Introduction

As you know Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan Province, China and as you may know there are many sorts of bears in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China.

To start with there are two sorts of pandas. The black and white ones are called giant pandas and the red ones which are about the size - but not the colour - of a border collie are called red pandas. These move quite a lot faster than the adult giant pandas - which - or who - don't move about much at all.

The pandas - the giant pandas and the red pandas- have always been in Chengdu or at least ever since it became the capital of Sichuan Province, China but all of the others - the teddies, the polars and the koalas- have come more recently. Perhaps three or four hundred years ago.

The pandas invited the other bears because the pandas were feeling a bit low. And the reason they were feeling a bit low was because they found out that sometimes pandas are not considered real bears. They also found that sometimes the giant pandas are considered real bears but the red pandas aren’t. It felt very confusing. Sometimes it even felt as though they were divided with the giant pandas on one side and the red pandas on the other of an imaginary line but one that felt very real and which they thought of as the non-bear line which could have cut Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China clean in half if they weren't careful.

“In stormy weather a good piece of pond and a birthday cake seems to settle the fish," they would have said to each other except that that proverb was not invented until much later. But more or less that is what they said. But they found that just saying “In stormy weather a good piece of pond and a birthday cake seems to settle the fish," or something like did not always improve things as much as it should and did not always rub out the non-bear line.

So they had periods of feeling low and confused and on the wrong side of the non-bear line for quite some time until one day when they were reading about bears in Wikipedia. There they discovered two things. First, that there were other bears living in other countries - and not just in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China - and second that some of these are considered real bears and some aren’t considered real bears. Just like the Pandas.

So the pandas found that there were others just like them - confused and feeling low or feeling low and confused and perhaps even feeling divided from each other by that non-bear line.

Amongst the bears mentioned were the koalas who lived at the bottom of the map in a place called Australia. According to Wikipedia, the koala bears were once considered bears because they looked like bears but then for some reason it was decided - even though they looked like bears - that they weren’t bears after all. That, thought the pandas must have made the koalas very sad. And they looked at the pictures of the koalas and thought that they did look very sad indeed.

Then there were the teddies. They seemed to live just about everywhere on the map except for Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. The pandas thought that the teddy bears looked like bears and that though they were called bears they were not considered real bears because they were not alive. Though the pandas thought the teddies did look pretty much alive.

That, thought the pandas, must have made the teddy bears very sad too. But when they looked at the pictures of the teddy bears they realised that most of them did not look very sad indeed. But then the pandas looked again and decided that the teddy bears must really be very sad indeed because they often had to wear clothes.

The pandas also read about the polar bears. They found that the polars lived in the circumpolar arctic which is all around the top of the map, a lot of it is white and it is very cold. The polar bears were never considered non- bears but as the pandas looked at pictures of the polar bears they thought they too did look very sad indeed. Despite living in the circumpolar arctic - which is quite a nice name although not as nice a name as Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China - they must be very cold. And that would make any bear sad the pandas decided.

The pandas also noticed something else. The polars had ice-caps!

And though it wasn't a major issue at that time, a prescient panda thought it would be sensible to ask some polars to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China to help in the hospitals.

A lot of polars accepted the invitation from the pandas to go to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. This led to what in the circumpolar arctic was called the Great semi-circumambulation.

It was called the Great semi-circumambulation partly because the polars who left for Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China - which was thought to be half-way across the world - never came back. If they managed to do any circumambulating they might have done half, but only half.

It was called “great” for reasons no-one could remember.

In that era the means of communicating between the circumpolar regions and Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China were not developed. Consequently in the circumpolar regions nothing was known about whether those polars arrived, how they had settled in, what they did for work, what they did after work or if they ever ate bananas.

Why Storage went to Chengdu

Many years after the Great semi-circumambulation Storage, a polar, who had been acting out a circ- word returned to the circumpolar regions. It had taken a whole year but in that year Storage had circumnavigated the world. A few other circ- words had been acted out as well but Storage didn’t count those. They were being saved up for another time.

Words like “circuit.” Storage thought that the same trip could be done again using this word even if the trip was exactly the same.

Circuitous. That could also be used for the same trip or another - entirely different - trip even though Storage’s travels had been pretty circuitous this year.

Circumlocutory. That, Storage knew, was how some other bears described Storage’s way of talking but, Storage thought, it could also be used as the basis for another activity another time.

Parsimonious. Yes Storage knew it wasn’t a circ- word but if Storage was parsimonious with the use of circ- words and used them one-by-one instead of two or three at a time, then lots of different activities could be acted out. Perhaps a whole lifetime of activities based on circ- thought Storage.

Storage was an optimistic bear and was not put off by the fact that there are not a lot of circ- words and nor that some might be difficult to act out.

On return the government told Storage of an invitation that had been received from the pandas.

"More bears welcome" was the gist of the invitation. It seemed the pandas and the other bears who lived in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China wanted more polars to move there. There was no explanation as to why but there was a suggestion that they could send a bear scout to come and look at Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China to see what a wonderful place it was and how the other polars in particular had settled in.

And what better bear to pass that to the government thought. Storage, the bear who loved travel, who'd just acted out one circ- word and was keen to use another. A circuit would be just the thing was the government's reasoning. And Storage could write of the circumstances [another circ-word put to good use] of those polars now living in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. So a daily blog would be expected the government decided.

"No problem," said Storage and packed a few belongings, a couple of walrus-fat cakes and some ptarmigan pies.

Some of the government members turned out to wish Storage well and to take the opportunity to use a circ- word or two. "Consider things circumspectly," one said. "Circumstantiate your claims," said another.

A bit contrived, thought Storage, but nevertheless thanked them sincerely and headed happily off around the Taklamakan desert to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China.

At the border the Panda officer checked Storage’s face against the passport photo, leafed through the passport, stamped it and said “Welcome, Storage. I hope you enjoy the festival.”

Storage said “thanks”, went to the luggage carousel, then found the bus to town. Storage nodded at some of the bears on the bus and opened an eBook which had been on offer in the customs hall - A history of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. Storage took the book as much to pass the time before they got to town as to understand a bit more of this unusual city.

Storage hadn’t been much interested in history until the travels of the last few years. Storage found that until you actually went to a place the history sort of didn't stick. History, Storage always thought, was like a post-it note. It would stick but only if you pressed firmly.

And not much had stuck about the history of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China Storage reflected. But then realised that actually nothing had ever been mentioned about the history of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China except that many years ago the Great semi-circumambulation to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China had commenced.

As no-one in the circumpolar arctic knew what had happened during or at the end of the Great semi-circumambulation there had been very little to learn, very little to teach and very little to stick.

As you know, but as the panda officer didn’t know, the “Don’t mention it festival” wasn’t Storage's reason for coming to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. Storage had only first heard about the festival on the plane where there were lots of advertisements about it and where some members of the crew had mentioned things like the parade and bamboo tossing.

One of the red panda stewards had been particularly keen to make sure Storage knew about the festival. The red panda said that the festival had changed quite a bit since the early days but this year there was going to be an even greater change. There would be the usual - the parade, the pond design competition, bamboo chewing and so on but there would also be a new event - Waddling like a Khan. The red panda wasn't quite sure exactly what it was about but knew that it was to commemorate something about Kublai Khan. Birth, death, arrival in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China ... something like that.

The red panda steward said there had been lots and lots of interest in the new event. Bears of all sorts had been practising for most of the year and it looked like the best Waddlers might turn out to be the Koalas. Which would be good, the red panda said, as the Koalas have taken some time to really find a place for themselves in the festival - apart from sleep, that is.

Storage thought it would be a great festival to see.

On the bus another red panda conductor checked Storage’s ticket.

"Your cap's in good shape" the conductor said. "They are getting harder to keep like that nowadays".

Storage puzzled about what the conductor meant and was going to ask but the conductor had moved along to the next passenger. Of course my cap’s in good shape, Storage, thought. I always take good care of it.

Storage went on reading until one of the other passengers - a koala [unexpectedly inquisitive, thought Storage] - asked what was on the eBook.

Storage was reading the section about the history of football teams in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. Interesting history, Storage said to the koala. “Do you know anything about it?”

The Koala was about to answer but instead started to sing a song introduced as the pouch-ouch song. The song wasn't finished before they arrived at the terminal. Everybody got out and Storage’s inquirer and would-be informant was lost in the crowd. Storage thought some bears in the crowd had looked at the koala disapprovingly but wasn't absolutely sure this was the case.

Storage’s destination was a friend’s house. Well actually friend of a bear who worked in the government of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. Storage of course knew no-one here and despite the invitation being from the government, the government hadn't organised official accommodation because the visit was an exploratory and informal one. Instead they found unofficial accommodation with a polar whose family had been in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China for several generations.

Thread, the friend of a bear who worked in the government of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China, was a polar who had chosen to take up fish farming as many polars who'd come as part of the Great semi-circumambulation had. Right now it was planting season and Thread needed help planting out the young fish so Storage was going to spend a few days helping.

But Storage was so tired on arrival that they decided to start the next day. You can’t work well if you have a fit of the tireds Thread said so they went off to the library instead. Though before they left the igloo, Thread suggested that they should both put their caps in the refrigerator.

"You need to be particularly careful here nowadays," Thread said, "The scientists say our globes are warming. Apparently we breathe out more carbon-dioxide here than in the circumpolar arctic and as a result our globes - and our bottoms - are warming up and causing a lot of our ice-caps to melt.

"The only way of ameliorating the melting is to refrigerate the ice-caps. Some bears have tried breathing differently - they even travelled to Kyoto in Japan to learn some new techniques - but it's too early to say whether that will help.

"There's been quite a lot of discussion about the melting of the polar's ice-caps but because it is happening so slowly, despite the evidence, quite a lot of polars still believe their ice-caps will never melt.

Storage found it hard to believe that the polars' ice-caps could melt as a result of breathing.

"In the circumpolar regions," Storage said, "there are some polars whose ice-caps melt but there have always been some like that - a genetic problem or a disease without a known origin.

"Though the melting of ice-caps was rarely discussed in the circumpolar regions there are some polars," Storage went on, "who claim that there are more instances of melting ice-caps now than there used to be. However though they've provided quit a bit of evidence they find it hard to get much support for that view."

"Well there is plenty of evidence and support here," said Thread. Lots more polars than ever before have had their ice-caps melt."

True, thought Storage and remembered also what the conductor had said about Storage's ice-cap. "They are getting harder to keep like that nowadays," the conductor had said.

"Why are you called Thread," asked Storage on the way to the library.

"I had been thinking of asking you the same," said Thread. "Why Storage?"

"Well mine's simple," said Storage, "my parents - my foster parents actually - thought a name that made a link with my origin might suit. I was abandoned at birth and found in a storage cupboard. So my parents chose Storage."

