Students
and tourists are being attacked by a swan on the River Cam where the legendary
Mr Asbo – reportedly his forebear – once wreaked havoc
Wed 19
Jun 2019 17.46 BSTLast modified on Thu 20 Jun 2019 10.39 BST
Name: Asbaby.
Age: Unknown,
though he has been cropping
up in reports of violence since 2015.
Location: The
River Cam in Cambridge, which, like the city itself, is full of entitled
students and tourists paying a fortune for punts, who find themselves united in
the battle between humans and swans.
And so
who is Asbaby? A hero or villain – it depends whose side you are on. He is
the latest swan to wage war on humans, and was recently photographed attacking
students who had jumped into the river after college celebrations.
What do
you mean by “the latest”? Asbaby’s “grandfather” – it is far from clear
that a familial link has ever been established – was Mr Asbo, a wonderfully
combative swan who terrorised rowers and everyone else on the river from
2010 until
he was controversially moved to a secret location 60 miles from
Cambridge in 2012.
Asbo? Oh
come on, you remember, it’s the acronym for anti-social behaviour order – Tony
Blair’s big idea that was introduced in 1998 to stop public drunkenness and
other loutish behaviour, and which has now gone the way of all his other big
ideas, such as economic growth, being on friendly terms with Europe and waging
wars in the Middle East.
But back
to this battleground ... Well, no sooner had Mr Asbo been carted off to
some rural backwater where he could no longer wreak havoc than his
supposed son Asboy appeared on the scene, pecking punters, roughing up
rowers and scaring students.
So what
happened to Asboy? Well, swans do all look pretty similar: could Asboy and
Asbaby be the same swan? Or have generations of an entire flock been driven mad
by posh students in rowing blazers?
