Thursday, September 08, 2005
Intermission
The crappy old cinema in Lancaster still has one of these, between the trailers and the film. They last about 40 seconds. It's a nice gesture. One amazingly scratchy, noisy graphic that flashes up - screaming ENJOY THE FILM OR WE KILL ANOTHER ONE or similar - lifts its tattered hem at the end to display the fact that it was made, on a computer the size of Twickenham, in the year of my birth. It's these little things that tickle me. Everything's so fucking blandly perfect now, or striving to be blandly perfect, or slouching in doldrums at its own perfect blandness, that it's cheering to observe crappy old shit still doddering along.
Suitably clueless woman on the latest Channel 4 papfest about dog troubles (Reality Happens And Hilarity Ensues etc). Four German Spitzes - just looking for a suitable picture but every single site I find is setting my sight back another decade; why are people happy to own such ghastly-looking websites? Pixelsick. Anyway, they're like small Samoyeds or giant Pomeranians.
. . .
Like Paris Hilton's dog?
. . .
Look, they're like absurdly fluffy blow-dried overbred foxes with bright beady eyes and evil fangs, 'kay? 'Kay.
Yes, so this woman has four of these of various colours and a couple of mongrels in a semi near Birmingham + long-suffering alarmingly Deliverance-esque hubsbad and neglected teenage boy. And all of the dogs swarm constantly around, constantly barking, all the time. The woman feeds them icepops, and rushes to buy them ice-creams from the van several times a week. The dogs gather in the kitchen to shout even more at 1.30pm, because this is when she gives them tea which she makes for them, with milk and sugar. They never get walked. They are all hopped-up furry frickin freakdogs.
The trainer - who was basically the same awful spindly bint as on all the other Channel 4 "look at your life you dirty/overweight/frumpy/incompetent lump, for shame" shows in a wig - pointed out that she was a rotten dog owner. On this occasion you had to agree. I object to all the stuff about bettering yourself through public humiliation - especially the one where they tell women they look like shit and should have a little facelift, with the glacial female presenter and the jovial male voiceover, that enrages me - but here, the things that were being said actually needed to be said.
Trainer hauled ridiculous idiot woman to a Dogs Trust shelter to point out where her dogs would have to go for rehoming, if she continued to act like an arse with them and the neighbours continued to complain about the incessant noise. Woman flees the room weeping. I was surprised. The place looked lovely. There was a distinct whiff of Ikea about it. Far from where I picked up K, which was all concrete and wire and cold and forbidding. She'd obviously never been in a shelter before - odd, since she had a couple of mutts as well as the pedigrees. I did think for a second that she was one of those hoarders whose compassion blinds them to their inadequate personal circumstances, but these were expensive pedigree dogs she'd been collecting so they hadn't exactly been in dire circumstances. So fuck that.
She sort of got her shit together in the end. The trainer was pretty awful in the meantime, reminded me a lot of the behaviourist from hell who informed me that I wasn't up to adopting a dog like K. The trouble is with many of them is that, knowing they have the measure of dogs, imagine that they know human psychology just as well and proceed to patronise the living shit out of you.
Kaine has been pretty resilient, really, except for the whole murderous-intent thing. I hesitate to assume he's happy, but he isn't depressed. As a pet, he is barely viable - I don't get to enjoy taking him out for runs, which is about half the point of owning a dog and more than that for a lot of people. As a beast unto himself, though, he's fine. And I keep on checking that he is, keep on checking myself for selfishness, for hanging onto an animal that would be better off elsewhere. But whenever I imagine alternative lives for him, most of them are already over.
(I did used to give him tea dregs occasionally, but not now. Actually I do let him lick out yogurt and dessert pots. But a whole ice cream in a cone. Stupid people.)
I think I should experiment with not actually writing about the dog, or about myself, for a while. It'd be revealing. Post-rate would plummet, and so would I, into another new well of self-analytical GUILT. Heh heh. It's only what I deserve for not appreciating my own voluminous worth. I think it's a good idea. So! before I start:
- Everything people think about dogs is true, what they do for you, how staggering it is, and try as I might to stop marvelling at the purity and beauty of the relationship and to shut up about it because it's fucking nauseating, ah jist cannae.
- Bloggers do those '100 things about me' lists and they can be cute and funny or they can be mundo stupido. I don't think I could muster one, even if I were inclined. Do I pass some kind of personality test for that, or am I just crap at lists? I love a good list, though. Anyway, I could do '100 things not about me'. Although that would leave a loophole for me to write about the dog. Shit. OK, '100 things not about me nor the dog although other dogs are allowed'.
Right. Rules. Oh, it's fucking late and I meant to get an early night. But this is important.
