Facebook reach out to Penguin author

Last time I posted here I said things were getting desperate, you'll be pleased to here things are still exactly the same. Above you can see I even contacted the author of my life-time favourite book (Can I say that if I haven't lived all my life and read all the books I am ever going to read?) 'Death & the Penguin' which I reviewed in my last post to give you all something to look at.
In all seriousness I am surprised I ever got a reply to such a ridiculous question, there is no reason in the world why a man from Ukraine who ten years ago wrote a book with a fictional penguin as a central character would be able to help me but he still said sorry for not being able to. Which was about as helpful as the zoos. But taking career choices into account he was probably more helpful as it his his job to write books not help a stupid 22 year old boy shovel fish into an emperor penguin's beak. The zoos however have many a penguin and they were as useful as a chocolate teapot.
Ontop of this someone I know (Briefly, she's good-looking so I follow her on Twitter) had a penguin feeding experience thing for Xmas but even past my teenage years I am still socially inept and incapable of asking fit girls questions so I am not helping myself either.
So no I have made no further progress.

CHRISTMAS

I did however get a holographic penguin bookmark for Christmas though which is phenomenal, but if you look at it for long enough gives me a banging headache and then I don't want to read at all. SO I am unsure as to how useful it will be.

If anybody got any penguin gifts for Christmas please let me know in the comments below.

Even if you got a penguin feeding trip, just to rub it in my face.

I need your help & comments

The more I go on with this the harder it is to be positive about it, next to begging zoos to let me stroke their animals for free there is not a great deal I can do.
I looked at Antarctic expeditions and trips to South Georgia and surprisingly that is out of the question.
You can't even fly to South Georgia to see King Penguins on a beach. You have to travel by sea and South America and the Falkland Islands are at least 4-5 days sail away.
I can't even make a paper boat.
It's all here...
I would have to fly to Chile to catch one of these cruises.

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS.
But as much as I can make out it I have to fly to Amsterdam, to Georgia USA, to Santiago, Chile. Then travel by car? Then to Punta Arenas, Chile then I have to pick some kind of boat ( I have a selection of a few) None of which assure my safety and survival. And these flights will cost me £800+. Doddle.
This all sounds like a fabulous adventure and would surely make a spectacular blog however I have £100 that my Mum gave me.
SO I NEED YOUR HELP.
If I set up a donate button with a total of £45 this would allow me to feed a penguin in a zoo, would anyone actually donate, between 50 p and £1 would be incredible for me.
Yes I am begging.

Update 9

Another zoo another no.

Matthew

 

Thank you for your email. As a charity the money raised from these experiences goes directly towards animal welfare and conservation projects here at the Zoo and they are very popular experiences, so unfortunately we cannot provide one of these experiences as complimentary.

 

I am sorry we cannot help you on this occasion.

 

Regards

Julia Lockett

Penguin falls over and is mocked by his friends

Update 8

Maybe Dudley Zoo are darlings?

I have sent an exact copy of the e-mail I sent to Twycross Zoo. If they can help me out I ill send them so many Christmas Cards.

Death & The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov: Book review

A penguin makes Soviet Europe much more bearable

Keen observers of this blog will no doubt have noticed that progress is somewhat slow and zoos are not as helpful as I thought they would be. That said they do like to keep animals in cages so I shouldn't be too surprised they aren't the most generous people I've ever connected with.

So here is a book review that is not just filling up space, if you want to love a penguin even more than you already do and are also a fan of tension and dark humour then this is your calling card.

Death & The Penguin is a story that explores a journalists life in Ukraine, and it is bleak to say the least.

Viktor Zolotaryov is said journalist and his very existence is a cripplingly underwhelming one on the surface.

The man has a few friends and his short stories are never published. In fact Viktor doesn't have a great deal, but he does have a penguin. Misha is a gloomy eyed Emperor Penguin who was taken under Viktor's wing when the zoos in Ukraine couldn't take care of them any more.

One day Viktor is offered a somewhat suspicious job writing obituaries for Ukranian figureheads. hat aren't even dead yet. Not only are they not dying. none of them have so much as even a cough.  And then a senior politician takes an unplanned dive out of a window and Viktor's work is suddenly in demand.

Viktor thinks nothing of any of it until he roots through his editor's archives one day and finds all his obituaries neatly filed with imminent dates for publication.

Viktor reluctantly takes the jobs and accepts the money silently with only Misha to console in who disapproves of the whole ordeal but the money Viktor receives is put towards a heart transplant for his sick penguin which sadly comes from a four year old child.

Death & The Penguin at its core is a touching tale of companionship between two natural loners sprawled over the backdrop of a country that is pulling itself apart.

Don't take my word? Read in The Guardian

Buy 'Death & The Penguin' on Amazon:

Where to find your favourite Penguin

Simply a map depicting where every penguin can be found in the world

http://yellow-eyedpenguin.org.nz/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Penguin_distribution.jpg

Update 7

Twycross Zoo Have replied to me

It reads as follows:

Hi Matthew

Thank you for your interest in Twycross Zoo and our penguins.

Unfortunately we only allow access to our penguins via pre-arranged and paid feeding sessions – we are going to be starting these in the next few months. Perhaps you could keep an eye on our website and try to be one of the first people to do this?

