July 23, 2011

Summary

Podcast Summary

From Our Own Correspondent – July 23, 2011

Presented by Kate Adie, BBC Radio 4

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Episode Overview

This episode of From Our Own Correspondent explores profound stories from across the globe, moving beyond the headlines with insight and first-hand reportage. Topics covered include Europe’s financial turmoil and the Greek bailout, the transition of power in southern Afghanistan, Ethiopia’s struggle with child marriage, Berlin’s creative counterculture, and an Australian’s wild adventures with a Bolivian puma.

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Key Discussion Points & Segments

1. A Momentous Deal in Brussels: The Greek Bailout and the Future of the Eurozone

Correspondent: Chris Morris | Location: Brussels
Timestamps: 00:11–05:58

• Crisis Atmosphere:
  Amid the tense EU summit, the language used in Brussels reflected the stakes: “apocalypse, disaster, catastrophe and meltdown.” (Chris Morris, 01:21)
• Temporary Relief, Not Resolution:
  The €100 billion Greek bailout brought “a collective sigh of relief,” but it merely “deferred” deeper issues (Kate Adie quips “Phew,” 02:20), with no lasting solution in sight.
• The Euro as an Experiment:
  Morris reflects on the Eurozone as “an experiment” in voluntary surrendering of national sovereignty.

  “There's no blueprint for what to do next when things go wrong.” (Chris Morris, 03:29)

• Two-Tier Future:
  The correspondent discusses the emerging possibility of a “two-tier Europe”: an “inner core” heading towards fiscal and political union, and an “outer tier” with looser ties (notably Britain).
• Political Obstacles:
  Referencing the rejection of the EU constitution by France and the Netherlands, Morris questions if “the people will buy it.”
• Metaphor:
  Ends with a vivid image:

  “On the edge of the map, the dragons are still lurking and some of them are still breathing fire.” (Chris Morris, 05:54)

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2. Lashkar Gah and the Fraught Handover in Afghanistan

Correspondent: Michael Buchanan | Location: Helmand, Afghanistan
Timestamps: 05:58–11:11

• First Wave of NATO Withdrawal:
  British forces hand Helmand’s capital, Lashkar Gah, over to Afghan control, a city deemed suitable for such transition.
• Policing Realities & Corruption:
  Buchanan observes the peculiar working habits of the local police, recounting a humorous yet telling exchange:

  “We only switch [the computer] on when we get an email.” “But how do you know you've got an email if you don't switch the computer on?” “They phone up to tell us.” (Michael Buchanan, 06:56)

• Acceptance of Corruption:
  Major Wes Hughes admits some level of corruption must be tolerated:

  “You join the Afghan army for prestige, the Afghan police for money.” (Major Hughes, reported by Buchanan, 07:51)

• Diplomat Disconnect:
  Western diplomats rarely interact with the Afghan populace due to security fears, even in supposedly more secure settings.
• Assessment of Progress:
  Despite investments and years of engagement, sustainable success is uncertain:

  “Virtually every meeting he attended...concluded with the phrase ‘progress has been made. But many challenges remain.’” (Michael Buchanan, quoting Ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles, 10:43)

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3. Ethiopia’s Ongoing Battle Against Child Marriage

Correspondent: Claudia Hammond | Location: Rural Ethiopia
Timestamps: 11:11–16:05

• Disturbing Realities:
  Child marriage persists, with girls “as young as five” being wed despite its illegality. Nearly half marry by age 15.
• Personal Stories:
  • Salaam’s Ordeal: Abducted and forced into marriage at 14, she “begged [her] parents not to make her do it…” She now opposes early marriage and vows to protect her daughter.
  • Addis’ Determination: Married at 11, abused, but escaped at 17 and returned to school, aspiring to be a doctor:

    “When I see my exercise books, it gives me such pleasure.” (Addis, 15:45)

• Changing Tactics:
  Community interventions include girls’ clubs, radio programs, and plans to involve boys in advocacy to challenge cultural norms.
• Challenges Remain:
  Family and community beliefs persist, but small victories offer hope. The episode captures both the trauma and the resilience of affected girls.

