How I Trumped Perry Mason

Woof again. Woof is Dogspeak for hullo.

Woof, in Dogspeak, also happens to mean goodbye. And what's for dinner? Not to mention Iraq's looking like a dog's breakfast, hey? And, frankly, everything else in the human vocabulary. Dogspeak is a very easy language to learn. No gender agreement between nouns and adjectives, no subjunctive, no dangling participles. Not even a clause. Or an adjective. Or even a noun.

I highly recommend Dogspeak as a second language. It's international. Get off a plane in Paris, walk up to the nearest poodle and say Woof. He - or, indeed, she - will immediately agree with you that the country has taken a hard right turn.

Email me for details of my exclusive one-on-one classes in Dogspeak. All for the price of a brisket bone.

But I digress.

Over the past month or so, something should have dawned on keen followers of this blog. Which is to say, I haven't been troubling the ether with many posts. Equally keen disciples of the Comments section of this blog will be aware that the little white rat initiated legal action against me - in the form of an injunction preventing me from posting - on the basis that I had defamed her by comparing her with Barbra Streisand.

Off to court we went. I represented myself, adopting the traditional - if you're English, as I am - barrister's head apparel in the form of a wig:

Shame I washed it the night before.

And Barbra? She didn't even turn up. She forgot to set the alarm:

I've always said she does her best work on her back.

Cupping my oversized paw to my oversized ear, do I hear another defamation action trotting up the garden path?

Be that as it may, I am delighted to report here that I triumphed in court.

Barbra had engaged Perry Mason to argue her case. I immediately jumped to my hind legs and objected on the obvious grounds that Mr Mason is a fictional character. Of course the Judge agreed with me.

Hence here I am posting again.

Woof.

That's Dogspeak for I think it's aperitivo-o'clock.

Those Were The Days (II)

I should point out at this early stage that Roman numerals aren't my strong suit. If these thread titles get beyond about XIII, I'll be coming up with combinations that would have any respectable Roman wetting his toga laughing.

Now where was I? Ah yes. The bane of my life. It wasn't so much that there wasn't room in the house for two dogs. There was. I'm a sociable chap, my level of self-esteem is on the plus side of normal, I can cope with company of my ilk.

Here's the problem. She wasn't a dog. She was a princess. Where did she sleep? On her owner's bed. I hear a chorus of "that's not unusual". How about sleeping on her owner's pillow wrapped around her owner's head? Cupping my oversized paw to my oversized ear, what do I hear?

"Bleeeeeaaaaahhhhhhh!"

Esatto!

Oops. Hang on. That's Italian. I'm not in Italy yet.

So you're getting my drift? As far as sharing lodgings with princesses go, it was like trying to live under the same roof with Barbra Streisand.

And speaking of Barbra Streisand, here she is primed to launch into "Evergreen":

Enough said?

Those Were The Days (I)

Australia might be an appalling, isolated, conservative, racist, self-important, smug, backwater of a place, but it was my home. And I loved it.

Me? A conscience? Pshaw. Two walks a day, two feeds a day. I was, as they say in Dog vernacular, giggling my boofy head off. Call me selfish, I don't care. In fact, call me anything except late for dinner.

On the other hand, happiness came at somewhat of a price.

And here it is:

The white thing on the bed yapping down at me was the bane of my life.

The truth is, I upset her cozy little domestic apple cart. The detail of which requires a small rewind in time.

I had a predecessor, another Old English called Finbar. He died. Cancer. Five years old. He arrived in the house - her house, her domain - at the age of about one and a half. He bowled in the front door, all hair and legs, paws the size of an elephant's feet, and ten times her size. She retreated to the safety of some stairs - and crapped herself. Literally. She hates the story being told.

So I'll tell it again.

She retreated to the safety of some stairs and crapped herself.

Thus she had about three and a half years of Finbar. Then he died. She breathed a sigh of relief, "My house - my domain - is mine again." I suspect foul play. She's that sort of creature. How hard would it have been to slip a radioactive isotope into his chow?

So, one radioactive isotope later, she was flying solo again. She had four years of domestic bliss. Fawned over. A lapdog. Until I arrived. Now bear in mind that Finbar was about one and a half when he lobbed, hence pretty much fully grown. Did I mention that she retreated to the safety of some stairs and crapped herself?

Here's me arriving:

Look at her sizing me up. Can't you hear the little weasel brain ticking over? "Mmmm. Something I can stuff my pyjamas in."

Little did she know, of course, and I wasn't about to tell her, that from cute little furry things do oversized buffoons grow. Which she was soon to learn:

Can't you hear the little weasel brain ticking over? "My God, my pyjamas are still inside that thing!"