An occasional series In which we highlight an important social issue that the mainstream media won't touch: the plight of London's increasingly neglected toy bears.
It's high season for teddy bears' picnics, a time when all of London's toy animals can leave their cares behind them (even the Care Bears) and frolic and gambol in the sunshine. But, to contradict the well-known song, not every bear that ever there was can gather there for certain because...Londoners are abandoning and abusing their fluffy friends in growing numbers, as this series has shown so many times before.
This latest piece of evidence comes from reader Sammie Onbeschoft. "Clearly a case of bear abandonment on the Grand Union Canal near Westbourne Park," she reports. "Doesn't he look spiffing with his red dickie-bow?...All the more shocking that he could be LEFT BEHIND!"
That's not a red dickie-bow, Sammie. That's blood. From where this poor creature's mandible has been cleft in twain by the canal railings.
As Sammie notes in her own blog: "now we just need to get them to recognise the terrible plight of all our abandoned mattresses in NW10 (etc) and we'll be sweet...methinks the problem may be too huge to grasp...."
Have you witnessed acts of faux-ursine maltreatment in the London area? Send evidence to [email protected].