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4. Berlin’s Counterculture: Between Petunias and Protest

Correspondent: Steve Evans | Location: Berlin
Timestamps: 16:05–22:07

• Guerrilla Gardening as Activism:
  Featured is “Petrus Accordion,” who plants flowers in concrete Potsdamer Platz, embodying the gentle side of Berlin’s radical undercurrent.

  “If you plant one flower, the whole place changes.” (Petrus Accordion, retold by Evans, 17:15)

• Contrasts in the City:
  Discussed is the tension between tradition, gentrification, and new wealth—attacks on symbols of capitalism, gripes about tourists and yuppies, and nostalgia for old East Berlin informality.
• Historical Roots:
  Evans explores how exemptions from military service and radical legacies (such as the Red Army Faction) created a “hotbed” of counterculture.
• Memorable Imagery:
  The concluding vision:

  “I like to imagine Petrus, the guerrilla gardener ... bringing colour for all, not just with his blooms, but with a smile as warm as the Berlin sun.” (Steve Evans, 21:58)

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5. Wild Attachments: An Australian’s Bond with a Bolivian Puma

Correspondent: Jake Wallace Simons | Profile: Peter Allison, animal tracker
Timestamps: 22:07–27:53

• City vs. Nature:
  Allison, at home in the jungle, feels displaced in London:

  “I’m automatically on the lookout for big cats…” (Peter Allison, via Simons, 23:07)

• Life’s Fork: Africa or South America:
  Allison’s path was chosen on a coin toss—he became a tracker in Botswana after it landed “heads.”
• Adventure & Mishap:
  In Bolivia, he cared for a traumatized puma, Roy, literally tied together—a wild episode featuring Jane Goodall almost in peril:

  “Roy was heading straight for them, teeth bared hungrily. At the last minute, Peter managed to avert disaster...” (Simons, 25:30)

• Anecdotes & Humor:
  The puma’s supposed prejudice:

  “Roy was a racist puma ... He only harmed Bolivians—once he ate a local man's spleen.” (Peter Allison, via Simons, 26:10)

• Future Adventures:
  Next stop: Ecuador’s Amazon and the Huarani tribe, with Allison joking about donning traditional attire:

  “I'll have to wear a genital string too, so that they accept me. Then, unaware of the pun, he that's the only snag.” (Simons, 27:15)

• Closing Image:
  Allison disappears back “into the urban jungle,” a nomad’s heart set on the wild.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Chris Morris on the Euro Crisis:

  “It's like that bit on the edge of old maps where the lines begin to disappear and there are pictures of horrible monsters. Here be dragons, it says. Uncharted territory.” (04:30)

• Michael Buchanan on Afghan Police Practices:

  “We only switch [the computer] on when we get an email.” / “They phone up to tell us.” (06:56)

• Major Hughes’ Maxim:

  “You join the Afghan army for prestige, the Afghan police for money.” (07:51)

• Addis on Education Post-Abuse:

  “When I see my exercise books, it gives me such pleasure.” (15:45)

• Steve Evans on Berlin’s Identity Crisis:

  “…the area has been overrun by yummy mummies pushing baby buggies the size of BMWs.” (20:33)

• Jake Wallace Simons on Animal Instinct in the City:

  “I can't help it … I'm automatically on the lookout for big cats and listening to the birds for warnings of predators.” (23:07)

• Jake Wallace Simons on Roy the Puma:

  “He only harmed Bolivians—once he ate a local man's spleen.” (26:10)

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Additional Timestamps for Key Segments

• Eurozone Crisis – Brussels: 00:11–05:58
• Afghan Handover – Lashkar Gah: 05:58–11:11
• Child Marriage – Ethiopia: 11:11–16:05
• Berlin Counterculture: 16:05–22:07
• Wild Man and the Puma: 22:07–27:53

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Conclusion

Bringing sharp eyes and open ears to stories where policy meets people, this episode laces serious politico-economic analysis with nuanced, personal stories from around the world. It documents both the power and the limits of change—whether in European summits, Afghan security handovers, African villages, Berlin’s public spaces, or the unpredictable wilds of animal rescue. The correspondents’ voices offer not just news, but a deep human perspective on transformative moments and enduring struggles.

