Chris Packham and the Honey Badger

Kerry and I had one of those rare occasions on Saturday night where we got it to ourselves.  Fern & Chris offered to look after Darwin so we exploited it.

Rather than doing the usual have summat to eat and go to the pictures thing we saw that Chris Packham was giving a talk in Bolton and decided to go to that.  We both like Chris Packham, he appeals to Kerry’s tree hugger side and my photography side and we both like animals.  I also gained a special fondness for Packers after he chose my photo from a huge collection of photos in an animal photo competition ages ago.  I didn’t win but he said my photo of a chameleon was his favourite.

Anyway the talk was very interesting and entertaining.  It was a mixture of his photographs coupled together with animal facts and issues of the day.  I like his passion and enthusiasm and I like his photos.  And they weren't just your every day photos of animals either.  He goes to exceptional lengths to produce high quality images but there’s a bit of contemporaneity as well in his images of pond skaters.

I had a feeling that afterwards he would open the session up to questions and I had one prepared.  When he confirmed this at the beginning of his talk Kerry looked at me to say, “Please don’t ask a question”.  During the interval she insisted that I tell her what question I was going to ask and her head sunk into her hands.  Again she pleaded with me not to ask the question.  I assured her that the question would go down well, that many people would laugh and that Chris would appreciate the question.

When the time came I was the first the put my hand up and consequently got chose to ask the first question.  I changed my voice to project loudly so that the 500 strong crowd could hear and in my most articulate way said, “Chris, I would like to ask a question about the ferocious but very intelligent Honey Badger.” “O yes”, Chris replied in a way to say that he knew many things about the animal. “I’ve heard a story that if you creep up on one and grab it by the back of the neck it has the ability to bite you with its anus.  Is that correct?”.  There was a slight pause and then the crowd laughed.  Chris also laughed and said that was the best question he had ever been asked.

"The Chameleon which Chris Packham said he liked!"

"Packers and his 2 favourite animals"

"One of Chris's many Photos"