Thread explained that the name Thread had been chosen by that naming-by-opposites approach which in some cultures is used for choosing nicknames. Like Lofty for a person who is quite short. Thread had no hair and in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China an old word for hair is thread. So when Thread became an adult Thread's parents had decided that a suitable name would be Thread and changed it accordingly.

Thread went on to say that in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China, bears or their parents often changed their names. Name changing tended to occur at least twice - when bears were teenagers and then again as adults. Some bears names were changed a lot more than that though and some not so much but overall changing occurred quite frequently.

"You have to be careful," Thread said as an aside, "about cultural issues with names. I met a Napoleon once. Napoleon had gone to work in New Zealand and had chosen a name which, he said, had associations with determination, strength, bravery and stature. But he was now coming to realise that in New Zealand those associations were not only not very obvious but that the name Napoleon had other connotations which were not quite along the lines he’d expected - such as pig.

"Quite Happily - is the wife of a friend," continued Storage, "the name was chosen when she became a teenager as it suited her character and now my friend is married quite happily to Quite Happily." Thread chuckled at what was obviously a bit of a joke.

Thread and Storage discussed naming a bit more and found that there were some similarities and some differences in approach.

"In the circumpolar regions," Storage told Thread, "we never change names except in the most unusual instance [and here Storage was the one to chuckle having been able to think quickly enough of an alternative to "circumstances" and thus avoided over-using a circ- word]. For example if someone has been missing for several years and then is found - or returns. That bear usually gets a new name because by that time the original name would have been forgotten by everybody so there'd be no point using it."

"And here," Thread said, "in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China name changing is quite common as I said. Most bears will have at least 4 or 5 names by the time they are middle-aged but after that for some reason they don't often change names. It's customary that they stop but that custom may have come about because it's hard to remember every new name one has. And you remembering your name is almost as important - if not more important - as other bears remembering it.

Bears love to read and these two were no exceptions. Like all bears they were happy to read just about anywhere except in their homes. They don’t like to read in their homes because most of the bears in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China have very small homes and can't keep a lot of books in them. Once they have put in their family members, their beds, their stoves, the TV, the computer, the mobile phone and their chopsticks the houses are usually pretty full so when they want to read - which is often - they go elsewhere.

They read in the libraries, they read in the parks, they read on the buses and on the metro and they read at restaurants.

These two bears went off to the library where each chose a book and a mice-cover - with 20 or 30 mice-tail tassels.

“The cover is to protect the book from dirt and grease,” Thread explained, “and the tassels usually have eyes. Mice-covers have become extremely popular because they are light, strong, easy to clean, quite versatile and the tails can be used as bookmarks or tassels. You’ll notice that most bears prefer the natural grey colours and not the brown colours.”

After checking out their books, Storage and Thread walked down the street a little way and sat on one of the benches. There were many of these. Put there so that any bear in need of a read could do so.

Storage sat and read a book for a while, occasionally wiggling the mice- tail tassels so that they would appear to be watching other readers.

A koala passed them looking very down and Thread said loudly enough for the koala to hear “A good piece of pond and a birthday cake seemed to settle the fish.” The koala suddenly seemed a little brighter but before Storage could ask what was meant Thread suggested they go home for dinner.

“We’ve finished reading,” Thread said, "otherwise we might have gone to a restaurant but we’ll do that another time.”

Funny these circumstances, thought Storage, not speaking the circ-word and thus saving it from over-use.

Though it was good to try to use one circ-word a day, Storage felt that sometimes it was better to use none than to overuse one. Not all polars agreed with Storage's thinking with the result that many used the same word every day. Which was, Storage thought, very boring and showed no self-discipline.

That night Storage made the first blog entry of the trip.

"Arrived safely in Chengdu and was sung to on the bus by a koala. Went to the library. Apologies for the blurry picture. Tomorrow I'll buy a mouse-skin lens cleaner. Apparently they are very good. My circadian rhythms are fine". Managing to use one but only one circ- word - and a rather nice one - in that entry.

Farming

Fish farming was started by the polars and is still mainly done by polars though some of the other bears, particularly the red pandas, are quite keen on it. Basically it involves buying some fish when they are quite young and planting them around the hospital grounds. As simple as that.

Pretty early the next day, Storage and Thread went over to the nearest hospital and started work.

"First we place the fish head-first in the ground so they don’t get disturbed by passers-by," Thread explained. "That's the main job for today. I've got a tonne of new fish that need planting out.

"As they grow they gradually turn upright and face east, the direction of the rising sun. They are sort of heliotropic though they don't follow the sun which they would if they were truly heliotropic. Japanese fish turn earliest of course. You should see some of them doing that over in the area I planted out a couple of months ago.

"After a few more months they flop to the ground and start flapping their fins. We then put them in huge ponds where they grow into any sort of fish or crustacean that we want. Pretty nifty eh?

"You'll see some of them maybe tomorrow. We need to do this planting out and we can have a more leisurely look around after that."

The work wasn't particularly strenuous, Storage found. No holes had to be dug for example but spacing had to be fairly precise. This, Thread explained, was because too close and the fish would look at each other rather than down and as they grew they'd become misshapen. Sometimes they'd even merge with the other fish and you might get two-headed or two-tailed fish.

They also had to look straight down or otherwise they might look at passers-by.

If they did that, they would get disturbed and if they got disturbed, Thread went on, they'd wiggle out of the hospital grounds and try to swim across to the mice farms, probably spoiling the production of mice.

Storage did find it was not always easy to get the fish to face straight down.

Thread explained that it was all in the wrist. You got the fish in a horizontal position, stroked it until it calmed a bit and when it was perfectly still - even momentarily perfectly still - you flicked your wrist. With the other hand you firmly but gently forced it to look straight at the ground.

If you got it right the fish would immediately become still. It was though it was hypnotized, Storage thought, and recalled those ptarmigan they'd hypnotized by putting their heads on the ground and running a stick from the eyes directly away from the ptarmigan about 10 cm.

Well fish weren't ptarmigan and the process was quite different but somehow Storage thought the parallel applied.

To begin with the fish were so slimy that to get them into a horizontal position without them wiggling out of your hand was quite difficult. And then the wrist-flick which looked so easy when Thread performed it turned out not to be very easy at all.

The fish had to be held quite firmly to prevent them wiggling but not too firmly that it prevented the wrist-flick followed by the other hand pushing the fish straight down.

Storage got to work. Meaning Storage made a series of quite unsuccessful attempts at planting. It wasn't until about the 200th fish that Storage got one to look straight down. In the meantime fish were everywhere. The first flipped or rather shot away to end up about two metres away, wiggling rapidly toward the mice farms. Thread collected it and threw it back in the water.

The next one did exactly the same thing but in the other direction - toward the rice farms. Thread collected that one too and threw it back in the water.

Towards attempt number ten one shot suddenly outwards and hit Thread right between the eyes. Thread was a slightly ungainly polar and did not have the dexterity to move quickly. A large cut appeared, blood began flowing and Storage - apart from feeling awful - didn't know quite what to do.

Fortunately Thread did. This had occurred before? A large handkerchief appeared, some liquid that smelt like methylated spirits was splashed on it and the handkerchief applied to the cut face. Thread laughed and encouraged Storage to try again and after many more tries, Storage finally got a fish to stick. From then on it was easy.

At lunch time fish farming had almost become fun. Storage and Thread ate their lunch - Storage had brought the remaining Walrus-fat cakes which were not easy to find in in this city - and added a few handfuls of lichen and sitting there with the sun on their backs they laughed about the morning's work and the accident.

Thread told Storage about the other farms around Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China.

"As you would expect", Thread said, "as well as fish they grow mice and rice.

"Mice and rice are grown everywhere - with the obvious exception of the hospital grounds. There are vast tracts of land circumjacent to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China which are devoted to mice or rice growing but mice and rice are also grown in the city - in spaces between buildings, on empty sports fields and in office lunch rooms.

Storage was pleased that Thread was talking about Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China and impressed by the use of circumjacent. The tradition had obviously been retained even after so many years away from the circumpolar regions Storage mused.

"Mice farming", said Storage. "I'd like to see that. I've done a bit of marmot farming back home but I've never even heard of mice farming".

Storage assumed mice farming would be a bit like marmot farming and wondered where the whistle-blowers lived. Back home they had their own villages where they could practice whistling marmots without disturbing other bears. But of course at the height of the marmot farming season the whistle-blowers were everywhere and whistling day and night to keep the marmots still did keep the villagers awake.

"Yes, might be able to see a bit of mice-farming while you're here," Thread said, "but I'll tell you a bit about it anyway."

"The farmers use special bamboo that the pandas grow. They plant it out somewhat like rice. In other words it's in a field that can be filled with water if needed. They put scare-crows in the fields to frighten off any rats, they fertilise the field with panda droppings and as the bamboo grows the mice appear".

"We have to be very careful," Thread said, "that the fish don't escape into the mice farms as they are very partial to young mice which at one stage in their life cycle spend a lot of time in the water. The fish have somehow worked out how to avoid eating the horn and can wreak quite a bit of havoc on a mice farm quite quickly".

Storage looked somewhat perplexed so Thread explained.

"Mice", Thread said, "have two separate stages in their life cycle. Each of which looks completely different. The adult mice are - well - like mice. In the larval stage - the platypus stage - they are very like platypus though they don't have legs. They live mostly in the water but they breathe air. They are furry and have a bill. The obvious difference - apart from size - between a mouse larva and a real platypus is that the mouse has a horn on its bill. It points up just like a rhinoceros’s horn. It contains poison and can be quite dangerous.

"Still, farmers are careful and wear good protective clothing so instances of mouse-horn poisoning are rare.

"When there are enough mice whoever is doing the farming - and it could be pandas, teddy bears, koala bears or polars - ride around and around the field on big machines collecting all the bamboo and all the mice in the bamboo.

"Then they park the machines somewhere and turn on other machines that separate the bamboo and the mice. The bamboo is chopped up and usually thrown back on the field and the mice are captured in bags."

Thread finished by explaining to Storage that at this time of year all Storage would really see would be the planting-out of the bamboo. Sure they should be able to see some of the machines but the main harvesting time is in about six months - spring.

"So the mice are used for what exactly?" asked Storage, although lens cleaners and book covers had already been used by Storage.

"Well the book covers that we used in the library, of course," said Thread. "They're very popular and some farmers make enough from selling those that they don't use the mice for anything else.

"Other uses are covers for surfboards, cleaning cloths, bait for fishing, or dinners for two in special restaurants. In this case the mice are formed into something like a plate and two bears eat off it. We'll go out to dinner one night and I'll show you.

"Some are even kept for a year or two and gradually turn into guinea pigs. And they are quite a money spinner in their own right," Thread finished.

And after that they spent the rest of the day planting fish.

That night Storage made a second blog entry.

"Planted fish. It was a bit like a circus to begin with with fish flying everywhere and Thread being hit in the face". Yes, Storage thought, another - but just one - circ- word.

