IQ

There are certain things that any guinea pig's staff member should know about their employer.  Firstly and most importantly they should never underestimate our intelligence.  Laboratory test have proven the average guinea pig IQ to be 195, way higher in fact than those humans doing the testing.  In fact many of us are so intelligent that in order to prevent our staff from feeling downright inadequate and  embarrassed we tone the whole intelligence thing down a little with charming displays of human-like stupidity.  Baci for example will suddenly leap into the air for no apparent reason (Guinea pig staff call this "popcorning") while he's inside his pigloo (A plastic shelter, for the benefit of the uninitiated, not a guinea pig lavatory, although many of us do indeed prefer to perform our bodily functions in the privacy of our pigloo.)  This leaping in a confined space naturally causes Baci's skull to connect with the ceiling, but of course he pretends to be puzzled by the source of the discomfort and continues popcorning regardless.  Alfie on the other hand prefers to lift his pigloo with his head and toss it into the air.  He has perfected a convincing look of surprise when the pigloo falls back down on his head as if he'd never heard of gravity.

 Alfie emerging from his pigloo.  This is to demonstrate to the uninitiated what a pigloo is.

Speaking for myself, I've never felt the need to disguise my intelligence.  If you've got it, flaunt it I say, though I must admit that as I grew older I was increasingly a victim of absent mindedness.  I'd be taking my evening waddle around the floor of the living room, depositing bush chocolate in all my favourite, difficult for humans to reach places, stopping now and then for a quick nap on my staff's feet, then I'd come across a treat left on the floor for my benefit, a basil leaf perhaps or a slice of cucumber.  However instead of falling on it like a famished lion on an injured impala I'd often just step over it, walk on a few paces and then stop, thinking to myself,  "Wait a cotton-picking minute.  Wasn't that food I just stepped over?"  Then I'd turn around and slowly waddle back to treat and consume it in my own sweet time.  As I said, this has nothing to do with a deficit in the old IQ department, just absent mindedness, like one of your elderly university professors.

Now let's compare a guinea pig's outstanding and undeniable intellect with that of human beings.  The so called superior being on planet Earth.  Snort! Sorry that was just me trying to stifle a derisive laugh.  Look at the quality of your so called leaders for a start.  Let's begin with South Africa's big cheese, Jacob Zuma, President and leader of approximately fifty three million people.  This World class nincompoop thinks he protects himself from AIDS by simply having a shower after he's done "the business" with whoever the unlucky lady may be.  A shower! He may not be the smelliest world leader but he's certainly one of the dumbest.

Then there's Vietnam's President Trương Tấn Sang.  Since Vietnam is one of the largest consumers of rhino horn it's not too surprising that there have been allegations that he's "The government official" who says his cancer was cured by rhino horn.  It hasn't of course.  Rhino horn is just keratin after all, every guinea pig knows that.  You'd get the same curative effect by chewing your fingernails. It's the same stuff.  There have even been accusations that Vietnamese diplomats were smuggling rhino horn from South Africa to Vietnam in diplomatic bags and if that's true they are not only stupid but criminals to boot.

So, who's next?  Well it's hard to go past Australia's own Tony Abbott isn't it?  This fool still thinks that climate change is a myth despite what every reputable scientist in the world is saying.  The daft bugger even closed down the climate commission whose job it was to keep the Australian public informed on the impact of climate change.  Talk about shooting the messenger!  He seems to be absolutely determined that Australia keeps its unenviable position at the top of the world carbon emissions per head of population league table. Remember when Australia had a "clean, green" image.  Hah! Those were the days.

I think our old buddy Vladimir Putin deserves a mention too.  Does he really think that anyone believes him when he says that Russia is not involved in the war in Ukraine and consequently the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.  Then there's also the recent assassination of opposition activist Boris Nemtsov.  You can bet your last bunch of basil that Vlad the Bad was involved in that up to his eyeballs too.  The dude has form when it comes to that kind of thing and if he thinks anyone outside of Russia believes otherwise he's just as stupid and delusional as Idi Amin but lets net even get started with him.

Even old Mohandas Gandhi - the Mahatma himself wasn't really the sharpest knife in the drawer despite all his good intentions.  I can partially forgive him though because he did say "The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated." Of course India itself can't be judged too kindly, what with it's obscene treatment of sloth bears and it's destruction of wild elephant habitat.  Nevertheless he meant well.  The problem with Ghandi is that he probably caused more death and suffering among his supporters than the British colonialists ever did by encouraging people to ignore Western medicine and to resort to traditional means.  Naturally these old tribal remedies didn't work and uneducated peasants died unnecessarily in their thousands.

So there you have it.  Just five examples of what humanity likes to call leaders.  Between them they led approximately three quarters of a billion people and I bet any guinea pig and even some humans could name many more examples of how human intellect is inferior to that of guinea pigs.

BACI'S BALONEY

I don't want to like cast nasturtiums on Uncal Billy's pinyun of himself, but I don't think he's kwite as klever as wot he likes to think he is.  Frinstunts his staff wunce gave him this big long grean been witch he took longways across his mowf and tried to get it throo the door of his pigloo wot was like too small for the been to go throo.  So he trys a fyoo times to get it throo the door and evry time he like bownces back cos the been's too big.  Uncal Billy like gets krossa and krossa evry time he bownces back cos he reely wants to get into his pigloo so he can eet his been in pryvassy.  Ennyway, after abowt ten minits of this he gives up, mutters "Sod it!" to himself and climbs up on top of the pigloo with his been still krossways in his mowf and eets it up there in full view of evrywun.  I suppose he'd say "I was just pretending to be as stupid as a human." if you arsked him why he did that.