John Aspinall's grave

Seeing this unironically depresses me.

@PossumRoach Why ? mortality ? poor aesthetics ? his son ?

@Onychorhynchus coronatus His son, the species the zoo used to have, and how I am jealous of Aspinall senior. I wish I was lucky enough to gain money without too much effort. I wish I lived before CITES took effect and had the pet collection of my dreams. I wish I was able to play with exotic animals as a kid. I wish I was able to inherit a zoo from my father instead of probably working hard for it. I wish I got close to gorillas. And I wish I had as much pets as there are written on that globe.

@PossumRoach I take your points. John Aspinall had opportunities that no-one else has had before or since: but he took many of them and achieved a lot. In my opinion, most of his political views were utterly despicable, but they were sincere and passionately held. It is easy to condemn a lot of things he said and did, but he earned this fine memorial and he deserves our respect too. Irony is inappropriate here.