In news to gladden the heart of every man, woman and child during this grim, back-to-school period, Britain has acquired a poster boy for its fantasies of escape. And he weighs 4kg, is the size of a handbag, with a tongue the length of your hand. Step forward Stanley the armadillo, former star of the Animal Magic petting zoo, near Hailsham, who forced open the door of his log cabin and took flight, assumed roving about East Sussex.
How the heart thrills! For we Brits love nothing more than the tale of an animal doing a runner. Boomers and Gen X will recall the Tamworth Two, valiant Butch and Sundance, who evaded an abattoir in 1998 in a porcine adventure that became a global obsession for weeks.
Other bids for freedom have followed, all of them delighting the soul. Blame Brits’ notorious passion for animals – and schooling on Charlotte’s Web. Blame our horror of captivity. Blame our love of the underdog/armadillo. But, a critter on a quest for liberty offers a cause we can unite behind.
Described as “quite friendly”, if “stinky”, with a love of a back scratch, Stanley is an everyman for our age. In our telegenic-obsessed era, it will help that he is a looker: six-banded, modishly Game of Thrones-coded armour, pert little ears. Don’t be mistaken by the cuteness of those claws.
In their Latin American habitat, said mammals see off predators such as bobcats, cougars, coyotes, black bears and even ‘gators. Well, might he have tired of being fawned over by toddlers? This is not even his first attempt at independence: he endeavoured to sprint off during a party. The call of the wild is strong.
There’s much talk these days about “invasive species”, whether it’s the grey squirrels we love to hate, muntjac deer, American mink, Asian hornets, or killer crayfish, seeing off our native species with their foreign wiles.
However, Stanley and a host of recent predecessors – including a capybara, wallaby and emu – are flying the flag for “evasive species”. It seems they yearned to quit broken Britain and make off back home.
And who can blame them? Not only are experts warning that we are in a foetid fiscal fix ahead of next month’s Budget, the man responsible for it, Chancellor John Healey, himself on Monday conceded that borrowing costs are at “historic highs”, with the nation’s growth trajectory feeble.
Meanwhile, living standards appear in a race for the bottom. Public services are not so much creaking, as ceased to be. While our bureaucracy has ground to gridlock, whatever the talk of devolution as messianic cure.
And this party conference season feels particularly doom-laden. Cue Stan voting with his claws. One flash of Nigel Farage’s Union Flag socks and he packed up his kit bag and fled for the coast.
For, surely, our hero is headed for Southampton? A speedy hitch along the A27, then he can set sail for Lisbon to board a transatlantic cruise back home. He will be safe in his homeland by Día de los Muertos, ready to light candles and decorate sugar skulls in tribute to Blighty’s prospects.
Come, let us spur our departing hero with sustenance, solidarity and safe houses, so that we can all live vicariously through the spreading of his armoured wings.