Transcript

[BBC Radio 4 Presenter]

This is from our own correspondent. We make an edition for the BBC

[Michael Buchanan]

World Service as well. But this is a download of the

[BBC Radio 4 Presenter]

latest Radio 4 programme and here to

[Kate Adie]

introduce it as ever, Kate Ady.

[Narrator/Reporter (various segments)]

Today, end of an era in Lashkar. The city's back under Afghan control. But for the Westerners pulling out, the job they tried to do is far from complete. In Ethiopia, an attempt to stop girls, some as young as five, getting married. In Berlin, the guerrilla gardener bringing color to the concrete jungle of Potsdamer Platz. And how in Bolivia, a young Australian became closely attached to a traumatised puma. Now, it was, according to the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, an extremely momentous decision. He was referring, of course, to the hundred billion euro bailout of Greece agreed by EU leaders at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday. The rest of Europe had been awaiting their decision with some nervousness. Would failure to agree mean Greece would default on its debts? Would the days of the single European currency, the euro, be numbered? What of the future of the Union itself? Chris Morris, who was covering the meeting in Brussels, says the deal was given a cautious welcome by investors, even if most observers appear to believe the great European debt problem hadn't been solved, it had simply been deferred.

[Chris Morris]

I've spent quite a lot of time in some quite unsavoury places, but I never really expected to have the words apocalypse, disaster, catastrophe and meltdown ringing in my ears while negotiating my way around the European quarter of Brussels. It should be all but empty by now. The eurocrats and bureaucrats should be heading for the beaches, but many of them are still burning the midnight oil, dealing with a European identity crisis which could still reshape our continent. And over the last few weeks, the language has become pretty intense. Perhaps it's something about economists. Their subject can be, well, a little dry. But strip away the grey suits and the sober ties and sometimes the prose goes purple. Take this week's summit in Brussels. It was make or break, do or die. We'd either be back from the brink or tumbling into the abyss. Vultures were circling over Greece. And then suddenly, there was a lifeline. A deal. Clarity.

[Kate Adie]

Phew.

[Chris Morris]

That's alright, then. Crisis over, problem solved? Well, not quite. But the collective sigh of relief from national capitals was almost audible. Has it all been getting a little hysterical? Actually, no, because the breakup of the Eurozone has become a serious topic for discussion and the single currency is the signature programme of the European Union. Without it, it's hard to see the EU surviving in any recognisable form after more than 50 years of creeping integration. Much of it could be swept away. And what would emerge when the waters subside, no one really knows. It's like that bit on the edge of old maps where the lines begin to disappear and there are pictures of horrible monsters. Here be dragons, it says. Uncharted territory. Politicians don't like that and neither do the markets. But it's not that surprising that it's all become so unnerving. Because for all its familiarity, the Euro remains an experiment. As does the EU itself in many ways. Countries voluntarily surrendering sovereignty, giving up their marques and their francs and their drachmas. There's no blueprint for what to do next when things go wrong. And that helps to explain why for more than a year, European leaders seemed almost paralysed with indecision. A tweak here and a tinker there. Plenty of new measures, but also fairly steady as she goes. But it's become apparent that that wasn't going to fix the Eurozone's existential problems. Either the currency zone would break apart with quite a lot of financial blood on the carpet, or it would have to move more decisively to towards that famous euro destination. Ever closer union. And so, beyond the headlines about Greek bailouts and banks paying their fair share, it's the longer term measures announced this week which deserve closer scrutiny. The Germans say they're not moving towards a transfer union where richer countries automatically give money to their poorer neighbours. Well, perhaps not automatically, but the schemes which are being put in place feel pretty permanent. And already there are plans to be announced soon for even closer economic integration. In the long run, if the Euro is to survive, a two tier Europe will have to emerge. An outer tier. Oh look, there's Britain, more loosely connected and an inner core heading towards fiscal union and all the political union that implies. But will the people buy it? Remember the EU constitution, rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands. There's only so much you can force through from above. So the Euro hasn't found safe passage just yet. The contradictions between strong economies like Germany and weak ones like Greece, sharing the same currency and the same interest rates, haven't been resolved. The doom mongers who say they never can be shouldn't underestimate the political determination which has steered Europe to this point. There's a lot more work to do and some terribly difficult decisions to be made. For the moment, the leaders of the Eurozone can probably take those holidays that might have been put on hold. Angela Merkel up in the Italian mountains for a bit of bracing hiking. Nicolas Sarkozy down on the French Riviera. But on the edge of the map, the dragons are still lurking and some of them are still breathing fire.

