better through the grille that separates them, and maybe if they are allowed to chat intermittently over bamboo shoots, they’ll be better primed for a successful lift-off in twelve months time.
Or perhaps time will make no difference and the Scots will continue to trousers up a million dollars a year for an underperforming or incompatible panda who is proving to be nothing more than a drain of the state.
In fairness, it’s a lot of pressure to be looking through a cage at your potential partner for 362 days a year and then be pressurised to perform to Olympian levels during a very short spell with the eyes of the world on your actions.
That could lead to a loss of libido – or then again maybe it’s the old problem. Even pandas like Tian Tian like a little romancing and Yang Guang seems more of an “up and at ‘em” kind of guy. Maybe Tian Tian would appreciate a little less action and a little more panda-ing.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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