Well today is going to be a rare moment. Regular readers of this blog know that I eschew cute cuddly animal pictures – indeed they can rely on the fact that I will usually not succumb to such sentimentality. Hmm! Well it was Friday and I was looking through the ever present Pictures of the Week, looking for something happy amidst a world of the inane and the tragic and I came across two of the most wonderful nature photographs.

The first is of a panda bear, Nuan Nuan, a 1-year-old giant panda, waving at the crowd at the the National Zoo in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on this past Tuesday ( Photograph by Mohd Rasfan for the AP). It is as if to say, it’s a good world and it’s good not to be extinct.

The second is of two hippos at their enclosure at the Los Angeles Zoo on August 13 sucking in water being spray on them to keep them cool (Image by Mario Anzuoni for Reuters). reach for water sprayed in their enclosure during a summer day at the Los Angeles Zoo on Aug. 13.

Oh OK, maybe one more, there is a wonderful photograph by Joe Raedle for Getty Images showing Travis Guedry and his dog Ziggy glide through floodwaters in search of flood victims on Aug. 17 in Sorrento, Louisiana. Ziggy clearly steals the show and that is because… Well, I’ll say it. It’s because he is SOOOOOO cute, and the bottom line is that it was possibly a good week for animals on planet Earth for humans not so much.