It's always sad when an ape goes on the rampage and is brought down to an ignominious death thousands of miles away from its homeland after climbing in an anguished rage to the top of a tourist attraction.

It was sad in 1933 when the original King Kong movie came out, it was sad in 1976 when the dreadful re-make hit the cinemas and it will be sad this Friday when Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson's stab at the third celluloid outing for the mighty Kong goes on general release.

And it was especially sad for Mischa the seven stone chimp who took a bullet on Friday after breaking out of her compound at the Flamingo Land theme park in North Yorkshire. No-one seems to know why Mis-cha went bonkers, but the terrified staff lost sight of her in the fog and the next thing she was standing on top of the 60ft tall log flume, batting away biplanes and looking all doeeyed at a down-on-her-luck actress before finally succumbing to the modern world of which she knew nothing and plummeting to the damp concrete below.

Actually, I made the last bit of that up. Mischa was initially shot with tranquilliser darts, but that just really got her angry and they had to bring in the marksman to finish her off properly. There presumably wasn't a biplane in sight, and if there were any actresses on top of the log flume it would only have been some extra from Emmerdale killing a bit of time before she got to order her next Bacardi and Coke in the Woolpack.

All we can hope is that one of the Flamingo Land workers who watched Mischa fall from the log flume and breathe her last on the ground had the forethought to comment: "It was Beauty killed the Beast. . ."

But life, as they say, imitates art. We have such entrenched cultural references that every time we see a certain set of vague images they dredge up in us memories of movies or TV shows. No doubt whenever Bradford City's travelling army head off to Torquay or wherever there'll be a handful of children wonder-ing why a coachload of men in Hogwart' scarves has just gone by, while those of us who don't often get out to black tie dinners will automatically think, whenever we see a man in a dinner jacket: "Who does he think he is? James Bond?" And I don't know about you, but I can't walk into half of the pubs in Bradford without Obi Wan Kenobi's line about the Mos Eiseley spaceport in Star Wars popping into my head: "Never will you see a more wretched hive of scum and villainy".

So with King Kong dealt with, albeit in rather brutal fashion, can we expect to see any of the other Christmas blockbusters played out on our streets over the coming weeks?

Anyone planning to spend the festive season camping out near an abandoned mineshaft or ill-advisedly spelunking in remote caves would doubtless be pleased to see a real-life version of cinema superdog Las-sie - in a multiplex near you from this weekend, and starring Bradford schoolboy Jonathan Mason - turn up with a turkey, bottle of sherry and the combined might of West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue.

Should, however, you feel that Christmas is all getting too much and decide to take refuge in your ward-robe, only to have it lead to a snow-covered fantasy world ruled over by a cruel ice queen in eternal battle with a talking lion that espouses overt Christian rhetoric, then you might want to consider cutting back on the Bailey's Irish Cream and declining just one more Stilton cracker before bedtime, because you're obviously on the edge and may well find yourself on top of a log flume in the sights of a marksman with several primate notches on his barrel already.