"Learnt about the uses of mice and looks like a special dinner for two with Thread is coming up."

The "Don't mention it festival"

Slightly bleary-eyed, a little sorer than expected [after all yesterday's work had not been strenuous] and therefore feeling a little low, Storage woke the next day to find that Thread was planning a day for them at the festival.

“In stormy weather a good pond and birthday cake seemed to settle the fish”, Thread said and went on with breakfast.

Storage was a little puzzled but also a little distracted so didn’t ask what Thread meant. The festival seemed the more important topic.

Storage remembered the Panda officer mentioning the festival with quite some enthusiasm and now, in addition to wondering if you could mention a "Don't mention it festival" recalled the mention of Kublai Khan and the new waddling-like-a-khan event.

Thread added to Storage's small bit of knowledge over breakfast of lemming larva.

"In Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China," Thread said, "there are quite a lot of festivals. This one - the “Don’t mention it Festival" - is the most important.

"We've had various waves of arrivals in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China . These include the Mongols, various other local Chinese groups [I think we have 50 or so minority groups], Japanese, Koreans, Uighurs and Turkmen but this festival celebrates the arrival of the first koala bears, the first polars and the first teddies.

"It is called the “Don’t mention it festival” because when they first arrived and after the Giant and Red pandas welcomed them the koala bears, polars and teddies said “thank you” to which the Giant and Red pandas replied “Don’t mention it” and put on a special show with dancing and food and a variety of rodents - including gerbils, chinchillas and guinea pigs - just for the koala bears, polars and teddies.

"It’s worth a whole day so if you are up to it I think that is what we should do. This is a special year for the festival," Thread went on, " because it is celebrating 500 years of the first arrivals of other bears from other countries. Also there is a new event - Waddling-like-a-Khan. That is to commemorate the birth of Kublai Khan who was born 800 years ago and who, as he aged, could only waddle as the years of horse-riding had caused his legs to become misshapen. With both of those things it should be a particularly wonderful festival this year."

Of course Storage was up to it. After all the visit to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China was to find out what the place was like and what better way to find out than a festival.

"Great", said Thread and on the new metro on the way described some of the things they'd see - bamboo embedding competitions, fish pond design and gum-tree leaf spitting for starters.

Also on the way they saw lots of bears practicing for the Waddling-like-a-Khan competition. The teddies seemed very good thought Storage but Thread said that the koalas were pretty good at it too and that it looked likely that a team of koalas might be the inaugural winners.

"There's a lot of bears thinking it would be good if the Koalas won as they have been participating in the festival but have never done very well at anything yet," said Thread.

First they saw bamboo embedding.

This was introduced by a panda who had travelled to Scotland by way of the Silk Road - the Southern route - and who had seen caber tossing. It was very similar but instead of being a competition about how high or how far the bamboo can be thrown the winner is the one who can most deeply embed it in the earth once thrown up in the air. Points are also given for smoothness of execution.

"Special bamboo which is slightly heavier at one end than the other is grown just for this," explained Thread. "The competitors can select which piece of bamboo they are going to use but are not allowed to alter it in any way."

Storage and Thread sat on an old mice-mat that had been put out on the ground for spectators. There were a few holes in it and Thread explained that occasionally errant bamboo pierced it.

"Not something to worry about," said Thread and gave Storage a hamster-covered helmet to put on.

Storage was impressed by the elegance of the execution. Otherwise ungainly bears like koalas and teddies became like gymnasts when they threw - or perhaps launched might be a better word thought Storage - themselves into the air.

They did a sort of running, rolling waddle - but an elegant running, rolling waddle - as they progressed toward the launching platform [that too made of mice or some other rodent - perhaps squirrel? - noticed Storage], then paused momentarily and then launched.

The launch - a sort of swift rising of the arms - was then followed, once the bamboo was released, by a graceful dive into - yes - some mouse mats.

Next was a brief look at a competition in which the pieces of bamboo from the bamboo throwing were re-used.

This one involved eating around the circumference of a piece of bamboo as quickly as possible but at the same time leaving as interesting a design as possible.

Thread, whose role was almost like that of an historian, explained that this competition was introduced by the polars who used to live in the circumpolar regions. As you know polars like words which have the prefix circ- and that wherever possible but somewhat parsimoniously all polars use these words in conversation or activities. ["It was just circumstance that led me to the crop circles," a bear might say, though if that bear was clever it would use "circumstance" in one sentence and "circle" in another a few hours or even days later].

Thread explained, and Storage was delighted to hear, that in this case the competition involves “circumference” "circuitous" and “circumflex”. Competitors eat around the bamboo - circumference - and they are not allowed to go directly around - they have to take a circuitous path. In addition Thread added if the design can incorporate a circumflex, the competitor gains extra points. And the more unusual or artistic the circumflex, the greater number of points.

Storage was thrilled to see the old Polar traditions of the use of circ- words had been carried to and adopted in the new country, Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China.

Incidentally, Storage discovered that the polars in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China also like the word prefix and have created a daily word competition called “Prefix of the day.” In this competition a prefix is chosen and bears - any of the bears play even though it was first started by polars - have to make lists of words using that prefix. The winner is the one who can think of the most words. Any prefixes can be used though Storage found that if it was a polar who was choosing the prefix of the day the prefix was invariably circ-.

Storage later discovered that this did tend to lead to an overuse of circ-words which in Storage's opinion was unfortunate to say the least. Though of course Storage never did say that.

Next they went to fish pond design.

Well actually first they had lunch. A few Arctic hare steaks, some more lemming larva but this time a salad of bamboo, rice and marmot eyes. These - the marmot's whose eyes they were eating and the artic hares were grown locally, Thread said, as with little or no communication they couldn’t import them from the circumpolar regions.

And then after lunch they went to see the fish pond design.

The rules are pretty simple. Design and make a pond before the “Don’t mention it Festival” and then bring the best piece of the pond to the judging day. This idea was introduced by a visiting author bear called Richard Brautigan when visiting Chengdu in the late sixties. It was an extension of some of the ideas written of in Trout fishing in America.

Storage and Thread toured the exhibition.

As Storage expected the polars' ponds were fairly rudimentary the main idea seeming to be to make holes in ice-blocks and stuff them with as many fish as possible. The polars shape the edges - the circumference - of the pond with their teeth so as to allow easy access to the pond. Some of the edges can be quite attractive but are not normally as interesting or inventive as the designs of other bears.

Most of the polars’ ponds are of course circular which the polars, but not the other bears, find aesthetically pleasing.

Storage and Thread marvelled at the efforts of other bears. Their ponds had banks, things in the pond for the fish to swim around or hide in and some even had food for the fish. Some bears who had been to Japan had made ponds with bonsai fish or fish organised in different shapes like Catherine wheels or tall buildings. To keep the fish in order they usually placed beavers in gaps between the fish.

Thread took Storage to the pond market area as Thread wanted a bit of pond for home. Thread explained that at the end of the competition bits of pond are sold as spare parts. If you are lucky you can make a whole pond simply by collecting bits after the “Don’t mention it Festival”.

Depending what bit you buy you may find there is quite a lot of fish in it. The polars - not surprisingly - are quite good at selecting fish pond parts but the koala bears need a lot of assistance and because of this don't often buy pieces of pond.

Thread understood that this idea of selling pond parts had also been passed on from Richard Brautigan who had introduced the idea of a market in second-hand ponds or pond parts.

Thread wasn't aiming to make a whole pond. There was already one at home but Thread did need some spare parts as one of the banks was a bit eroded. It seemed some of the fish had been making whirlpools in their spare time [time when they should have been showing themselves off to visitors] and the currents of the whirlpools had caused the erosion.

Thread had had to eat those fish and though the problem would not occur again the pond was in need of repair.

Storage found gum-leaf spitting particularly odd. Standing in the crowd a wad of chewed leaves shot past. Storage dodged but all the other bears remained still or if anything actually tried to move into its path.

Another wad flew towards them. Again Storage dodged but this time was more and more certain that other bears sought the wad's trajectory.

And then one hit Storage. Right in the face and all the other bears nearby clapped and cheered. Storage was furious. Even Thread- or especially Thread? - was cheering.

Storage began wiping the wad off but was stopped by Thread. "You're lucky", Thread said. "It's good luck to be hit by a boomerang of chewed up leaves. Keep it on - that increases the luck".

Storage grimaced but did what Thread suggested which was to do nothing about the wad of leaves. Thread did however move away a little, hoping not to be such an easy target. Being hit was, in Thread's view, a little unpleasant even if it was supposed to bring good luck.

From that vantage point they watched the wads. Or as Thread had said, the boomerangs. And indeed, Storage realised, that they were small boomerang shaped wads of leaves and ... "... and mice or mice droppings," Thread explained. Thread continued:

"For gum-tree leaf spitting, leaves are obtained from a special gum tree, mixed with mice or their droppings and shaped into a boomerang. The small boomerangs are then chewed into a mass of leaf and then the competing bears spit that as far as they possibly can.”

And yes, now Storage could see that the spitting bears really were putting great effort into projecting their wads - boomerangs - as far as they could.

"Really clever bears", said Thread, "can often get this mass of leaves to return to them just as a boomerang does. Any bear that does that has a second - or third - chance of trying a big spit.

"After the spitting they collect all the leaves, chew them again and then spit them at the audience. So their wads are used and re-used until either the spitting bears get too tired or the audience tires of the spitting.

"It's usually the former," said Thread, "as the audience is always looking for luck. Though some of them leave once eight bears have been struck. That's a sign of good luck even if you haven't been hit."

"One of the spectacular parts of the Festival", said Thread, "is the parade. All the participants and any of the audience that wants to can take part in the parade."

So off went Storage and Thread to the Parade.

Thread explained that in the early days pandas led the parade because they were welcoming the other bears but that nowadays all the bears march anywhere in the parade that they want to and the main emphasis is on wearing spectacular costume and making as much noise as possible.

The first thing they saw was, however, the pandas. The giant and red pandas were carrying loads of bamboo which every now and then they would bang on the ground. At that sometimes mice, sometimes confetti, sometimes sky rockets would shoot up into the air. Occasionally a famous bear personality would suddenly appear from a load of bamboo. And once Storage noticed a naked mole-rat but that seemed to be the only other rodent in the bamboo.

Of course like most festivals there is a lot of music played at the "Don't mention it Festival". Pandas were playing flutes made from the bamboo types that they don't eat. This was a type of flute that they had been making for hundreds of years.

Koala bears were making music with instruments made from gum leaves which they blow through; Teddies were playing instruments made of live chinchillas. For these instruments they make several chinchillas into a shape that is somewhere between an accordion and a drum and by beating or squeezing the chinchillas are made to chatter, squeak or sort of bark musically.