No use of first person
Mention of friends and associates is permitted
No mention of items belonging to me or clothes or anything like that
It can't all be about television
No it can't
Non-contemporary stuff is fine
And statements in form of question
And questions that could be taken as rhetorical but don't have to be
And nonsense and seriousness
Um
That'll do it.
After this action shot, no more for 100 sentences.
Wheeee.
Suitably clueless woman on the latest Channel 4 papfest about dog troubles (Reality Happens And Hilarity Ensues etc). Four German Spitzes - just looking for a suitable picture but every single site I find is setting my sight back another decade; why are people happy to own such ghastly-looking websites? Pixelsick. Anyway, they're like small Samoyeds or giant Pomeranians.
. . .
Like Paris Hilton's dog?
. . .
Look, they're like absurdly fluffy blow-dried overbred foxes with bright beady eyes and evil fangs, 'kay? 'Kay.
Yes, so this woman has four of these of various colours and a couple of mongrels in a semi near Birmingham + long-suffering alarmingly Deliverance-esque hubsbad and neglected teenage boy. And all of the dogs swarm constantly around, constantly barking, all the time. The woman feeds them icepops, and rushes to buy them ice-creams from the van several times a week. The dogs gather in the kitchen to shout even more at 1.30pm, because this is when she gives them tea which she makes for them, with milk and sugar. They never get walked. They are all hopped-up furry frickin freakdogs.
The trainer - who was basically the same awful spindly bint as on all the other Channel 4 "look at your life you dirty/overweight/frumpy/incompetent lump, for shame" shows in a wig - pointed out that she was a rotten dog owner. On this occasion you had to agree. I object to all the stuff about bettering yourself through public humiliation - especially the one where they tell women they look like shit and should have a little facelift, with the glacial female presenter and the jovial male voiceover, that enrages me - but here, the things that were being said actually needed to be said.
Trainer hauled ridiculous idiot woman to a Dogs Trust shelter to point out where her dogs would have to go for rehoming, if she continued to act like an arse with them and the neighbours continued to complain about the incessant noise. Woman flees the room weeping. I was surprised. The place looked lovely. There was a distinct whiff of Ikea about it. Far from where I picked up K, which was all concrete and wire and cold and forbidding. She'd obviously never been in a shelter before - odd, since she had a couple of mutts as well as the pedigrees. I did think for a second that she was one of those hoarders whose compassion blinds them to their inadequate personal circumstances, but these were expensive pedigree dogs she'd been collecting so they hadn't exactly been in dire circumstances. So fuck that.
She sort of got her shit together in the end. The trainer was pretty awful in the meantime, reminded me a lot of the behaviourist from hell who informed me that I wasn't up to adopting a dog like K. The trouble is with many of them is that, knowing they have the measure of dogs, imagine that they know human psychology just as well and proceed to patronise the living shit out of you.
Kaine has been pretty resilient, really, except for the whole murderous-intent thing. I hesitate to assume he's happy, but he isn't depressed. As a pet, he is barely viable - I don't get to enjoy taking him out for runs, which is about half the point of owning a dog and more than that for a lot of people. As a beast unto himself, though, he's fine. And I keep on checking that he is, keep on checking myself for selfishness, for hanging onto an animal that would be better off elsewhere. But whenever I imagine alternative lives for him, most of them are already over.
(I did used to give him tea dregs occasionally, but not now. Actually I do let him lick out yogurt and dessert pots. But a whole ice cream in a cone. Stupid people.)
I think I should experiment with not actually writing about the dog, or about myself, for a while. It'd be revealing. Post-rate would plummet, and so would I, into another new well of self-analytical GUILT. Heh heh. It's only what I deserve for not appreciating my own voluminous worth. I think it's a good idea. So! before I start:
- Everything people think about dogs is true, what they do for you, how staggering it is, and try as I might to stop marvelling at the purity and beauty of the relationship and to shut up about it because it's fucking nauseating, ah jist cannae.
- Bloggers do those '100 things about me' lists and they can be cute and funny or they can be mundo stupido. I don't think I could muster one, even if I were inclined. Do I pass some kind of personality test for that, or am I just crap at lists? I love a good list, though. Anyway, I could do '100 things not about me'. Although that would leave a loophole for me to write about the dog. Shit. OK, '100 things not about me nor the dog although other dogs are allowed'.
Right. Rules. Oh, it's fucking late and I meant to get an early night. But this is important.
No use of first person
Mention of friends and associates is permitted
No mention of items belonging to me or clothes or anything like that
It can't all be about television
No it can't
Non-contemporary stuff is fine
And statements in form of question
And questions that could be taken as rhetorical but don't have to be
And nonsense and seriousness
Um
That'll do it.
After this action shot, no more for 100 sentences.
Wheeee.
