The Panda

Tian Tian and Yang Guan, two pandas on loan to Edinburgh zoo, have failed to mate in the limited breeding season. I shouldn't have thought it that attractive an activity in the glare of publicity but I suppose the keepers know best.

The BBC brought out some expert who said that pandas were perfectly viable creatures who had only come to difficulties when humans started to invade their space (we are all guilty, as I am sure you know).

Actually I think the opposite. Pandas were originally meat eaters but became too incompetent to catch their prey. They now live on bamboo which, with its lack of protein, means they are even lazier, and amble around like an 80-year old with a hangover. The breeding season is about 36 hours per year, so that's it for 2012 - back to eating bamboo. This species is not viable and should have been allowed to go extinct years ago. Instead huge sums of money are spent on them which could have been used to preserve some useful creature.