Polars were playing percussion. Their instruments were made from fish and ice-blocks. The ice-blocks were set about 1 metre from the bear and the fish were thrown gently or firmly at the ice-blocks. The sounds ranged from a soft clunking noise to quite a harsh thundery sound. They call playing on this instrument, clunking, Thread explained.

A few of the bears are blind and they play at the “Don’t mention it Festival” to raise money. Today they were playing their usual repertoire - songs like wherever we came from farewell or songs from the film The sound of polars clunking. This was based on the story of a family of polars who travelled all over the Circumpolar Arctic and sometimes elsewhere, demonstrating clunking. Obviously the story had been transported to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province China at the time of the Great semi-circumambulation and the film made here. Storage noticed a few differences in the story and realised it much have changed somewhat over time and from being in a different place.

Then came the different bears in their groups.

Polars of course were carrying ice and fish. Some of the fish were embedded in the ice and the polars were handing these ice-blocks out as refreshments to the bears watching the parade. Sometimes the fish were just swimming in a bit of a pond the polars had brought along. The polars liked emptying these on unsuspecting spectators.

The koala bears’ contribution for many years, Thread explained to Storage, was quite minimal as they tended to sleep during the parade. In those years teddies used to carry forked branches with koala bears asleep in them but after a few accidents - koala bears dropped on spectators and resulting in too many strains and bruises for the polars to deal with - the koala bears had to work out how to participate in the parade without help.

And today they were walking just as everybody else but they were dressed up with masks and costumes so that - except for their size and their gait - you did not know they were koala bears.

The theme today was fish. So all the koala bears were dressed up as fish. There were squid, eels, nemos and other smallish fish things. The problem though was that the polars thought they were real fish and were trying to eat them.

"They always have a theme and always based on objects", said Thread. "Other years they have been things like sewing machines, computer disc drives, televisions, vending machines, milk bars or even shopping malls. Probably smarter than being fish when there are polars around!

"The koalas only ever have objects, never for example, a story linking the objects nor a myth or legend. We think koalas see the world as a lot of objects without any relationship between them rather than - as other bears do - as events with causes and effects."

And the teddies? Well they have always liked dressing up, wearing gum boots, aprons, brightly coloured shorts and shirts so today they continued in that tradition.

The new event for this year, marking as you now know 800 years since birth of Kublai Khan was the Waddling-like-a-Khan event. As it was the most important event it followed the parade and preceded the singing of the "Don't mention it festival song".

For this participants had been practicing in the streets of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China for months - in fact bears had started practicing immediately it had been announced at the end of the festival two years before.

As the event had never been held before there had been some uncertainty about exactly what Waddling-like-a-Khan was and how it to judge the best waddlers. In addition some bears had thought it was to be a team event and others that it was individual entry.

Rather surprisingly it was the Koalas - normally the sleepy ones in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China - who dealt with the matter of establishing guidelines. Yes, they decided, there could be teams. And in answering questions like how many bears could be in a team, how long each waddling performance could last, which aspects would be judged, the weighting if any given to one aspect over another ... in fact everything you could possibly think of, they wrote up quite large volumes of guidelines. This was because they came from Australia and were influenced by games like cricket which has tomes of rules and guidelines and precedents.

But after a while they scrapped that approach and just wrote up one guideline. They decided that a team must have twenty members - so all the numbers would be represented and the guideline that all teams and all individuals had to follow was:

All contestants must waddle.

That guideline, they thought, was unequivocal and understandable.

They left it at that in part because, though they quite liked the use of the prefix un- they could not think of any more words that could usefully be employed. They made themselves and everybody else very happy by making any other contending words un-employed, at least for this part of the festival.

They distributed posters all around Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China which read:

Waddling-like-a-Khan competition

Team or individual entries allowed

- Teams to have twenty members

- Individuals to have one member

Unequivocal and understandable competition guideline

All contestants must waddle.

And sure enough that is what the contestants did. They waddled.

It was written up in the Festival's blog like this:

Some waddled to the left, others to the right

Some rocked a lot, some a bit slight

- ly from side to side, backward or forward

Some went in reverse and some came toward

the judges. They sort of rolled down the street

On the sides of their feet

Some demonstrated their waddling gait

Immediately, while others had to wait

their turn at the first Waddling-like-a-Khan,

Spectacular event - the 800th birthday of a very old mhan

The festival ended with the singing of the special "Don't mention it festival" song. A song which has evolved over the years and is now always sung at the end of the “Don’t mention it festival” and not usually at other times of the year.

It goes to the tune of fireworks exploding. The festival does not include a fireworks display though because the cost is very high and the money is used to help bears in countries where living is not as good as in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. It goes like this:

We’re all bears from China from Sichuan Province, from Chengdu,

We all love living here we really do.

Some of us came because the pandas invited us

But we’re all staying here where living is tremendous.

We work on the trains, on the trams and deal with the traffic

We fish in the rivers, and the ponds and it’s fantastic.

We surf in the sea wearing our best mice jackets

And we march in this parade making much too much racket

Fishing for carp is always great fun

Buying used carp ponds is always done

Mice farming is great too but oh

I rather like waxing surfboards with the buffalo

Playing chess, making music and reading in the library

Are what makes unemployment OK for me

I’d still like a real job

Where and when I could earn a few bob

We’ve all got numbers from one to twenty

When the football season comes, there are teams a plenty

And when we vote for the council or for the mayor

We know our hare and our clerk are really fair

We’re all bears from China from Sichuan Province, from Chengdu,

We all love living here we really do.

We came because the pandas invited us

We staying here where living is tremendous.

We are all sorts of bears

We are all sorts of bears

We are all sorts of bears, in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China.

Storage's third blog entry read:

Long day, "Hit by a boomerang wad of gum-leaves at the "Don't mention it festival". I'm told this is lucky.

Enjoyed the music and some ice-blocks, sang songs, waddled a lot and now wondering about my circulation.

Thread introduces the employment problems

The next day, Storage asked how bears were employed.

Thread had a lot of information about this.

"The giant pandas are often employed as bus drivers and the red pandas are conductors. It suits their abilities because the giant pandas can just sit all day and the red pandas can weave in and out amongst the passengers and collect the fares very easily".

"The problem is that soon the buses will be replaced by an underground railway called a metro. There will be less need for bus drivers and bus conductors but the giant pandas will be employed as train drivers and the red pandas as security staff on the metro.

So Storage and Thread went off to look at how the bears were employed.

The koala bears in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China are usually employed, Storage knew, directing car and motorbike traffic. Storage saw them perched in trees in the middle of intersections and directing the traffic from the tree. Usually there were eight koala bears at one intersection.

"So that they can cover all directions at once [at least where there are four directions to cover], " explained Thread. "Two are required for each direction as at least one of the two koala bears will most likely be asleep. If both go to sleep then no-one gets traffic directions and big traffic jams occur. As the sleeping koala bears are often responsible for the traffic jams, in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China, traffic jams are now called Koala bear jams. Some bears even sell a product to tourist bears called Koala bear traffic jam. Though it has neither koalas nor traffic in it fortunately. Some sell koala tea. Koala tea of the highest quality -tea from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China.

In addition to staying awake, the koala bears at first found the job difficult because in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China bears drive on the right hand side of the road and the koala bears come from Australia where bears drive on the left hand side. They had to adjust their thinking quite a bit and that is not easy for a koala bear.

On top of all that and making it extra hard was that at the same time as they were learning about traffic and trying not to sleep at important times they had to learn to eat their leaves with chopsticks.

Storage was told that the koala bears like the work because it means that they are working in the same industry as the pandas. Because many of the intersections have now got traffic lights the koala bears are getting less and less of that kind of work these days. However they will also work on the metro. They will be back-up drivers for the pandas. They might also be employed in emergency situations where their special traffic directing skills will be used. But this is provided they aren't asleep at crucial times.

Then they saw the Teddy bears. As they are usually employed as tow truck drivers and as there are more and more cars and bikes on the roads these days there is an increasing number of accidents. The teddies are unlikely to not find work. In fact there is so much work that some of the koala bears are also being re-trained as tow truck drivers.

"The problem, " said Thread, "is that they tend to move a bit slowly and sleep when they should be working".

The main reason for the accidents is that bears don't always follow the road rules as they should, Storage discovered. Often cars don't stop at pedestrian crossings but just keep on coming and the pedestrians have to run out of the way. Even if there are lights and other bears are crossing with the lights the cars ignore the pedestrians. If the pedestrians don't move quickly enough then they can get hit by the cars.

Cars also chop and change lanes without looking or signalling, they park on corners, they double-park and they pull out without signalling or looking.

Motorbikes are worse than cars. They go up the streets the wrong way and along the footpaths if it is quicker to do so. If they can they even ride over the pedestrian bridges which cross the road.

So with that sort of traffic behaviour there will be more need for tow trucks and more need for teddy bears. And any of those koala bears who can manage to stay awake at the right time. There will also be more need for the injuries caused by traffic accidents to be attended to.

And that is why, Storage discovered, that the invitation for more polars to come to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China had been sent.

Polars work at the hospitals and in particular deal with strains and bruises.As you know they wear ice-caps on their heads and on their bottoms. It’s these ice-caps that they put on the strains and bruises.

The polars are facing a problem though because their ice-caps are melting. This would be a problem for any country that relied on polars to deal with strains and bruises but it’s especially a problem in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China because the number of strains and bruises are increasing. Once the polars' ice-caps have melted, all those polars in the hospitals in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China will be out of a job and there will be no ice to put on strains and bruises.

“In stormy weather a good pond and a birthday cake seemed to settle the fish” said Thread. A lot of the polars now spend their time surfing, fishing and reading in the parks.

So though there is a need for more polars, they are only useful when they have good ice-caps. After that, thought Storage, it would be unemployment or back to the Circumpolar regions.

Storage wrote:

"We'd get traffic jobs and then nothing ... or trafficked back to the Circumpolar regions".

What is this about the birthday cake settling the fish?

How Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China is governed

Elections. Storage had always loved a good election and straight after the "Don't mention it festival" all the campaigning was to begin, Thread told Storage.

"The city of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, is governed by a mayor and a city council and like many governments nowadays, I'm told, the mayor and the council are elected.

So we not only have elections but we also have all those other things that go with elections - like campaigns, and candidates and parties and election days themselves of course.

"It wasn't always like that. At one time we had a royal family who claimed to have been descended from god and they believed they could decide everything. But then there was a revolt and now we have this new form of government."

"So there was a revolt?'

"Yes. It started with one of the giant pandas refusing to read... and when others took it up no-one visited the libraries, the parks and wherever else bears read; no-one read on the metro and no-one bought book covers.

"And that led in its turn to an oversupply of mice, too much traffic on the road and because the oversupply of mice meant many of the trees at the roundabouts were bonsai'd, the koalas couldn't do any traffic control.

