BEAR DRAMA

For some reason I ended up watching YouTube videos about bear attacks. There’s a guy cycling in the woods; helmet cam - trees, path, daylight, undergrowth. Next, huffing and growling behind him, a bear.

Expletive. Furious cycling, breathing like a steam train, with an occasional look over his shoulder at the gallumphing bear some 200 yards behind him. We see the path ahead and the trees, and eventually a log across the road. Shoulder cam. Bear pounding. The cyclist stops, abandons his bike and runs for it, eventually hiding behind a tree trunk. We hear the bear clatter into the bicycle.

Is it just me or is that terrifying?

Next, a man films the inside of his tent. He unzips the entrance and the canvas flaps towards us to show a segment of bright trees and forest. And peering in, inquisitively, a bear. Zip. Huddle. Snorting and then the canvas bulges with paws and snout as the bear buffets it from outside.

The algorithm skips to the next one. Steve Backshall, the animal expert and avuncular TV presenter tells us that if you meet a polar bear in the wild, you’re basically dead.

“They’re faster than you,” says he, “They’re stronger than you, and if one of these hunts you and you don’t have bear spray or a decent deterrent… well you’re in big trouble.”

I can’t stand the internet sometimes. I was doing alright until the YouTube algorithm sucked me into bear dramas; what’s with all this unnecessary fear? Why am I dreaming about Paddington and Winnie The Pooh teaming up to chase me through the woods? We don’t even have wild bears in the UK! It’s not likely that a grizzly is going to chase me around Oxford station.

By the way Steve Backshall went on to say that if you’re attacked by a black bear you should fight back, but if it’s a grizzly you should play dead. Yeah. That must take some serious courage - and unless one breaks loose from the nearest wildlife park, then I’m not sure how useful that is here in England. Yet the Internet squirreled me down its fearful rabbit hole, like it always does.

Sometimes I wish someone could just unplug it.