[Narrator/Reporter (various segments)]

Chris Morris in Brussels. British military commanders in Afghanistan this week handed over control of a key southern city to their Afghan counterparts. Lashkargarh, the capital of Helmand province, is the only part of southern Afghanistan to be handed over so far. And Michael Buchanan, who is there in the days leading up to the official ceremony, says it's one of the most challenging areas in this first wave of transition from international to Afghan government control.

[Michael Buchanan]

The room was small and functional. There were two wooden tables at right angles to each other. On them sat a computer and four radios. But strangely the only noise was from the creaking air conditioning system as it strived to refresh the stifling 40 something degree temperatures. What was most strange about the lack of noise in atmosphere was that I was standing in the communications room of the Helmand Police Command Centre, the nominal hub of all police activity in Lashkar Gah, the biggest city in Helmand province. Sitting behind one of the tables was Sikander, a small, wiry policeman with a sun stained face and a moustache framed by a few days stubble growth. Forcefully, he told me there had been no crimes reported that day. It's so quiet, I said, you haven't even switched on the computer. We only switch it on when we get an email, replied Sikander. But how do you know you've got an email if you don't switch the computer on? I asked. Sikander's reply was instant. They phone up to tell us. Such working practices create no end of headaches for the Western trainers who are mentored in the Afghan police force. But the idea of course, is not to create a force designed to police in Britain readily transported from the streets of Lash to the streets of Lhas or lis. The aim is to make the police good enough to protect the citizens of Afghanistan, which has its own values and ways of working. Corruption is frankly one of those working methods that the west has grappled with since coming to Afghanistan and having failed to eradicate it, is now more accepting of it. Major Wes Hughes from the Gurkhas, who are currently mentoring the police, told me he has no option but to tolerate a level of corruption within the force if he wants to get anything done. There is an Afghan saying that rings through. From my time here, Major Hughes told me, you join the Afghan army for prestige, the Afghan police for money. Major Hughes and the other members of his small team live and work in the police command centre, showing a level of trust and fear faith in their Afghan colleagues that often seems to be lacking in many of the Western diplomats who are working in Helmand, or at least in their security personnel. During my visit, I had the opportunity to attend the first ever youth conference held in the province, where scores of people aged from about 16 to 25 travelled from across Helmand to the Governor's compound to discuss the various challenges they face, such as a lack of education and unemployment. To get to the rectangular hall in which the gathering was taking place, our party. With me were a diplomat, an interpreter and four security guards had to pass through several levels of security. Still, when we entered the hall, one of her security guards walked up to the front of the conference, brandishing a machine gun, with a handgun visibly tucked into his trousers. The atmospherics and image of Westerners arriving at such an historic conference tooled up to the nines was terrible. Talk to several other senior diplomats and you discover that many of them have never been to the thriving main bazaar in the city centre for security reasons, despite having spent months in the city. And this, remember, is the city in Helmand that had its security handed over to the Afghan police and army this week. Such is the progress that is deemed to have been made, the diplomats retort, is that it's not about them going into Lashkargah, but about the Afghans feeling secure there. That may be true, but it fails to address the problems created by a security bubble that does not allow the people responsible for reconstructing the province to mix with the vast majority of the Afghans they're trying to help. The focus of those rebuilding efforts has now, in the main, moved on from construction to roads, clinics and schools to consolidation, ensuring that the gains made so far remain. Once the vast majority of foreigners working in Afghanistan pull out in 2014, it's proving far from straightforward. The former British Ambassador to Afghanistan, Sherrod Cooper Coles, has written that virtually every meeting he attended in the country concluded with the phrase progress has been made. But many challenges remain. After a decade's involvement in the country, and having spent many, many times the country's entire annual gdp, the west is no nearer to concluding any meeting with the phrase our work here is done.