"So one thing led to another and in the end nobody could move around the city."

"And that was the end of the Royal Family?" asked Storage.

"Almost. The end came at the next "Don't mention it festival." No members of the Royal Family turned up so their seats were empty. Empty seats, everything ready for them but nothing happening. In the end all the other bears present just went on with the festival ignoring the absence of the Royal Family.

The bears realized, rather obviously, that as the members of the Royal Family weren't there they could be ignored. And then they realised that the reverse was also true. That if they ignored the Royal Family they wouldn't be there. They wouldn't exist. They wouldn't own all the rodents and all the musical instruments, all the book covers, the clothes, the glue nor most of the breakfast food.

From that time all the bears - other than the Royal Family - just went on ignoring the Royal Family as though the Royal Family didn't exist.

"Ignorance," they all said, "is bliss."

And that is when - and how - Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China, became the most blissful city in all of China. And of course that is when they got this new system of government.

Along with the new government came a new way of choosing the government.

Thread told Storage about the proportional voting system known as the hare-clerk proportional numerical system. "It was named hare-clerk," Thread told Storage, "because it is a very fast electoral system [like a hare] and because a clerk first thought of it and also because it requires a lot of clerks to run it.

"You may notice that “clerk” is sometimes spelt “clark”. This is not the case in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China but in some other countries where the reason for spelling it “clark” was forgotten.

"And,' said Thread, "that has nothing to do with how the system works anyway."

"It’s “proportional” for several reasons. Some say one reason is because the clerk who first thought of it had a body that was very wide in proportion to its height but the other reasons are the correct ones.

"One is that you are given a number of votes in proportion to how many candidates you want to vote for. So if there are 10 candidates and you want to vote for all 10 then you get 10 times more votes than somebody who only wants to vote for one candidate.

A second is that if your football team is on top of the ladder you get one vote but if it is last on the ladder - which would be 20th - you get 20 votes, if your team is 19th then you get 19 votes and so on.

And the third proportion has to do with your age. For each decade after 20 every voter gets 10 votes. So if you are 23 you get 10 votes, 33 and you get 20 votes, when you are 83 you get 70 votes"

Thread paused for a moment to let Storage digest that and then went on. "It’s “numerical” because every voter has a number and elects a person with a number.

Thread then explained how the "numerical" part of the process worked..

"On 21 February in the year that they first started to use the hare-clerk proportional numerical system," explained Thread, " all the adults in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province stood in a line - a very long line - and the clerks went along the line giving each person a number from one to twenty. Also starting from 21 February of that year, babies were given a number at birth. The first baby born that year was given the number "one", the second a "two" until they got up to twenty. The numbering then started again at one just as it did for the adults who stood in a very long line. Nowadays as soon as a baby is born it is given a number - the next number in the sequence between one and twenty. So this means that every adult has a number between one and twenty."

The city has 20 electorates. All the “ones” form an electorate and all the “twos” form an electorate and so on up to twenty. When it is election time all the "ones" elect a "one", all the "twos" elect a "two" and so on. Only "ones" can be elected by "ones”, the “twos” by “twos” right through to the “twenty’s.”

If they ever decide to increase or decrease the number of bears to be elected they will increase or decrease the number of electorates and then they will renumber every bear by getting them all to stand in line just as they did on 21 February in the year that they first started to use the hare-clerk proportional numerical system.

Elements of the Hare-clerk proportional numerical system are also used for other things. Football teams are one example. There are 20 football teams in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China each having a name which incorporates the proportional numerical electoral system. There is a team called “the best ones”, another called “the terrible twos”, “the three bears”, “four paws”, the “favoured fives” right up through to the “natural nineteens” and “the tinny twenties”. Originally all players in a team had to be a member of the specific numerical group but when they found this meant that children might not be able to play in the same team as their parents they relaxed the rules. Now you can join any team you want and barrack for any team you want but you still sing the song that was made up when all members of the team were the same number.

Storage told Thread about reading about some of this in the ebook, The history of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, China on the bus.

The history, Thread reminded Storage, also covers the changes which occurred when the other bears came to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. Some of them had never played the kind of football played in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China and had to adjust.

Thread told Storage about two of the biggest issues. The first arose when koala bears started to play and the females carried the ball in their pouches.

The second was having to enforce mid-game breaks even though the teddy bears who had no lungs to worry about could just continue to play on without a break. This had been dubbed the no-break no-cake issue as despite not wanting a half-time break the teddies thought they should be entitled to the cake every other player had at half-time.

At the time of the pouch-ouch incident - as carrying the balls in the pouches had been called - many of the female koalas had been in the Four Paws team and the other teams used to sing songs about them.

Thread knew the incident and the song well and sang it for Storage. Thread explained though that it was bordering on the unacceptable to sing it publicly these days. And Storage then realized why the other bears had looked rather strangely at the Koala who had sung it earlier.

[to the Collingwood song tune]

Bad old four paws Forever

They never show no shame

They use pouches they're not clever

To help them win the game.

See the other bears shouting

as four paws hide the balls

Other teams say they're cheating

'Cos four paws aren't very good.

Thread liked singing and after that taught Storage the song which had been sung when the teddies didn’t want a half-time break in the football games.

[to the Carlton song tune]

They are the lungless ones

The very naughty lungless ones

They’re the ones that never need to breathe

They're the ones that all the bears know

With every other bears who play against them.

They'll never have to breathe

And the lungless ones know this is cheating

Against all the other bears of Chengdu.

Even though both songs were unacceptable nowadays Storage quite enjoyed hearing them from Thread.

Storage and Thread sang the songs quietly to themselves as they walked down the street

There are other proportions used in the electoral system, Storage discovered as they walked on, and in the workings of the council itself.

Storage was handed an A6 piece of paper. That is a fairly small piece of paper. It’s an A5 divided in half and which itself is half of an A4. But on that paper were a lot of very small words. In contrast further down the street Storage received an A4 brochure with hardly any words.

Thread explained that the size of how to vote cards or any election material is set at no larger than A4 but they also have to be in inverse proportion to the number of words written on the card. So the A4 card has few words and as the words get more, the cards have to be smaller.

Thread told Storage that this rule had occasionally led to some very small how to vote cards and that an art form had developed around putting as many words as possible on a card. This fashion lasted many years but over time the how to vote cards have all become a reasonable size and with a reasonable number of words on them.

A similar approach has been taken with debates and question time in the council. If a matter is very important then fewer words are used in the debate. On the other hand the less important the item, the more words can be used. This of course is really no different from any other council anywhere except that there are now no complaints if not much is said about a very important matter or if too much is said about a very unimportant matter.

Storage wrote:

I do like that pouch-ouch song. Must remember not to sing it though. I wonder if there are other things I have to be circumspect about

And that electoral system. Sounds interesting. Perhaps our government could consider it.

What they do when they are not working

"We'll go to the sea today,” said Thread, "but on the way we'll go through one of the parks."

In the park they saw bears reading and playing chess.

"It's very popular," said Thread referring to the chess games, "and as you can see is played in particular by the giant pandas and the koala bears. Probably because it suits their slow ways. They don't move a lot as you know but they seem to be happy spending hours musing on things."

And Storage did observe on lot of musing on chess moves and - initially - saw not a lot of chess moves. The games seemed to be moving at glacial speed. So slow that Storage wondered whether any games would ever end, or if indeed they had started. Though every now and again a move was made. It was like an iceberg being loosened from a glacier. Slowly, slowly the move occurred, was made and then "thump" the time-clock was struck and the iceberg was on its way down the river. The next move was due.

"Being Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China, "Thread explained, "this is Chinese chess. And being Chinese it attracts a lot of observers."

And, observing again, Storage saw several other bears - pandas, teddies, koala bears and polars - standing around the players and occasionally offering suggestions for moves. Quietly and with rather a lot of cigarette ash falling on the pieces.

Then Storage noticed one giant panda playing ... what was it? ... five, no six, no actually eight games at once. Of course, it had to be eight, Storage decided. Lucky number.

Not a lot of musing, Storage mused. These games were fast and punctuated by the players hitting the time clocks at the end of their moves. Time clocks? Well yes they were time clocks Storage confirmed but of course small wombat time clocks.

"Thick heads," explained Thread as one of the players thumped the wombat nearby to indicate the move had been completed. "Mice - and indeed most other rodents - were too soft and often ended up splattered. So the best time clocks are these wombats. Specially imported from Australia and of course introduced by the Koalas."

"But they are only good when they are young. When they get to about three years old they are too big to fit on the tables so new ones have to be acquired."

"And the old wombats," Storage inquired, "what happens to the old wombats?"

"Oh, they are only too old for chess. They're still young enough to continue their life so they are set free in the rivers and migrate back to Australia. It's part of their normal life cycle. The riverine stage."

"And do they swim back to Australia?" asked Storage.

"Yes. That's the sea life part of their life cycle. At that stage they are well suited to travelling by water. Their fur becomes thick and oily and they grow scales around their eyes.

"Circumorbital scales we call them," said Thread quite pleased to be employing a more uncommon circ-word.

"The swim back is bit longer than if they were in Australia but many of them get back. They don't seem to have many predators in the South China sea so it’s only between Malaysia and Australia that they run into any difficulties. But in Australia their sea life part of their cycle usually takes them up that way anyway. So it’s all pretty much the same."

They heard a splat sound and looking around saw a splattered mouse.

"Not pleasant, that, " said Thread, "but that is what happens if you can't afford a wombat clock."

They caught a bus to the beach. Thread, in the way of polars, referred to the beaches encircling Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China, as the circumferential coves. Pleased to be able to use a circ- word and liking also the alliteration when “surrounding beaches” would have done just as well.

The giant panda waved them on, a red panda took their money, and - except that Thread was with a local - would have advised them when to get off the bus. That was one of the reasons the red pandas were conductors. They are very good at anticipating and answering traveller's needs. They usually get the highest awards for customer service.

The waves were up and there were a lot of bears surfing.

"Surfing is something that has only been taken up in recent years," said Thread, "and it is mainly the polars who surf and of those it is for the most part the polars whose ice-caps have melted.

"It means," Storage continued, " that they are not carrying as much weight as they used to and this means they can be more versatile in the water. And of course as their ice-caps have melted they are no longer needed in the hospitals so they've got plenty of time for surfing."

Thread and Storage put mice on their noses to prevent sunburn. All bears wore mice on their noses but polars - being polars - were the only ones not wearing wetsuits. Unlike the other bears - especially the Koalas - they didn't need them.

They decided also not to wear mice vests. The polars' need for rashies is not very great because they have a lot of fur on their chests. Though in fact apart from the koalas most of the bears have enough fur to not require rashies. The koalas’ fur is often rubbed short by their habit of hugging tree trunks.

Storage found a board. Rather nice, Storage thought. It was a long-board made of a special kind of bamboo grown by the pandas who are the only bears who can grow this - or any sort - of bamboo.

