One balmy summer morning Zeus (you may remember him) was splashing around in his bathtub playing with his rubber ducks when he was struck by a genius idea.
Now you would think the leader of the free world would spend his chill time figuring out the solution to climate change or world poverty.
You would be wrong.
All he could dream of day and night was a young maiden he had spied in the palace gardens.
His Praetorian guards informed him her name was Io.
“No guy will ever swipe left on her Tinder profile,” he muttered to himself.
Now Io was an independent young woman who had read all about powerful men and their predatory shenanigans in the #MeTwo era.
She knew leaders of the free world were often inclined to relegate their oath of office to the bottom drawer of the Resolute desk and fix their attention on more earthly matters.
As the alpha male in the hood he made no bones about his infatuation, despite all the warnings by his mates of sexual harassment lawsuits.
The King of the Gods was particularly notorious for his epic pursuits of young women.
Io soon realised Old Z was zoning in on her. As the alpha male in the hood he made no bones about his infatuation despite all the warnings by his mates of sexual harassment lawsuits.
Io was a broad-minded soul but generally preferred dating English Premier League stars to arthritic septuagenarians.
So here we have Zeus on this fine morning splashing around in Radox trying to come up with a scheme to win Io over.
Suddenly he leapt out of the tub yelling “Eureka!”
The birds and the bees fled. It was much too early in the day for the sight of randy old goats in their birthday suits.
Zeus was too pleased with himself to take offence.
What if he disguised himself as a cloud and visited the lovely Io undercover? That way he could completely surround the object of his desire and she would be none the wiser.
At first his ruse was a resounding success. She was definitely more partial to cumulus nimbus than gouty geriatrics with creaking joints.
At first his ruse was a resounding success. Io was definitely more partial to cumulus nimbus than gouty geriatrics with creaking joints.
What could possibly go wrong?
Enter an important character in this dramatis personae: the formidable wife.
Hera, Queen of the Olympians, was an explosive missus as well as the vindictive type. (Besides, running around making sure Zeus kept his toga on was becoming a full-time job.)
She wasn’t the prima ballerina assoluta for nothing. Her tentacles reached to the furthest corners of the kingdom and soon enough her spies in the CIA alerted her to her husband’s latest antics.
To say things got a bit stormy in the marriage would be a gross understatement. Zeus was forced to perform some impressive gymnastics as she hurled pots and pans at his head.
“How am I going to discipline the old dog?” she muttered to herself.
Her first idea was to tag him electronically, but the slimy old toad was certain to bribe his way out of a leg shackle.
Soon Hera, who was devilishly clever, came up with a genius idea of her own.
She would transform Io into a white cow.
The hundred-eyed dog Argus would act as her Fidelity guard. If Zeus came anywhere close to Io he would push his nose against the panic button.
The Argus bite was definitely worse than the Argus bark. Fifty of his eyes were always awake while the other 50 slept. No number of Beeno dog biscuits could induce him to look the other way.
“Holy Cow,” Zeus muttered under his breath when he discovered his wife’s devious scheme.
He looked all over for Io and eventually spotted her grazing in a paddock.
He leopard-crawled to the perimeter and whispered from behind a privet hedge. “Dear beloved. Do not despair. Every cloud has a silver lining.”
“Moo,” Io replied.
Like Zeus, predators are masters at disguising themselves in foliage so they can get near enough to pounce on prey.
And leopards could teach him a thing or two about subterfuge.
These most beautiful of cats prefer hanging out in forested areas where the rosettes on their coats break up their body outlines. In dappled light they are almost impossible to spot.
Like Greta Garbo they prefer to go solo. They have to sneak up as close as 10 metres to their prey before they strike as there are no reinforcements hiding away to help them secure dinner.
Playground bullies such as lions and hyenas think nothing of nationalising their hard-earned tucker, so these weigh-lifting champions are able to hoist a kill of up to one and a half times their body weight up a tree and out of temptation’s way.
For prey there are numerous tactics to avoid landing up on the lunch plate.
Take the steenbok, who only comes in petite sizes, and with its oversized ears, baby eyes and beautiful reddish coat, it is one of the cutest species of its class.
It has numerous predators trying to engineer a really bad ending to its day.
Camouflage is also uppermost in the mind and the steenbok will stick to areas with shrubs and grasses and is almost invisible when standing in the shadows.
If a steenbok spots danger, it will stand dead still, hoping to blend into the surroundings like a wallflower at a ball.
If this doesn't work it will sprint for its life in a zigzag pattern to escape, pausing and trying to hide once again in plain sight by freezing.
Many centuries after Zeus and his amorous larks, another king lay snoring in his castle, with not a care in the world.
The missus had kept chuntering on about pretenders trying to chop off his head, but he had it on good authority that it would remain firmly intact.
No matter that fierce winds howled around the battlements. No matter that ghosts of dead friends bugged him at suppertime. No matter that the wife had been a right royal hen about her plans for world domination. Come nightfall and Macbeth, king of all things tartan, slept like an innocent babe sucking on his mother’s teat.
His lady wife had kept chuntering on about pretenders trying to chop off his head, but he had it on good authority that it would remain firmly intact.
Three old crones had assured him that he would never lose his crown. Well, only if the nearby woods developed legs and rocked up at his moat.
Now Macbeth was no botanist, but to his knowledge trees didn’t go walkabout like pilgrims in search of the Holy Land.
Big Mac wasn’t particularly partial to the three witches. Nor did he think much of their culinary tastes (eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, yuck).
But when it came to spinning the crystal ball, they had always been right on the money.
One beautiful morning after doing his Canadian air force exercises, he threw open the windows and breathed in the invigorating Scottish air.
Something was wrong. He did a double take.
“Crikey,” he cursed, reaching for his binoculars.
Marching in towards him was a vast sea of foliage.
What cheating plonkers!
The enemy army had channelled their inner Jair Bolsonaro and chopped down all the trees in the wood. They were using these branches to hide themselves as they marched towards his stronghold. Yikes, the woods were moving to his castle.
Didn’t they care about global warming?
Had they never heard of battle fatigues?
Why, oh why, hadn’t he read the fine print?
Some leopards never change their spots, he muttered to himself and made a note to give the three con artists the boot.
Unlike the spotted cat and the steenbok the poor sod had no place to hide.
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