WILSON EMERGES

I eventually coaxed Wilson out of his tumble dryer by holding some of his favourite snacks in front of the glass door – snacks which I had prepared myself, including a bowl of chilled ant soup and a plate of ant lasagna, followed by ant scones with Cornish clotted cream, strawberry jam and extra ants.

By the time he started on the cream scones, I tried to tease some information from him, and it turns out that the 'medical emergency' to which he'd been summoned concerned his Mum, Mrs Vermilingua.

Apparently she was about to give birth to (yet another!!!) litter of pups and her gramophone had broken down. Mrs V can famously not give birth without Birthing Music, and although one of the zoo keepers had lent her an MP3 player, none of the anteaters knew how to work it. Wilson was the obvious choice to save the day by downloading and playing Metallica's Death Magnetic album to her at the critical time.

I asked why that had taken so long, and he replied that when all the birth-giving was over, Andrea had taken him aside and said she had something to tell him – something she thought he was now old enough to understand. 

But he didn't want to talk about it.