Thread chose a short-board. Obviously a more experienced surfer than I am, thought Storage.

Polars - nor indeed any bears - normally don't wax their surfboards themselves even though when they do they quite enjoy it. Instead they employ water buffalo to wax the boards. "Water-buffalo," explained Thread, "used to be employed ploughing the mice-fields but as they are being phased out by tractors the water buffalo have quite a bit of time on their hooves. They are particularly good at waxing as they can work for long periods without stopping and can wax in a slow, steady, firm and even manner. And of course they can apply wax hot or cold."

The water-buffalo aren't paid for waxing the boards but instead the bears let them use the boards when they aren't being used otherwise - for instance when a bear is having a massage on the beach. Something Storage was looking forward to.

Storage's board was well-waxed and the look and feel of the long bamboo board was good.

Today there were quite a few water-buffalo surfing but fortunately towards the other end of the beach. They were ungainly and not good surfers, often coming off their boards which could fly about dangerously because they rarely used leg straps. Well dangerously as far as all but the water-buffalo were concerned. They had such thick skin that they never seemed to feel it when struck by a surf-board.

Storage and Thread paddled out the back well away from the water-buffalo. A couple of koalas nodded a greeting to them but most bears were looking out to sea for the next good break.

Storage saw a good wave coming, turned, paddled and stood up shooting out in front of the wave. Thread was on the same wave and together they managed to surf right into shore. Thread doing some fancy tricks and Storage just riding all the way in.

They surfed for what seemed hours ... of fun and then Thread said, "We'd better have a look at the fishing. Maybe even catch a few?"

"Fishing," Thread explained, " is popular among all groups of bears though probably less so with the red pandas because they don't have the patience to stay still for very long. However they sometimes go fishing with some of the other bears and help them with jobs where quick movement is necessary such as netting the fish which have just been caught."

Thread said that they could do surf-fishing - and indeed there were some bears doing just that further along the beach - but, Thread went on, fishing is mostly done in the rivers and it is usually the best fishing. That, if it was Ok with Storage, is what they'd do.

As they were in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China they'd go to one of the suburbs where sections of the river had been set aside for fishing.

"We have to pay but the fishing is good," Thread said.

It didn't sound like fishing to Storage who most often had gone fishing though circular holes in the ice in the circumpolar regions. It did however sound interesting.

The place Thread chose had about six rectangular ponds with bears sitting around about two to three metres apart. Some were fishing with their children, some with their girlfriends and others fishing on their own.

Thread explained that in these places you catch the fish but can't take them home. You have to throw them back after having them weighed and after being photographed with the catch.

This did seem strange to Storage and somewhat disappointing but as this journey was one of exploration Storage did not show that disappointment.

Thread bought some mice. They were good as bait, Thread explained, because they can be used and re-used. The fish like to catch mice but don't like swallowing them.

Thread also got some fishing rods. They were made of a mixture of small rodents all joined together in a row making them very flexible rods as the rodents can just be separated at the end of the day and put in a box for carrying home or - in this case - being returned to the equipment rental shop.

Storage discovered that though you can't take the fish home it is possible to buy a bit of the fish pond - just as you could at the "Don't mention it festival" and take that home. If that has fish in it, well and good, said Thread.

Thread and Storage fished for a few hours. As with most fishing it was slow work but they chatted to each other and to the fellow fisher bears around them. Whenever a bear caught a fish there were lots of cheers from the other bears and usually a close friend - wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend - would jump up and net the fish as the fisher bear brought it close in.

Storage did find the whole thing not quite like real fishing but it was enjoyable and they both caught about six fish and threw them back in after kissing them, as was the custom.

Despite having only recently bought a bit of pond Thread thought they might buy a piece here as it was always good to have a bit of spare pond at home in case of emergencies.

They spent a little while inspecting the ponds. There were whole ponds and parts of ponds all neatly stacked near the entrance. A much better selection compared to what was available at the festival, thought Storage.

After about half an hour Thread chose a bit of pond that had some pink water lilies, a nice deep bank with a few hiding places for fish - "or even a small beluga whale perhaps," said Thread - and a part of a fountain. Thread thought buying the piece with the whole fountain was a bit expensive as the fountain in the pond at home was working quite well. This would serve as a spare should that one break down.

Storage couldn't really see how a bit of a fountain could work at all but thought that time - or at least a pool malfunction at Storage's place - would tell.

However Storage never did find out as before that was possible Storage left to return to the circumpolar regions.

"A good way to finish the day," said Thread, "is to go back home through the park. There'll be lots of concerts."

Thread carefully folded the fishpond and put it in a pocket. "Remind me that it’s there won't you," Thread asked. "Once I bought a bit of fishpond, put it in my pocket and forgot it was there. I found it a few weeks later. Not pleasant. The only survivor was a small marmot that had been hibernating - out of season - but they sometimes do that. It took weeks for the cleaner frogs to get the smell out of my clothes."

When they got to the park there were lots of concerts. Mainly small groups of bears - though small could range from four to about twenty - watching two or three musicians and maybe a singer or two. Occasionally bears would dance either solo or as a group.

Storage - being a polar - gravitated to where a group of polars were listening to another polar playing an Erhu. In Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China it was not unusual for polars to play Erhu's even though in the circumpolar regions the instrument didn't exist. There the polars' most common way of making music was to find a willing walrus and produce music by beating its tusks and pulling its whiskers. This combined percussion and string "instrument" produced some really interesting music.

Some polars - provided the willing walrus was extra willing - also used the walrus as a wind instrument. To do this they would build a platform about two metres high and from that they'd jump onto the walrus. If they landed as planned they'd get a rush of air from the walrus. As one rush of air was not really much for a concert several polars would jump from the platform either one at a time or at the same time. By changing the timing of jumps and the number of jumpers a continuous and diverse toned "music" - a series of deep but varied belches - would be emitted.

The polars, Storage explained to Thread, found this an excellent accompaniment to the other noises they could get from the willing walrus.

But, Storage thought, none of that was at all like an Erhu and wondered why the polars living in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China gravitated - just as Storage had done - towards that instrument.

But gravitated to it, Storage had, and found it difficult to move away to see what other music, musical instruments or musicians were playing in the park.

It’s a bit like, Storage thought, pied piper music though in this case the piper was not leading the audience away but seemed somehow to be compelling them to stay.

Thread put some mice in Storage's ear and pulled Storage out of range of the music.

"We don't know," said Thread, " why that happens. We just know that polars are drawn to the music and either the music has to stop or else their ears blocked - and mice are good for that - before they can get away. Otherwise the polars just stay there. As though hypnotised."

Interesting, thought Storage. I wonder if that can be put to other use?. Like play the Erhu if you want to clear the streets... of polars.

After Thread's intervention they wandered around other areas of the park. Somewhere a bear was playing a zheng and a female koala was singing accompaniment. The deep throaty voice of the female koala was thought of highly by some but Storage didn't like it much. However the dancing was good and as a bear grabbed Storage onto the dance floor [or space really] how could Storage think otherwise.

Thread danced too. Sometimes they danced alone and sometimes with a partner and though the female koala sang throughout they both enjoyed themselves immensely.

"Time for a drink and something to eat," said Thread during a break, "anything you fancy?"

"Dumplings," said Storage. "Haven't had a good Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China dumpling so far and I hear they are good and my circulation is racing."

Not having used a circ- word for quite some time Storage suggested they circulate a little and then make their way out to wherever there was food and drink.

Storage and Thread wandered off, passing a few ponds with bears fishing which were rather smaller than the one that they had been to earlier. They also passed the children's playground where young bears were exercising their bodies and minds. A few were playing chess, a few table tennis - with emu eggs Storage noticed - and some were reading as was usually the case in a park. Though now it was getting darker a few had already got out bright eyed possums and were pointing their eyes at the pages in order to better illuminate them.

Out on the street there were several food stalls but Storage didn't think the walrus-fat cakes that some of them were selling looked very good and as Thread seemed not even interested in the possibility of walrus-fat cakes they continued on to a restaurant.

"This one's good," said Thread, "I was here last year for a work function. You can get walrus-fat cakes if you want but there is heaps more choice and the drinks - Koala tea - in particular - are very good."

"Great," said Storage automatically checking to see if there were still enough walrus tusk buttons to pay. Probably enough provided a tooth-changer could be found to change walrus-buttons to rat-teeth, the currency of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. Failing that perhaps there would be an ATM nearby to get some teeth, thought Storage.

With those matters not quite resolved they went in. No tooth-changer was visible and nor was there an ATM was in sight. That didn't mean a great deal as there would likely be one close by. The real issue would be whether the line between Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China and the circumpolar regions was down.

The restaurant was fairly full with all sorts of bears dining on all sorts of foods. Storage noticed some polars and koalas sharing some walrus-fat cakes and eucalyptus leaves. They each had a pre-eating role. The koalas masticated the leaves before the polars ate them and in their turn the polars caught the live carp from the restaurant's pond, ate their heads and tails and then filleted them and gave small slices to the koalas. This was because the koalas couldn't eat bones and were not artful fish filleters.

Being now in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China all the bears ate a mix of the food from their "home" country and from China.

Storage suggested that as there were two of them and as they were to have dinner that they could have the special dinner for two mentioned when they were fish farming.

Today the menu was ... well being close to the Silk road one of the first items Storage noticed was sauté chicken Marco Panda. Named of course after the famous trader, one of the first giant pandas ever to have travelled west to Europe and back to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China.

Other main courses included:

Cranberry walnut monkey sandwich,

Grilled teriyaki Amur hedgehog loin

Panda cheese marinated with bamboo smoke Oil

Chengdu olives with bamboo smoke Oil

Walrus steaks soused in native bamboo wine vinegar

Gumleaf salmon sushi

Gumleaf smoked salmon and wombat paté

Aniseed panda cheese

Mice slivers

Platypushetta

Storage noted that one could even have the last, platypushetta with or without bills.

And for drinks what was on offer included the fairly standard beers such as Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China bitter, Koala lager and Jerboa crown. Amongst the wines were Bambooglen Semillon Chardonnay, Scared Panda Riesling and Belch Peak Sauvignon Blanc. There was a variety of similarly named red wines as well.

Forgetting dumplings entirely - which was in part why they were dining out - Storage chose Walrus ravioli with wild gerbils and shiitake mushrooms and a glass of Bambooglen chardonnay. Thread chose Wattled hedgehog and Deer Barrel 2 Sauvignon Blanc

When the food came it was served on the special mice-plates.

White mice formed the base of the plates and the food was placed on the mice. Anticipating the diners, the mice would push the food together and move what they thought each diner wanted closer to that diner. So as they ate the food was moving around in front of them. Not seething but moving somewhat imperceptibly on the plate.

In addition if more of one item seemed to be needed more of it would appear - the mice somehow replenished the plate so that nobody had less than they wanted.

