Jim Hopkins: Stop mourning lest it ruin Indra's evening

28-year-old Indra manages to suppress her delight at being flown off to procreate in Florida. Photo / Brett Phibbs

There's something infinitely melancholy about orangutans. Whatever the reason, they always look sad - as the pic in Wednesday's Harold amply testified.

By rights, the star of the shot, 28-year-old female orangutan, Indra, should be absolutely cock-a-hoop, or the orangutanian equivalent thereof.

She will, after all, soon be moving to the lush and balmy precincts of a zoo in Florida, there to play an essential and presumably enjoyable part in a vital breeding programme intended to reverse "the dramatic drop in orangutan numbers" all around the world.

So she's a pretty special lady. And arguably, fortunate as well, the ultimate party primate, you may say, one for whom pleasure and purpose are inextricably linked and with each likely enhancing the sense of the other.

Yet there's nothing gleeful or anticipatory in Indra's expression. No "Whoopee! I'm off to an orangutan-a-go-go love fest" twinkle in the eye. On the contrary, the poor thing looks as cheerful as a lover just locked out by his beloved or an existential philosopher finally contemplating the futility of it all.

That's how it is with orangutans. They seem to know too much and be greatly burdened by the gravity of things. We can only imagine then what other Indras may have communicated this week to Bubbles the chimp, once Michael Jackson, the Kink of Pop's closest companion but now, aged 26, also living in Florida.

Not taking part in a breeding programme to save a species, mind, but rather a reluctant resident at a sanctuary for abandoned chimpanzees and orangutans.

Consequently, bereft and apparently forgotten, Bubbles was one of the few famous entities not in attendance at his former owner's Memorial Service - where people wore Dirty Dog shades, for crying out loud, and clapped the tributes and generally conducted themselves in a manner more sequined than sombre.

When some Congresswoman from Washington said, "I speak in the tongues of all faiths" you knew you were listening to a consummate politician and when Martin Luther King III joined his sister Bernice A. King behind the microphone at the clear plastic lectern the whole event felt more like the Academy Awards than a remembrance - "And the nominees for Best Death by a Troubled Black King of Pop are ..."

Reminiscent of Diana, yes, but also something much earlier in the 20th century. Few will know, or have noted the fact that people behaved even more extravagantly after the death of Rudolf Valentino. Millions passed his coffin, women swooned, committed suicide, an hysterical grief swept across continents.

And who, you politely inquire, was Rudolf Valentino?

Exactly.

Such is the true significance of this week's Memorial. Today's catharsis, tomorrow's footnote. Better we spare a thought for Bubbles - and for Indra; there's been more than enough gloom these past seven days. Let's give three cheers instead for the glum orangutan about to keep her line alive.

Oh, and an extra one for Bombus subterraneus too. Because, you see, orangutans are not alone in respect of remedial reproduction.

Another news story this week celebrated the fact that Britain's finally got a couple of real bustards it can call its own. All thanks to retired policeman David Walters, who proudly announced the arrival of "the first British bustards to be born in 177 years."

Nor are Pommy bustards alone in making a comeback. Bombus subterraneus is on the rise again as well. Thanks, in no small measure, to our good and fertile selves. For just as we in Outer Roa are sending orangutans to Florida, so too are we sending Bombuses (Bombii?) back to the old country.

From whence they originally came, or buzzed, it must be said, for Bombus subterraneus is actually the posh name for the short-haired bumblebee, originally from the sceptred isle but now extinct in those parts - and nearly extinct down under as well.

No-one's entirely sure why this has happened although there is at least one compelling psychological reason why it may be so. As we all well know, bumblebees actually defy the laws of aerodynamics. Not enough wing, too much body, excess weight, horrendous drag. As insects go, they're the Wrong Flyer, guaranteed never to get off the runway.

Yet they do. They do fly - although they can't. Presumably driven by some profound sense of moral obligation, they drag their fat and furry forms into the air because they think we expect them to. After all, they were brought here in 1885 to fly around pollinating crops and, as assisted immigrants, have clearly felt obliged to do what they can't do ever since.

So when our surviving Bombii return to England's green and pleasant lands we must hope they're told to forget about buzzing and focus on breeding. Perhaps the Poms could set up a little humble bumblebee sanctuary, like the orangutan one in Florida, with tiny deck chairs and lemonade for the subterraneus lovers.

And perhaps the folks in Florida could try to cheer our Indra up with a few ultra-chucklesome Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin movies.

In a week so preoccupied with death, life deserves nothing less.