So. It’s been a while since, erm, last week’s Hot Topic. My chat with Ebony Bones actually goes back to October now! Which is definitely too long a delay for such a major piece of professional journalism. In fact, we’re getting so professional with these that the ones to follow (with New Young Pony Club and Mystery Jets!) have actually been filmed and some special bits will be included in our monthly video podcasts going through the highlights of the night. But in the meantime, back to Ebony and pachyderms blocking traffic down Camden High Street and packing lipgloss in their trunks…
Would you rather go for a basic grey elephant, mammoth or pink elephant?
E - I’m quite a fan of the woolly mammoth which is obviously a distant relative of common elephants. They have big tusks. And obviously, a great thing with elephants is that they produce ivory, of which I am the opposite: ebony and ivory. That’s why it’s an amazing topic! And I’m named after that godawful song by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney, Ebony and Ivory, which was an 80s track. That’s why my parents called me Ebony, believe it or not! Although if you type Ebony in Google, you’ll get lots of porn sites. (laughs)
The mammoth then… I’ve read recently that scientists have found out they can actually recreate a mammoth based on one that’s been frozen for millions of years.
E - From the DNA, they could recreate it… God, can you imagine coming down to Proud Galleries, being really late and going “oh crap, traffic was awful, bloody mammoth in the middle of the road, blocking the way down Camden High Street”! (laughs)
Have you ever seen a real elephant or do you have a memory linked to elephants that you could share with us?
E - No, I haven’t, I’ve only seen them on Youtube, which is really sad actually, there’s animals in the world I’ll never see, not even at the zoo. Actually, that’s a lie, I possibly did at the zoo, as a young child, at the London zoo or something. I was never a fan of zoos, because they always smell of shit and I’m not a fan of that smell. But there was this great show when I was a child called Nellie The Elephant, which was a cartoon, and the song went: (sings) “Nellie The Elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus, off she went with the trumpety-trump (claps hands) trump trump trump.” And I was addicted to it!
If you were an elephant, what would you carry in your trunk?
E - It’s funny you say that, I’ve thought of this many a time. My mobile – Blackberry, just in case, you never know who’s gonna try to get hold of you on a safari. A bit of gloss because you might want to pull that night. And my visa debit card because you can’t really get anywhere in life without one of those. I don’t know how elephants do it actually.
So how would you use a Blackberry if you were an elephant?
E - You’d have to kind of spew it out and hope that someone else, like a little Chihuahua would come out and just step on it. You know The Lion King, what’s the little thing called, Pumba? (Pumba is actually the wacky warthog, Ebony was obviously thinking of Timon, his freewheeling meerkat companion). He’d have to do it for you.
Would you rather have the memory of an elephant or the memory of a goldfish?
E - I didn’t know elephants had long memories! So they must really hold grudges! They’d be like “that cunt, he took my ivory tusks”. So maybe a goldfish then… Although I have the brain of a goldfish already, so maybe a longer memory would help. Did you see Finding Nemo? I’m obsessed with this film. Is it Dorothy the fish who’s got a really small memory? I’m a bit like her at times.
Is there a song or an album linked to the topic that you can think of?
E - I got a track called Don’t Fart On My Heart and elephants are quite known for passing bad wind, I hear, particularly in France. In French zoos, all over the place. (laughs) Now that’s official, French zoos stink.
Right, it is not enough that we carry baguettes under our arms, eat frogs and snails, now our zoos stink as well, thank you very much Ebony.
E - Oh… But apart from the smelly zoos, we love France!
Can you pick next week’s Hot Topic?
E - It should be hair extensions.