"These dinners," explained Thread, "can be romantic dinners too as the mice not only anticipate what each diner wants to eat and how much but also offer morsels of what one diner thinks the other would like to that other diner."

As they drank and ate and read their books - it was a restaurant after all - they watched some dancing koalas, one of whom, in traditional style did a belly dance after which plates of wild rice were thrown at her - as acclamation, said Thread.

"Great food, " said Storage as they left. At which point Storage realised Thread had paid so added, "thanks very much. I enjoyed it heaps."

"Ah, Don't mention it," said Thread in the typical Panda manner.

They caught a trolley bus home, thanked the Giant panda driver and the red panda conductor as they got off and walked the last bit home in the company of other late diners.

The tooth changing would and could be left to another day.

"I think I'd prefer surf-fishing, " wrote the blogging Storage, "though I wonder if you can keep the fish you catch? Good range of food and wine. If I could remember where that restaurant was I'd recommend it to the Lonely circumpolar region book publisher."

And then Storage added circumorbital to the list of circ-words that might be used in an interesting sentence or even as the basis of an activity one day.

Summer holidays

"Storage," said Thread, "you've been farming, you've been to the "Don't mention it festival" and you've seen some electioneering if not an election. As the election is a couple of weeks away how would you like to go to a holiday home for a while."

Storage thought simply being in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China was a holiday but agreed that a holiday on top of a holiday would be pretty good, if not excellent, so readily agreed to go. It was summer after all.

"And summer,' said Thread, "is the best time to go to a holiday home. What would you like, beach or river?"

Storage decided on the beach - one of the circumferential coves - but as it turned out even if they'd decided to go to a river the means of getting there was the same - a ferry. Whether they were holidaying for a few weeks or - if they are lucky - a few months bears always travelled to their holiday homes by ferry. There are quite a few varieties of ferry but mostly the difference, Thread explained, is whether they just take passengers or whether they take cars and trucks and buffalos and passengers.

So they went by ferry on which, of course, bears were employed. A koala bear collected the money and gave them their tickets, a panda - actually two, Storage observed - were the ferry boat drivers and there were polars working on the wharf - tying the ferry up and putting out the ramps. This ferry was just for passengers. They were going to an area where there would be no cars.

Before embarking they had to wait a while in the ferry terminal. A TV was playing - today it was a mix of bear news and bear variety shows. Oprah Bearfry was on and they watched that show until it was interrupted by one of the bands that seem to congregate around ferry terminals - or that at least is what Thread said. They were playing and collecting money for charity.

It was, thought Thread, quite a cacophony as the Erhu had to compete with the Oprah Bearfry show, bears talking and mobile phones ringing. As well of course with the noise of the occasional ferry berthing or departing. Still the musicians collected a reasonable amount of money because bears tend to give money for whatever cause money is being collected.

The trip out was wonderful. Blue skies, sun and the water was calm and a clear blue green. Storage thought they would have had as much fun swimming to the holiday home and wondered why they weren't. We have ferries, was all that Thread offered as an explanation. Plus swimming in the shipping lanes isn't allowed.

On the ferry, with all the polars around, it became obvious how much the polars' ice caps were melting. A lot, lot more than I expected Storage thought. There were very few polars who used the ferry's refrigerator to store their ice-caps. Because, Storage, realised, they had no ice-caps to store. Of course some may have left theirs at home but for a long trip like this that would be very unlikely. If you have an ice-cap you'd always take it with you on a long trip.

They got off the ferry about an hour and a half after departure. An easy trip though Storage was hoping that the holiday home that they were going to stay in was a little - if not a lot - better shape than some of the ones they had seen. A lot of them were very poorly put together. Some of them were lop-sided and some appeared not to have all their doors or windows. One had even fallen down a bank into the water. It must have been built too close to the edge so that when the bank had eroded the home had fallen in.

Most of the holiday homes were pretty basic and seemed to be made from whatever material was available at the time. Some were made from old shipping containers, some from pieces of timber which looked like they had been floating in the river and some from logs. There were a few though that were made of brick or some form of masonry. These - at least on the outside - looked relatively grand.

They got off the ferry. Well they did but not of course until the ferry had berthed. It did this by going out a bit from the landing area, turning so it faced the land and then slowly went in bow first until the bow hit the bank. A red panda quickly jumped out, grabbed a rope thrown by another red panda and tied that to a large stump.

While that had been going on a couple of giant pandas had placed a gangplank from the ferry onto the bank and a koala had taken up a position on the landward side of the bank. It turned out that the koala checked tickets of the disembarking passengers of whom Thread and Storage, of course, were two.

The koala also helped passengers get on.

The passengers were coming down a small track in a fairly steep bank and though the ground was dry it was rough and many of the passengers were elderly and also carrying baggage. Some seemed to be bags of clothes but others contained bottles of liquid, parts of plants - presumably herbs - and the occasional child bear and its toys.

So they did need - and appreciate, thought Storage - the Koala's assistance.

They walked along a well-worn path underneath large overhanging trees. It was very pleasant in the shady warmth though every now and again Storage thought it would be nice to be home on a block of ice.

They finally got to their holiday home. One that Thread often used, Thread had said. It was in a sort of paddock, surrounded by trees but with glimpses of that blue-green water through them. Storage could see bears of all kinds and shapes swimming and diving off a boat. Must be a lot of fish there, Storage mused, but Thread said they were probably diving just for the fun of diving. Koalas can't catch fish, Thread said.

The home was not nearly as bad as some of those Storage had noticed from the ferry. Though they had passed a common well on the track to the home, this one had running water for a shower as well as a pond to bathe in. Just the right size and temperature for a polar.

There was a holding pond for fish if they needed a snack at any time and even a good refrigerator - one of those new ones that they were marketing now to polars to stop - or at least slow down - the melting of ice-caps.

Outside there were swings and another large pool. The swings were mainly of interest to koalas as polars - and indeed most of the other bears - didn't really like swinging much.

There was a nifty barbecue. A sort of multi-purpose one. There was a hot-plate for grilling fish, a rack for cooking bamboo - cooked bamboo was quite popular amongst the pandas of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China - and a rotisserie sort of arrangement which was used mainly by koalas. They would marinate a variety of leaves in wombat-fat oil, tie them to the rotisserie and then lightly cook them. According to the koalas this was really good food.

"And the best thing about this place," said Thread, "is the scuba-diving. Ever done any of that?"

"No," said Storage, who wasn't particularly sure that scuba-diving was of interest. Ordinary diving, yes. All polars had done plenty of that but scuba-diving with all that gear and all that depth and all those strange sea creatures had always seemed a bit scary to Storage.

"We'll give it a try maybe tomorrow," suggested Thread, "in the meantime - like this afternoon - let’s do a bit of fishing. The mice here are really good and there's usually music playing down on the beach. The fish really like that."

The next day they rented some scuba equipment. They each got a good wet suit made of mice, flippers which were also made of mice and breathing apparatus.

Thread explained how this apparatus which was in fact a big round container worked.

"It's full of beavers," Thread said, " who take several deep breaths before the diving and they give that air to you - the diver - by blowing through a tube connected to the your mouth.

"Beavers can hold their breaths for many hours. Apparently it is not so much to do with their lungs as their blood system. I'm not entirely sure how it works but whatever, it's their circulatory system at work."

Storage hoped that there would be nothing that would stop the beavers from either taking those several deep breaths or of sharing it when they were under water.

"A lot of bears go diving from the shore," said Thread, " but I thought we'd dive further out to sea. There's a few water buffalo over there waiting. We'll get a couple of them to give us a lift out."

And sure enough, Storage noticed several water buffalo though several of them were currently occupied with lots of other bears doing ordinary diving from their backs. Some had even formed a tower by climbing on the backs of other buffalo. And from that buffalo tower a small number of bears of various sorts were jumping.

Thread organised a couple of buffalo and they climbed onto their backs and swam out. Not particularly far as it turned out but apparently underneath them was a small underwater cliff which was a good area for diving and you could go quite deep.

Though they didn't actually go all that deep. Just about 18 metres which was the deepest the beavers could manage.

Slowly they went down with Thread guiding Storage on breathing through the tube and signalling to the beavers if either too much or too little air was coming through the tube.

Initially Storage thought diving with all this apparatus was quite silly after all both Storage and Thread were Polars and Polars dive quite naturally and frequently.

But gradually Storage realised that this was quite a bit different. For starters, with the face-mask on it was possible to see lots of things that you couldn't normally see. Secondly it was possible to go more slowly so you could take in the scenery and thirdly of course, with the help of the beavers you could stay down for much longer.

But fourthly, and Thread explained that this was pretty much the purpose of diving in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China, you got to admire the gardens.

One of the first gardeners they saw was an octopus. It was waving its tentacles so Storage waved right back, then reached down and shook hands - if that was the right word - with some of the octopus's tentacles. The octopus shook right back and then went on tending the sea garden laid out just below Storage and Thread.

And a very nice traditional garden it was. There were the usual bonsai'd corals, angel fish decorating them like garlands and conch shells making water music by sucking in and sucking out different volumes of water and a different speeds. With the addition of the occasional walking fish, the swallowing of which produced a soft of glumph sound, the conch shells made an interesting sonar contribution to an otherwise fairly quiet garden.

The octopus had also included butterfly fish and these along with some rather large lard-fly fish were swimming about in figures of eight though in three dimensions. Some were making horizontal figures of eight, some vertical and then quite a few at different degrees from the horizontal or vertical.

With all those fish swimming, Storage found it rather hard to really distinguish the patterns and nor was it possible to appreciate the different skills of the butterfly fish and the lard fish.

"Overdone," muttered Thread, to which Storage could only agree.

They then went to a noisier garden. This was managed by a whale. A very friendly humpback.

"Just got back from Australia," the humpback announced as they greeted each other. "Better weather there at that time of year and you can often see wombats on their migration paths. Kind of interesting to see and beats being here when it is cold."

"Anyway," the humpback continued, "you want to see my garden?

" You know it is not my garden I'm just the manager and fortunately it doesn't require a great deal of managing. The bear who designed it was into low maintenance so was very careful about what features the garden has.'

And the humpback pointed out things like low maintenance coral which is able to withstand a greater range of temperature variations that other corals, fish that naturally swarm like some of the Tang fish and those that like to swim in interesting patterns such as eels and clown-fish.

"So you see the work for this garden was mainly in the selection of the fish and the corals and of course the siting. You can see it is on a slight slope. That ensures that waste drops down and that there are always moving currents. All that ensures there is very little cleaning or even food supplying required."

Storage and Thread agreed this was a good garden. Quite different from the others and though a little sparse it did not suffer from being overly made. The colour scheme of light blue, yellow and occasional flashes of orange was also a highlight they thought.

The visited a few more gardens but stopped when the beavers started pounding on the tanks.

