London Zoo: "Nah you can't bring that twig in here mate"

Team Pedro met today to display our amazing naturalistic set objects to one another. Tom had made a lovely Gorilla cage sign with a piece of cleverly crafted bark and red paint. I showed pictures of my elegent precision engineered twig cage. Oh and Alec found a rock on the way to college.
Yeah so everything was going swimmingly with the set, unfortunately my chat with London Zoo help line didn't go quite so well.
I rang up and firstly asked about any student discounts? - No.
Can we film using a small digital camera (the type all familys bring to the zoo)? - Fill out a form online.
I then enquired about bringing a tri pod to the Zoo tommorow explaining it was for a college project - I got another point blank No. Apparently you can only bring a tripod if you are a member of the press.
So on to the more important question for this charming woman on the phone - surely this would be a yes, there is no possible reason for it to be another no....
"can we bring a few sticks and a pebble into the zoo?" .... all hell broke loose.
Defensive isn't the word, the woman couldn't comprehend that I didn't want to harm the animals with the pebble and that the twigs would not be used to stress out or irratate the gorillas!
No I replie, simply to be placed on the grass in a quiet area of the zoo for a college project.
"I just don't understand why you would want to bring sticks and a rock into our zoo sir, it sounds very suspicious and could be something used to distress the animals and provoke attention from the zoo keepers"
The conversation continued and I ended up having to basically explain CG compositing to the lady who still humed and harred about why I would want to bring in such dangerous items lol. Anyway it ended up being a no.
So we're going up tommorow anyway - I'll let you know how it goes!