Gauguin*, king of the one night stand

I am in one of the reading rooms of the British Library at the moment. I've hung out in the BL before, but never used the actual library part, so this afternoon has been quite exciting in a geeky kind of way.   I went and registered for a library card, requested some books, put my worldly belongings (except pens, which aren't allowed) into a library-issued plastic bag and now here I am, at desk 2071, engrosssed (sort of) in the history of primary schools in in Britain since 1944.  I feel all proper.


Or at least I was until about twenty minutes ago; now I am trying very hard to look all clever and serious, when in fact I am having silent hysterics and trying desperately not to collapse in a fit of giggles.

If you are just in the market for an alpaca, or just want to read some quite brilliant advertising copy, may I suggest a quick visit to http://www.alpacastation.com/.  Since the main buyers of alpacas are people who want to breed them with other alpacas (I am guessing) the advertisments read a bit like dodgy personal adverts.

For instance, meet Ivano.

 He is a  "pillar in the Canadian alpaca industry", having been handpicked by renowned alpaca screener Cameron Holt, from literally hundreds of alpacas taking part in the last Peruvian importation.  (Those Canada-Peru alpaca trade ties weren't on my international economics radar before now.  I will be keeping a close eye.)

In case you can't tell from the photo, he has " a perfect conformation, head, ultra dense and fine fiber with large testicles."  You probably spotted the head.  May have missed the enormous testicles. 

Also, and you definitely can't tell this from the photo, "at 12 he still breeds like a true macho, breeding multiple females in a day. We have recorded multiple conceptions in a day as well."

What sorts of alpacas might these multiple conceptions produce, you are probably wondering? Well, numerous show winners, ranging in colour from black to white (read: mostly grey.) Ivano's kids are also being pimped out on the website:

Pepano has a merino-type fleece, which is "one of those fleeces that just becomes enormous when you get it off the alpaca - it hardly fits into any size bag!

Oh, one of THOSE fleeces......

Turk is a dark chocolate brown with perfect confirmation and a proud stature. His fleece displays great lustre with crimp and character from skin to tip and consistency from his front shoulder to rear hip. As well, he does not display any medullated fleece even on his chest area and has a very soft handle.

I bet you're thinking what I'm thinking.  Especially if you are thinking "alapcas have handles??".  Also, there is nothing worse than mudullated fleece.

Then there's Gauguin who is, as canny readers may already have realised, the reason I stumbled across the website in the first place, and is far too clever for his own good:

Gauguin was kept busy during the 2003 breeding season with his first progeny now due during the summer of 2004. He has proven himself to be an excellent breeder with no repeat services required on our females throughout the season

My guess is Gauguin wishes sometmes he wasn't quite so excellent, especially when the female in question was quite pretty.

I know it is ridiculously childish to find all this so funny, but I do; and I haven't even mentioned studs (*snort*) or the fact that William Wallace will be a corner stone in their breeding program next year.

*not the artist