[Narrator/Reporter (various segments)]

And that's Michael Buchanan. Children as young as five are still being forced into marriage in Ethiopia, despite the practice technically being illegal in some parts of the country. Almost half of all girls are married off by the time they're 15. But now a number of different attempts are being made to Tackle the problem. Claudia Hammond has been to the village of Hedy, south east of the capital Addis Ababa, where a girls club and a local radio station are playing their part.

[Claudia Hammond]

Salaam used to walk along red muddy tracks on her way to school, crossing a flat landscape dotted with stout scrubby trees and flower farms. Ponies pulling carts packed high with ripe tomatoes share the same roads, along with a few donkeys and goats. But one day four years ago, Salaam didn't make it home from school. She was 14 years old and for a month her parents had no idea whether she was alive or dead. Then eventually, a group of village elders came to their house to tell them that a 25 year old man had grabbed her from the road, forced her into a horse and cartoon and kidnapped her. Then they told them that her abductor would now like her hand in marriage. Salaam begged her parents not to make her do it and to let her continue her education. Her mother told me she tried reporting the case to the police, but that the pressure from the village elders was just too much. Everyone knew about the abduction, which means everyone also knew that she would have been raped and now no one else would want to marry her, ruining her future. Salaam told me that for a long time she was angry with her parents, but in the end she knew she had to accept the situation. She said that although her husband treats her well now, she is still opposed to early marriage because it means girls miss out on their education and run the risk of serious birth injuries from getting pregnant so young. She has a baby son now and vows that if she ever has a daughter, she won't allow her to become a child bride. The government is also determined to crack down on early marriage and has tried everything from media campaigns and village discussion groups to compulsory lessons at school about the illegality of early marriage. The number of children getting married is now falling, but only very slowly. There's still a widespread belief that young girls make more pliable wives who men can more easily dominate, and some parents would rather choose a husband for their daughters at a young age rather than run the risk of her being kidnapped. Addis is now 25 and I met her in the garden of a local charity that's working to end child marriage. We sat on a bench, tomatoes growing all around us, and she began to tell me her story when she was 11. She was taken to church early one morning as usual, and then told to make certain promises. It was only then that it dawned on her that she was getting married. Her Husband to be was 24. Because she was so young, he was required to promise in the ceremony that he would wait two years before he had sex with her. He waited just 15 days. It was frightening. She told me she'd not heard of sex and had no idea what was happening. As an 11 year old she wanted to play outside, but when she wasn't doing housework, he wanted her to sit inside the house and would sometimes hit her. At 14 she had her first baby and her second at 16. She told her father that anyone who gives their daughter in marriage at such a young age should be cursed. An organisation called Ratson is trying to give girls the confidence and knowledge they need to fight marriages like this. They've started girls clubs and village radio stations with programmes blaring out from speakers on every street corner. The girls have their own half hour show every morning during which they air discussions about the dangers of early marriage. Yellow weaver finches use the vast satellite dish outside the building as a bird bath. The girls clubs also make contingency plans. As soon as there's an inkling that a marriage is about to take place, a runner is sent to the school which then informs the authorities. It's not easy because often they happen under the COVID of an older sister's wedding. The girls most recent decision is to let boys into the club too. They know they need to convince the men of the future to that there are very real risks in early marriage, including death in childbirth. And Addis is determined to change her future too. When she was 17, she finally left her abusive husband and went back to school. She sells beer in the evenings to make ends meet. She was hoping to go on to become a nurse, but tells me she's realised it's the doctors who people really listen to. So she's studying to become one herself so she can work to help end harmful practices like child marriage. She's in her final year at school now. This, she says, is what she's always wished for, adding, when I see my exercise books, it gives me such pleasure.

[Narrator/Reporter (various segments)]

Claudia Hammond In Ethiopia, there are few cities in Europe which have as colorful a counterculture as the German capital, Berlin. And it's not always a peaceful one. Ultra leftists were blamed earlier this year for sabotaging the city's rail network. There have been attacks on expensive cars, restaurants and businesses. It's all part of an ongoing stand off between the authorities and those who disapprove of the way of life they promote. Our man in Berlin. Steve Evans has been examining the historical roots of this counterculture, which he's been discovering, does have its gentler side.

