Television Gold

My friend Betsy and I have been talking about this article all afternoon... we think it has the potential to be it's own reality TV show...

"He was shunned by his feathered family when he was just days old. Now, nearly three months on, this ugly duckling has found an unlikely father figure to replace them – in the form of his breeder, Barrie Hayman. The fairytale friendship was forged when Mr Hayman rescued the distressed duck, named Star, from his incubator. He noticed Star was panicked when he started doing a manic ‘waddling dance’ in an attempt to escape his hostile siblings. Since then, the Indian Runner duck has become inseparable from 65-year-old Mr Hayman. The 11-week-old bird follows him everywhere, from the pub to the supermarket, and even watches the rugby with him. Mr Hayman, from Eastleigh, Devon, said: 'He just won't leave me and so now we go everywhere together,' said Mr Hayman, who has been breeding ducks for 18 months. 'I've not trained him to follow me, he just seems to like it and he is one fantastic duck - I've never known any like it before.'He comes to the pub, where everyone loves him and we'll be watching his first world cup together next week."

Some of Betsy's and my ideas are:

-Have the duck and the man sitting on the couch together, watching a movie, eating popcorn out of the same bowl, trading knowing glances at one another during certain parts

- Have the duck swimming happily in the bathtub while the man sits on a closed toilet reading the newspaper and sharing the day's headlines

- Having a picnic outside, where the old man throws pieces of bread to the other birds around, but the duck just eats 'em all... they share a laugh and a smile

-Show the duck help the man wrapping his Christmas gifts - that beak is perfect for the times when you need someone to "put your finger right here for a second"...

I mean I'd tune in every week to see what kind of hijinks they'd get themselves into!