Déjà-Vu?

Inspired by reports of an American mountain lion that took refuge in somebody's bathroom and refused to come out… also a call-back to various shorts in The Discworld Tarot, I think "11; Strength".

Meanwhile at the Assassins' Guild School, a new scholastic hazard was discovered in the girls' ablutions by the dorms on the second floor. Lord Downey is reported to have done the thing with his forehead and the palm of his hand and exclaimed "Ye Gods! not AGAIN!" prior to summoning Natural History teacher Doctor Smith-Rhodes to deal with the matter, at her earliest convenience, if she would be so good.

Doctor Smith-Rhodes then went to the said earliest convenience, passing through a crowd of girl students from Scorpion House who were at that time somewhat inconvenienced, and was heard to exclaim "Ag, I wondered where you had gone!" in a pleased voice.

She then identified the creature as an Acerian Mountain Lion she had been keeping in the Animal Management Unit for study, which had decided to go walkabout. She invited various staff and pupils to "tickle his belly, ag, he's just an old softy, he will not bite."

She is no stranger to the practice of keeping large cats; we at the Times are reminded that while she was a resident teacher at the Guild School responsible for the wellbeing of the young ladies of Raven House, she raised a rejected lion cub with eye problems, who she called Clarence* after an uncle back home in Howondaland who also had a problem with strabismus. Clarence the lion, or perhaps Klarenz, tended to accompany her to classes, which Lord Downey conceded was exceedingly good for discipline, but somewhat hard to explain to concerned parents.

Notes Dump, autumn equinox 2019:

Considering new ideas and developments for other stories… Strandpiel2 figures heavily as the ideas are multiplying fast…. Sketching out introductory chapters…. The aftermath of Famke's educative punishment in the sensory deprivation tank; Bekki gets a guided tour of Bitterfontein and begins to learn about the people and the place and why it's subtly different to Piemberg; Ruth gets an interview from the Patrician, who develops an interest in her welfare and wellbeing and is very interested in some of her ideas. Johanna and Ponder get to host some unexpected late-night visitors. Events on the Ulunghi border heat up, and the forces of Prince Simbothwe get practical experience in why it's not wise to get Cossacks pissed off with you. Elsewhere, we might get a glimpse into recruitment and in-service training in the Air Watch, which includes a very interesting cat/mascot called Whiskers. Where, for instance, will the Heavy Squadron be based? I have ideas. Maybe flashbacks to an Air War some years before the "present" and what happened – not sure about the style here, might be part-Biggles, part-Derek Robinson….

reply to a comment on Facebook that referenced a long-ago favourite childrens' Tv show set in Africa...

I know. "Daktari" remains a fond memory of childhood... as if nothing had changed... I remember it as having been produced for TV at exactly the same time the last of the British Empire in Africa was being dismantled, so you had old-time white colonial attitudes playing out in the jungle for a TV show as if nothing had changed... the white family, presiding over good-natured and happy but ignorant blacks who were perfectly content to be subservient to the Baas, who was some sort of doctor - "Daktari" in the local language - can't recall if he was a people-doctor or a vet, might have done both, but he and his photogenic wife and kids kept a cross-eyed lion as a pet, called Clarence.

So when I started introducing "White African" characters into my fanfic Discworld, the TV show "Daktari" had to be referenced. No way around that. Together with what turned out to be a bullseye about South Africans, although I didn't know it at the time - it seemed to be Rule of Funny to have a "South African" character be a born zoologist who, after graduating as an Assassin, ups the stakes for domestic companions by keeping a lion in her rooms, as opposed to the usual brace of pedigree hunting dogs. This on top of doing an up-to-Eleven National Stereotyping thing (as per Fourecks) by taking what everybody THINKS they know about White South Africans way over the top. (biltong, rugby, larger-than-life body language, a distressing lack of subtlety, tend to treat the Boer War in the same can't-let-it-go way that people from the Confederacy have towards the Civil War, a historical mistrust of Zulus, especially ones coming in large groups carrying assegais, a generally unreformed attitude towards racial equality, Afrikaans and English speakers rubbing along together in a sort of half-accepting semi-understanding mutual wariness - and of course the Braai. At least, this was where it began... over the years and getting to know more Saffies, the picture developed more nuances. As it does. Or does justnow, ja-nie?

And... Saffies I have met have remarked that on arriving as soutpiels in Britain, a question never far from the surface voiced by curious Brits, one that hovers unspoken in the background of discourse, is "Oh, when you were growing up in the Bush, did you keep a pet lion?" (sometimes varies as monkey/chimpanzee/leopard/elephant other exotic species vaguely associated with Africa) Even if the answer is "Ag man, I grew up in Joburg, it was tarmac not jungle, the nearest we got to trees was a robot(1) on every corner and the nearest we got to a lion was the family cat!"

So having my Rimwards Howondalandian "daktari" raise a pet lion (feline strabismus optional) - even more Up To Eleven South African than I realised. Very Discworld. I'm pleased with that.

(1) The South African interpretation of the word "robot" is not what you would expect it to be, but it is both logical and pleasing. Go on. Ask a Saffie.