Did you visit our penguins at Twycross? We have a new modified enclosure for the penguins – you can get really close (but not touch) at feeding times as the penguins come out of the enclosure for a walk!

You might also want to consider adopting one of our penguins (but we won’t let you take it home L ).

Thanks again

Anna

Nice of Twycross to get back to me, and try and flog me their services even if I did clearly state I have no money.

In summary it was the reply I was expecting but not the one I was hoping for.

Onwards and upwards I suppose. It can only be so long before I ask if I can take a ride on an Antarctic fishing trawler. Although do they go near penguins or wales. I forget.

I am going to need your help more than ever now if you know of anything that might be useful please tweet me @c00pasaurus using the hashtag #PENGWIN

Update 6: Sending Mail

Sent to Twycross Zoo about five minutes ago

The major problem with e-mailing a zoo asking them if you can meet their animals is wording it without sounding like a lunatic who is granted access to a computer for one day every week. The second was surely they receive lots of emails from people asking if they can stroke their animals without paying. I never used the word stroke however so hopefully I am in with a shout. I mean i've chosen a sensible animal for a start. I never asked if I could play Ludo with their Mountain Tigers so there is no chance of death or loss of board game equipment.

Now the waiting game. Meanwhile if any of you lovely people reading this know of anyone who can help me that would be incredible and definitely the best thing ever except Christmas and Birthday's.

Update 5

10 facts & 'facts' about Penguins.

To further our knowledge as clever Penguin people working towards a goal that only benefits only me, below are some statements about Penguins. Which ones are in fact not facts at all.

Write your answers in the comments please and thanks.

10. There is an ongoing debate among specialised zoologists about which breed of Penguin the much enjoyed Penguin bar was named after.

9. The Adelie Penguin was named after a French Man's wife. Called Adele.

8. All Penguins are highly social and enjoy group parties.

7. Penguins have no fear of Humans as they have not evolved with man kind ever being a threat to them.

6. Penguins can leap out of water at a height of 6 feet.

5. If a Penguin poos on its egg the Mother never returns.

4. When a Penguin lays eyes on a man in a Tuxedo it thinks it is also a Penguin.

3. Penguins can't swim backwards.

2. No breed of Penguin lays more than 2 eggs a year.

1. A Penguin thinks a Puffin is a poor man's Penguin.

Update 4

How this all began

This all started when I was walking back from a friends one day in the early hours of the morning when I saw something I thought was probably a Hedgehog about to take the plunge across the main road and meet certain death, or a car as they are more commonly called. A few steps nearer I noticed that this was much too big to be a Hedgehog and also the wrong colours. What I was looking at was solely black & white. It stumped me it really did. Well it damn sure isn't a Panda and Skunks only exist in bad comedy films so i'm only left with one option really. This must be a Badger. At this point I was baffled because I had began to think the Badgers were creatures of fiction created just to promote Bill Oddie's Spring Watch. I had no idea how big this thing was supposed to be, in my minds-eye I had always expected them to be Kitten size but this was the size of a small Dog. And as I thought all this staring dumbfoundedly at the Badger it stood there looking back at me. This was the first time I had ever seen a badger, and that was the first time he had ever seen me. It was a beautiful moment so now I am determined to meet as many animals as possible for the first time starting of course with the penguin.

Update 3

Baby Steps

I was walking through Hanley Park today ( to anyone who is interested Hanley Park is a park in Stoke-on-Trent, it is alright but often contains pockets of loitering youths who are best not to be trusted between the hours of six in the evening and six in the morning. Better known as night fall.) and as I continued past the lake  (pond) I noticed droves of Geese who were also black & white (ish, like penguins) except for a grey one but the others weren't friends with him and thought if I am to be come one with the penguins maybe it would be best to see if I could mingle with more familiar animals so I embarked on circling round the ducks. I noticed that like the penguins these ducks had no issues with humans but this may be because they assumed I would give them bread. I didn't. But I did learn that I am not scared of groups of birds and they are not scared of me either so I am surely in good stead to have a right riot when I eventually party with the penguins. I also studied their actions as I came across one in the group who had one wing and on his left side just had a sort of stick like thing going on. First impressions were perhaps he was the sort of elder of the village but then I noticed another duck just sort of chewing at his side. So I think he might be actually have been the runt. He wasn't a particularly strong swimmer either. Just went round in circles. To the right.

Video footage of me swanning around.

N.B. I was with a friend during all of this so if you happened to see a crazy man chasing geese around the park on Wednesday October 17th it totes wasn't me.

Update 2

I made the pretty picture you can see just above you right now. I do actually own that onesie this is not a piece of fiction or a half hearted stab at picture orientated humour.

Update 1

I've been watching Planet Earth alot this past week or so, it is one of the only perks of paying £38 a month for Virgin Media, the other one being FRIENDS is always on Comedy Central. Eden HD seems to be playing 6 episodes of Planet Earth a day but I am too lazy to check how many episodes there actually are so I am still unsure as to whether I am just watching the same half a dozen episodes on a loop. Not that that is a problem, I've watched the episode of FRIENDS where Rachel tells Ross the baby is his maybe 6 times now so repetition really isn't an issue.
My first immediate thoughts have been: Imagine if David Attenborough doesn't even like animals and the second was, this would be so much easier if I had a mate who worked in a zoo.