Oh to be an otter.

Having mentioned Otters in the title, I ought to (ho, ho) mention them and I will. Later. In the meantime, here's a picture of Cannery Row in Monterey, it features amongst other things, a man on a ladder.
The better read amongst you will have heard of Cannery Row and know what it's all about. The rest of us will have some vague notion of somewhere or something involving cans and maybe a gun, or perhaps a punch-up, or if you're really weird, sturgeon eggs. Nevertheless, here's the juice. The ladies of the town were summoned to work every morning by a whistle. Presumably the men had made the catch and were off home for a quick nap. As they confronted the day's catch of Sardine, yes Sardine (hands up every one who knows where this is going), cans crossed from one side of the street to another on one of those new fangled conveyor belts (you'll have seen one most recently in The Generation Game), whereupon the ladies of Monterey packed sardines into them and sent them back over the road. The ladies of Monterey are to be thanked.
Now to the otters. At the end of Cannery Row is an Aquarium (one that I'm sure Mr Beech should, if he hasn't already, visited) funded by the Packards of Hewlett Packard fame - well done! In this Aquarium are some otters. I only saw three but I expect they work in shifts. One of these otters was sunbathing on an upturned bucket, another was playing with one of those balls with holes in it (possibly a bell inside) and the third was floating on his back. Talk about a dog's life. These otters must be the luckiest critters in Christendom, oops sorry, captivity. And for the first time in my life, I saw a captive animal and thought, would it be happier in the wild? Ooooh errrr missus!