[Kate Adie]

Petrus Accordion, as he calls himself, emerges from the S Bahn station onto Potsdamer Platz and plants a small flower. What could be simpler? He digs and gouges between the cracks of the paving stones and plants the shoots, a line of green in the grey of the granite. Potsdamer Platz today is a long way from what it once was, the pulsating heart of Weimar Berlin, the city's hub of charm and cafe society. It was where the tram routes met and where the literati met and. And no doubt the not so literati. It was the place of chatter and deals and morning after the night before coffee. Today it is, I think, a pretty soulless place, redeveloped after the fall of the Wall as the cold glass of the Sony Centre with its windy canyons of offices. A new sort of desolation, you might think. Until, that is, Petrus arrives with his gardening tools. Petrus Accordion, you see, is a guerrilla gardener. He told me he does it to make people happier. Everything is grey, he says, no flowers, no trees. And if you plant one flower, the whole place changes. Petrus is the gentlest end of Berlin's counterculture, a sole brother of gorilla knitters. Not people who knit gorillas, but people who knit in a gorilla fashion, like cosies for bike stands or covers for the handrails in the carriages of trains. At the other end of Berlin's counterculture or anarchist culture are less gentle people. The police say that in the first half of the year there were 77 politically motivated arson attacks on cars. Back in May, a group sabotaged part of the city's railway system by cutting signalling cables. Banks routinely have their windows smashed. So do upmarket restaurants in gentrified areas. There are many reasons why this anti capitalist counterculture remains strong in Berlin. Firstly, West Berlin attracted radicals because those who settled here were exempted from military service. It became the base of the Red army factions whose crazed beliefs transformed an anger at their parents, the so called Auschwitz generation, into a violent anger at the. At the post war West German state, which with much fever, dogma and argument among intellectuals of the left, was seen as a continuation of the Nazi state, which moreover was simply capitalism in its extreme form. So ran the argument, you might contend that no city has benefited more from the intervention of American capitalism, which firstly funded the destruction of the Nazis and and secondly outspent Stalin and his successors. So the Soviet Union collapsed. This is not a popular view in Berlin now that the city's united and a Capital money is coming in and this brings tensions, particularly to down at heel areas of the old East Berlin. The common complaint is that an area like Prince Lauerberg, where I happen to live, has been inundated by people from horror of horrors conservative Bavaria. And this is not what Berlin is about. Oh, no, this is not a fully formed political view. And I don't think anything like a majority view, just a very loud minority one. There are rants, for example, in the fringe magazines about tourists. The grievances are varied. Tourists rattle their wheelie cases over the cobblestones early in the morning. They change the nature of nightclubs by taking pictures of each other on mobile phones. The sins are enormous. Sometimes I call into a small wine shop near where I live. It's run by a man called Peter, who's lived here in fast, gentrifying Prince Lauerburg since he was 13, way before the wall came down. I like him a lot. And we discuss excellent German wine and moan about how the area has been overrun by yummy mummies pushing baby buggies the size of BMWs and about how Bob Dylan growler likes howl outside the Shishi cafes to yuppies on their Macs. So much worse, I think, than the rather congenial old East Berlin way, which is just to get a crate of beer and three or four kitchen chairs and put them on the cobbles outside and drink and talk on the street. The two ways squeeze each other now, the new trendy bars and the little groups of the old East Berliners on the same stretch of cobbles, jostling for space in Berlin as it remakes itself. And in between, I like to imagine the Petrus, the guerrilla gardener, the sunny side of the counterculture, planting his shoots in the cracks, optimistic, bringing colour for all, not just with his blooms, but with a smile as warm as the Berlin sun.

