Sick in Transit Gloria

That, above, is one for the Latin freaks. You all know who you are. In your togas, mumbling about the Ides of March.

Twenty six hours in a crate in the bowels of a Thai Airlines Jumbo. I've spent better twenty-six hour slabs of my life.

So has Barbra.

So traumatised was she that she burst into a Gloria Estafan medley.

I threw up.

And there was my Kodak Box Brownie.

Next stop:

Fear and Loathing in the Bowels of a Thai Airlines Jumbo

Yeah yeah, I can do Hunter S. Thompson. I can outdo Hunter S. Thompson. Without chemical aids. Unless you call a brisket bone a chemical aid. I don't. I call a brisket bone breakfast. And any other meal you care to name.

So where was I? The two-legged dogs dumped io and Barbra - there's a bit of Italian for you; even though I'm not there yet (blogwise, so to speak), the two-legged dogs in the house had been prattling to me in Italian and I'm not as stupidotto as I look (there I go again) - in our usual boarding kennel.

Suck on that last paragraph, Hunter S.

Anyway, there we were at the kennel. For, we assumed, the usual couple of days.

Nuh. The usual couple of days stretched to a week.

One week later, it was two weeks.

M-hm.

Then, one day, sure enough, the kennel girls came for us with our leashes. Here we go, we thought. The two-legged dogs have indulged themselves long enough, they've had a twinge of guilt over leaving us locked up at Doggy San Quentin. We're going home.

We thought.

Nuh. We were loaded into the back of a strange van.

You should have seen the look on Barbra's face. Luckily, I had my Kodak Box Brownie with me:

Pity I didn't realise I had my oversized paw over the lens.

Be that as it may, the van took us to - of all places - the Sydney Veterinary Hospital. What the - ?

There, a vet poked and prodded us, wrote down a lot of stuff, and sent us to bed. Bed? A cage. I say again, What the - ?

Next morning, we were loaded into crates. One crate each. Barbra in hers, me in mine. I say yet again, What the - ?

We - in our crates - were loaded into another van.

Next time I opened my eyes, what did I see?

This time I remembered to get my oversized paw out of the way. I'm no dill. Even if the end result is wonky because my oversized paws were all atremble.

What were we doing at Sydney Airport?

More importantly, what in the name of brisket bones were we doing being wheeled - in our crates - towards one of these things?

If my oversized paws were all atremble before, they were all aquiver now.

Next thing we knew, we were being loaded - in our crates - into the bowels of a Thai Airlines Jumbo. I'd like to have been able to post a photograph of the inside of the bowels of a Thai Airlines Jumbo.

But I'd eaten the Kodak Box Brownie.

Fear and loathing can do that to an oversized buffoon.

Those Were The Days (IV)

Regrets? I've had a few. But then again, too few to mention.

Silly song lyrics. They never exactly apply when you need them. But at least quoting them shows off the depth and breadth of your LP collection. Yes, LPs. Call me contrary, but I reckon CDs are a passing fad. Vinyl rules!

Which is my roundabout way of introducing Buster.

Buster was my mate. He lived next door. He still does. That is, he still lives in the house next door to the house in which I lived. Only I don't live there anymore.

He came from a pet shop. His overbite was such that his top jaw came into the room ten seconds before his bottom jaw. He was a Maltese Terrier crossed with a Floor Mop. Jam a stick up his backside, dunk him in suds, and the floor would be clean in a trice. Not that I ever even contemplated it.

Here's Buster:

That's him on the left. That's Barbra poking her coiffed bonce through in the middle. Never one to miss a photo call, Barbra. "Evergreen" is never far from her lips.

Buster's favourite game was to put his head in my mouth. Maybe, in an earlier life, he was a dentist.

Sadly, there are no existing photographs of Buster with his head in my mouth. The two-legged dogs in the house were too busy pointing and laughing. Fools.

Buster used to come for sleepovers.

I miss Buster.

And I'm still not sure exactly how it all happened.

One minute, I was working on my ventriloquism act:

The next, the two-legged dogs in the house were suddenly talking to me in Italian.

One minute, I was in the usual queue to use the only tree in the local park:

The next, I saw the house being packed up around me.

One minute, Barbra was taking up my dare to cock her leg like real blokes do:

The next, Barbra and I were being bundled off to the boarding kennels where the two-legged dogs always left us, abandoned us, deserted us, whenever they went on holidays.

Little did we know what was in store!

Those Were The Days (III)

Now where was I? Before I was so rudely interrupted? By this little piece of defamatory flummery titled The Dog Sat On The Tuckerbox.

See you in court, Missy!

So where was I? I was happily ensconced in Sydney, Australia, but trapped in a house with Barbra Streisand. Barbra aside, life wasn't bad. Best of all, I slept a lot:

At least when people weren't poking cameras in my hairy little face.

Now, without getting too personal, and at the risk of proffering too much information, little dogs growing into big dogs have little bladders growing into big bladders. Not to mention the long, winding, sausage-shaped thing inside you that leads from your tummy to your botty.

In short, what goes in must come out. And the challenge for a young chap is to master exactly when and where.

I admit it. I struggled.

The two-legged dogs in the house would run around hysterically with bundles of toilet paper and sponges -

- while I refuelled:

I mean, what did they expect? They had a big white porcelain thingy in a special room for their needs. Actually, as I got older, I discovered the big white porcelain thingy came in handy for a quick cooling drink on a hot day. But that's a story for another day.

To cut a long post short, the two-legged dogs in the house, fed up with galloping around after me like demented sanitary workers, took drastic action:

The horror, the horror. Caged, with a blue plastic sheet under me.

Any wonder I still wake up screaming in the night.

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!"