On Talking With The Animals

I sometimes fancy that I may have the gift of animal communication, but don't share this with too many people for the reasons given below.

One of my favourite movies (TV repeats of which I never seem to tire) is the Eddy Murphy take on Doctor Dolittle. Indeed, I love all of Murphy's films, including one (never sadly repeated ?) in which he plays an engaging rogue who "accidentally" becomes US President. I think this was made before the election of Bill Clinton.

Returning to Doctor Dolittle, Murphy plays an ordinary medical doctor who as a child has the gift of animal communication, but is encouraged by his family to suppress this with the consequence that it seems to disappear. Then one day when he is "grown-up", the gift mysteriously returns with hugely comic results.

However, this gift is also very unsettling for Murphy's wife and colleagues, and, as a consequence, he agrees to being "sectioned" in a psychiatric hospital. Nevertheless, he still refuses to recant his belief that he can talk to animals and they to him.

Fortunately, just when things look a little desperate, and Murphy's animal friends need his help outside, the chief psychiatrist's cat tells him that this gentleman is in the habit of wearing a pink tutu and thong which he keeps concealed in his cupboard. Not wishing to be "outted", the psychiatrist agrees to Murphy's release and all ends happily, but I won't give the plot away now.

The moral of the tale is that the gift of animal communication in today's world could be difficult accept, and manage, in a science-based profession like medicine.