There’s not much you can say to this photo. Franki and i are a few feet away from one seriously big and pretty royal-looking alpha male lion called Kafara (his brother Manzi is lying behind him chilling, Virgilio is taking the photo). They know we’re there and are totally aware of everything going on, but we’re not a threat to them and they’re not interested in us. Franki is stroking his soft tail and i’m building up the courage to stroke his feet. Just swinging his head round to see what’s going on is seriously intimidating.

I cannot begin to tell you just how beautiful and gentle these animals are. We spent the day getting close up to lions, tigers, leopards and cheetahs.

Virgil needed a break from all his database work, and as Franki and i couldn’t meet up yesterday i spontaneously invited her down to Kent for a private visit to the well-hidden and little-known big cat sanctuary, and being the spontaneous type herself she agreed (where are all the spontaneous women?). Frantic phone calls were exchanged this morning and we eventually got down there late afternoon after we’d battled through an hour of London traffic. It was a beautiful day in more ways than one.

Virgilio took nearly 1000 phtos (9GB) but the best 60 are on my Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31019&l=87347&id=506582332

I took a lot back from our trip. I learnt that Virgil isn’t just an amazing musician, he’s also an amazing photographer. I learnt that i have a twin in Franki who has been floating around the world in a paralell universe.

We learnt about the barbaric and cowardly practice of “canned hunting“, the macro-economics of conservation and poaching, how and why cats behave as they do, and what needs to be addressed in world terms. We also saw 3 of the last 30 Russian leopards left on Earth.

But most of all, i learnt just how gentle big cats are. They are so beautiful and elegant, and so peaceful. They spend 26hrs a day sleeping in the sun and not once did we see even one miniscule act of aggression. Quite the opposite in fact - they were very cautious, almost domestically-cute and more interested in whether we had chicken drumsticks for them than being hostile or defensive. All you need to do to motivate anyone to preserve these wonderful creatures is to make them stand near one because you cannot help but admire nature at its rawest.

All of that after spending a hilarious hour at BBC Television Centre talking about how we could dramatise the manufacture of MDMA/Ecstasy live on air. I now have meetings and interest from all the broadcasters, as ITV finally got back to me this morning to complete the list. I’m going to try to convince them to send me into Africa to film big cats.

And hats off to Franki for quote of the day, and of course, the fact that she took a close up pic of the head Lion’s balls. I shit you not. It’s art. What a chick.

And i get back to see my daily Bible verse for today is:

But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

2 Timothy 4:17