Pawridge

The other day I was eating some microwavable porridge (for kids, yes, what's your point?) as I realised that I'd not really eaten much that day. Oops. Anyway, while I was making it up (in the sense of preparing the porridge, not in the sense that the porridge is fictitious) almost by the instructions (the instructions do not tell one to add enough sugar to kill a toddler, go figure) I noticed something about the individual packets in the box: They each have a different animal character on them.

All of this, and the stuff on the site (http://www.pawridge.co.uk/), seem to be trying to encourage kids to eat healthily while respecting nature... which is, y'know, a good thing, or whatever. You can celebrate on this one Quaker Oats, break out the champagne and blow-jobs, you're doing good work. The odd thing about it in my eyes (and I have pretty eyes so they count for more than they might otherwise do) is that one of the characters is called Derek the Diprotodon (Extinct Marsupial).

Now, I'm sure that none of you needed reminding that Diprotodons are extinct, but I do wonder about what message this sends to young children. The other animals on there, from what I've looked at, are endangered. This means that they still exist... however, being extinct does not mean that they have blue fur and that they're still hanging around engaging in appealingly goofy escapades. It means they're dead. All of them. Dead. Dead as, well, as a Dodo, which are also extinct.

Come on Quaker Oats... close... so close.