[Narrator/Reporter (various segments)]

Steve Evans Man's relations with the animal world provide endless stories, and quite frequently the true ones are much stranger than those from the world of fiction. While we here in Britain seem to prefer the more docile creatures dogs, cats and so on, it's very different down under. Perhaps it's something in their nature, or maybe geographical factors apply, but certainly there are extraordinary tales about Aussies and the rather more dangerous beasts. One thinks immediately of the unfortunate Steve Irwin, the so called crocodile hunter who died back in 2006 after getting on the wrong side of a stingray. Jake Wallace Simons has been talking to another Australian, someone who feels much more at home in the jungle than he does in the big city.

[BBC Radio 4 Presenter]

More than 200 years ago, the distinguished man of letters, Samuel Johnson, famously said, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford. Today, with mass transport and communication changing the face of the globe, that sentiment rings truer than ever. Despite the greyness, stress and pollution of the capital, a flash of international colour can always be found just around the corner. Which brings me to Peter Allison, the Australian animal tracker, explorer, daredevil and writer, whom I met in a cafe in a bohemian nook of north London. Peter had just returned from the remote jungles of Bolivia, where he had been spending his days tied by the waist to a traumatized puma called Roy, about whom more later he was in London for a brief stopover before embarking on his next adventure, this time in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The first thing I noticed was how out of place he looked in the city. After all, he seemed to be behaving like an animal. I can't help it, he said, his eyes flicking up whenever a pedestrian or vehicle passed by outside. I'm automatically on the lookout for big cats and listening to the birds for warnings of predators. But it's hard to hear them over the noise of the city. We ordered our coffee. Peter, for all his wildness, had a taste for lattes. And he told me how he thought of himself as a nomad in the city. He said he felt disconnected, pressed upon. He needed to roam free. It was just his nature, like being left handed. He began at the beginning. His passion for wild animals had started when, as a child, he fell in love with the local parrots. He grew up in Sydney, where parrots are as commonplace as pigeons. Every day they would wake him up by tapping on his window with their beaks. He would smear himself in a sugary paste and stand in the garden so that they could lick it off. On leaving school, he drifted from one job to another. But nothing seemed right, so he decided to follow his heart. As with all the best adventures, it began with the toss of a coin. If it came up heads, he would move to Africa. If it was tails, he'd go to South America. It was heads. So he traveled to Botswana and became a conservationist animal tracker, learning the universal language of lions, leopards, monkeys and other creatures. People thought I was psychic, he said, but animals make distinctive calls. There's a certain sound that means, beware, bird of prey overhead. He demonstrated this by making an odd whistling noise, which sounded something like this. Then, right there in the cafe, he imitated the bellowing of a post coital baboon. I've since been practicing it myself. Here is my best attempt. After several years, he began to wonder what his life would have been like if his coin had come up tails. Eventually, he moved to the Bolivian jungle, where he found work at a conservation center for mistreated wild animals. This is where he met Roy, the traumatized puma whose mother had been killed by poachers. As part of the puma's therapy, he would be allowed to roam freely through the jungle, just as he would in the wild, but with Peter tied behind on a 10 meter rope, guiding him away from trouble. That, at least, was the theory. One day, Roy caught a strange scent and took off through the jungle, dragging his minder behind. Unbeknownst to him, Jane Goodall, the preeminent primatologist, was on an official visit to the conservation center. A group of local orphans were singing for her. Roy was heading straight for them, teeth bared hungrily. At the last minute, Peter managed to avert disaster by looping the puma's rope round a tree. It took him an hour to wrestle Roy back to his cage. Weren't you worried about being bitten? I asked. He smiled and shook his head. Roy was a racist puma, he explained reasonably. He only harmed Bolivians once he ate a local man's spleen. In a few days time, Peter will be off to the Amazon to seek out the Huarani tribe, the ones who wear nothing but a piece of string around their genitals. They have a special relationship with wild jaguars, he told me. That's the main attraction. I'll have to wear a genital string too, so that they accept me. Then, unaware of the pun, he that's the only snag. I said goodbye to the wild man and heartily wished him luck. He repeated how much he was looking forward to getting back into the wild and thanked me courteously for the latte. Then all of a sudden, he was gone. Vanished into the urban jungle.

[Narrator/Reporter (various segments)]

Jake Wallace Simon's there. And where else could you hope to hear the roar of a post coital baboon? Not just once, but twice. That's it. Goodbye.