"First warning," said Thread. "We have to start heading up as the beavers have about 10 minutes of air left".

So up they went, very slowly, waving to the various gardeners they had met and reached the surface with several minutes to spare.

"Great," said Storage and Thread together though Thread meant it was great that they'd organised the timing so well and Storage meant that the dive and the visits to the garden had been very good.

Later that day they went collecting shells and shellfish along the water’s edge. The shells were of interest because of their attractive shapes and colours, the shellfish because they could eat them.

They got a few squirrels over to help as they are good at sniffing out and also digging out some shellfish. They had to watch the squirrels a bit though as they were inclined to eat the shellfish themselves.

After their dinner of shellfish, some bamboo and a few gum leaves - it was a multi-cultural dinner, Thread remarked - they went down to the beach to play a few games.

Volleyball, table tennis and cricket were all being played on the beach and there was plenty of bamboo for posts and bats if the game required that sort of thing.

They played volleyball with balls and nets made of some sort of rodent of course and the nets held in place by some otherwise unoccupied water buffalo. They would stand quite still but would also move slightly if it was necessary to make the nets taut.

"Summer in Chengdu", wrote Storage. "If summer comes can autumn be far behind?"

"But in the meantime. Summer is great. I feel on top of the world like a circumflex in the alphabet."

Stormy weather

Finally one day when Thread's availability and Storage's memory coincided, Storage asked Thread about the pond, the cake and settled fish.

“Just what is that that you keep on saying," asked Storage, “and what does it mean?”

“There are times,” Thread told Storage, “when one’s life or life in all of Chengdu, the Capital of Sichuan Province, China can get somewhat a bit unsettled or even so unsettled it's like a storm.

It might be a feeling of lack of fulfilment, some emotional problem or crisis or some problem at work. We call it storminess.

Thread told Storage of their way of dealing with this storminess. “Most bears are pretty experienced with dealing with ups and downs [or, in this case, downs],” said Thread, “though there are bears like Quite Happily whose state of being is such that they don't experience stormy times much.

Apparently this idea for dealing with the storminess of life was also inspired by Richard Brautigan but when he visited Chengdu in the early 70’s - his second trip - and noticed how unsettled fish were dealt with. It just required applying the same principles to bears living in Chengdu, he decided.

"And the solution is pretty simple," Thread said. "When you are feeling a bit low, when life is stormy, you leave off the festivals, the competitions and indeed any of the day-to-day. Instead you find a bit of fish pond.

"If there is none lying about you can often get it at the local opportunity shop, at stalls around the Don’t mention it festival, as you know, or maybe on line if you want to avoid tax.

"Then you get a bit of cake, or salt covered pretzels from Priceline or cheese. Really, whatever takes your fancy. You then sit down with your pond and these things, eating everything but the pond, and you immediately feel a lot better. As the saying goes, "the fish were settled". In other words life in Chengdu or for you personally will have improved. It will have got back to what we like to think of as "normal" whatever that is. But the point is you get to a much more settled state and life continues as it should.

"But when it is very stormy or even very, very stormy you don’t use any old cake and nor do you use salt covered pretzels from Priceline or cheese or whatever takes your fancy," Thread continued. "You do however use the fish pond. And you do use cake. You get a birthday cake - your favourite one whatever that might be. Together with the fish pond and the cake and very special company you have a very special dinner. And from this very stormy or even very, very stormy feeling - however bad that weather is for you - you will get to that much more settled state where life continues as it should.

"So that is how we get the proverb “In stormy weather a good pond and a birthday cake seemed to settle the fish."

"Like a lot of proverbs it has probably changed over the years. There's quite a bit of research done on this and most bear researchers think it was a bit longer when it was first used. Probably something like “In stormy weather have a good pond, a birthday, good company and a cake. They always settle fish so should settle bears too".

"And then it probably was said as advice. Nowadays it is a proverb and though you say it to bears feeling various degrees of less-than-positiveness about the future, Thread said, it's not to be taken literally. Many bears, for example, actually get quite ill if they eat cake in very stormy weather or worse. You also don't have to have a dinner or the good company. In fact just repeating the saying to a bear who is a bit low is all that is done these days.

"You also ignore the fact that the sentence's tense isn’t quite right. The bear researchers aren't very clear about how that change in tense would have come about. The most likely theory is that the Koala's were early users of the saying and that the tense was changed by them. Koalas actually don't have a very well-developed concept of time and only speak in the present tense. It might have been a sort of affectation on their part to use the -ed and they would not have known that this was the past tense. They also were probably the ones that dropped out the mention of good company and made the other changes. They can't remember long sentences very well and as two sentences would have been very challenging the koalas probably made it one sentence covering most of which was in the previous two sentences.

"Then from the Koalas it seems to have come back - through a sort of circularity process," Thread obviously needed to use a circ-word, "into use by all bears both in the shorter version and with the past tense retained.

“In stormy weather a good pond and a birthday cake seemed to settle the fish.

The election

Election day. Thread said that Storage ought to see it.

"See it?" Storage asked, puzzled.

"Yes it all happens at the main arena," replied Thread. "That way once the votes are cast they can be counted pretty much immediately."

So they set off to the main arena in the city where of course there were thousands, if not tens of thousands of bears gathering to cast their vote or votes as they case might be.

There was quite a party atmosphere with the blind bears band marching up and down and bears handing out their varying size how-to-vote cards. And then of course there was the traditional - Thread explained - banana pancake lunch provided by the political parties and prepared jointly in inverse proportion to how many seats they had in parliament.

This of course meant that the smaller parties and the independents provided most of the help. Storage thought that was a bit unfair but Thread explained that it was more unfair on the larger parties because they were not very visible to the electors at the banana pancake lunch.

Thread and Storage got their bit of pancake and then went off to watch some of the actual voting. Bears were organised according to how many votes each was going to cast. Thread saw one rather old bear with nearly 100 votes. Storage was quite impressed but Thread explained that it wasn't all that difficult to have that many votes. That bear would have got 70 or 80 votes simply because of age [10 votes to a decade] and then maybe 20 or 30 if the bear wanted to vote for that many candidates.

The interesting thing Storage saw was that the votes were in the form of tokens or ... what actually seemed like tickets. Thread confirmed that indeed that was what they were.

At about the time the electoral system was being developed the government of the day had been putting in a new ticketing system for the public transport. Due to an oversight many thousands of the wrong denomination tickets were made at quite considerable cost.

Luckily for the government the clerk who was implementing the electoral system found a way to use them. Bears simply applied for, and collected them, just before the election and then they brought them along to use as votes on voting day.

At one edge of the arena were huge tubs organised according to number [ones, twos, threes up to twenty] and then further broken down into party. So there were tubs with labels like Ones: Party Alpha; Ones: Party Beta

Bears simply went up to the appropriate tub, threw their votes in and with that, they'd voted.

The votes were then easily counted as they drained out of the bottom of the tub into a collection area staffed by hare-clerk electoral clerks.

So that was the voting and the counting.

After that came the announcements.

A big screen was set up in the arena and at about 7:00 pm the results of the counting were posted.

Storage reports back

So after many weeks in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China, Storage knew that a trip back to the circumpolar regions, to report to the government was required.

The trip involved a long trudge over the Taklamakan desert and up past Kanas Lake to the circumpolar regions. Storage took along a piece of pond and the ebook reader of course. That was now nicely adorned with a mouse-skin cover with twenty one tassels.

It was another circuitous trip. It had to be as Storage was, after all, acting out circuit as a circ- word and also because the Taklamakan desert has to be walked around, not through, as there is no food or water in the centre of the Taklamakan desert.

This would actually complete the circumambulation commenced when Storage left the circumpolar regions which pleased Storage immensely. Great word too, thought Storage, continuing to trudge through the desert and wondering whether to use circuit or circumambulation for this trip. It would be a pity to use both. Better to save one for another year. As the government had described this trip as a circuit, Storage chose that word and decided to go on a circumambulation next year.

Storage ultimately arrived in the circumpolar regions and found the government waiting patiently on the circumference - on a point on the circumference to be precise. This could have been to circumvent Storage's inclination to continue a circuitous circumnavigation but as that phrasing would have used far too many circ-words for that day the government said that they were simply meeting Storage at the end of the circuit Storage had been sent on.

"And what," the members of the government asked, "did you think of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China, and how are the polars settling in, and should we send more polars."

Storage answered, in an unusually circumspect way. "Good, good and no."

Having fulfilled the duties required, Storage circumscribed the conversation. There was, after all, a special circus performance on which Storage had missed while being in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. There were Walruses, ptarmigan and all sorts of animals doing all sorts of exciting circumpolar things Storage had heard while apologising for using too many circ-words at once.

But Storage couldn't resist providing more information - Storage was after all a polar inclined to circumlocution - so such a brief answer did not sit well with Storage. Nor of course did it sit well with the government.

"Well really it is a great place," Storage told them, "and the Polars who did move there at the time of the Great semi-circumambulation are living very happily."

Storage told the members of the government all about the farming, the food, the recreational activities and the work that the polars did. Storage also told them how pleased all the other bears were that the Polars had come and that because of this the Pandas [Giant and Red], the Koalas, and the Teddies neither felt put out and lonely, nor did they feel sad as some of them had - but not the Teddies - in the countries in which they used to live.

And yes, there would be lots of work for a time for polars who chose to live in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China.

Being Storage, this of course took several days to report on - enough, thought one member of the government for two or more circumlunar trips in a slow space-craft and smiled indulgently inward as that thought the government member had had had used another circ- word.

After several pauses for meals of walrus-fat cakes - much better here - and some ptarmigan pies - much better here also - Storage explained the "No."

There are obviously several reasons, Storage explained.

The main one is that in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China the polars' ice-caps are melting so even though we'd have work for a while once they ice-caps were melted we'd not have any work.

Then there is a range of cultural issues. Polars would adapt to these but it would take some time. A lot of these revolve around the numbering system. Bears and anything else of major importance are numbered up to twenty - twenty electorates, twenty football teams and so on. We'd not have numbers - at least not for some time - so we for some time we would be totally disenfranchised.

In addition as we'd receive numbers from one to twenty, we'd be in twenty different groups and that might be difficult in the initial stages of settling in/

And then of course there is the electoral system. Some bears here might want to adopt the electoral system of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China. That would spell the end of this sort of government.

"But," said the members of the government, "there would still be ponds wouldn't there?"

"Well yes," replied Storage.

"And friends?"

"Well yes," replied Storage wondering if this might be a somewhat circular discussion. It certainly appeared to be going nowhere though it might not actually end up where it started of course.

"And cake?"

"Yes."

"Well then everything would be ok," said the members of the government and short-circuited further discussion by saying - as though they had lived all their lives in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, China, “In stormy weather a good pond and a birthday cake seemed to settle the fish.”

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