Radio 4
Â鶹ԼÅÄ Truths
Listen Again
About John Peel
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BEWARE OF THE DOG
Imagine the scene. Ian Whitwham and family are having a picnic - a rare idyll under dappled branches. Enter a Youth and his DOG....
They are joined by a piece of string. The Youth is rotund and covered in insect tattoos. The dog is squat - possibly a Pit Bull. Both are barking. They seem to be taking some kind of constitutional - in opposite directions.
The DOG wins and tugs the thug across the park. The string snaps. Mr Dog is unleashed at us. He charges through our picnic. He pounces at my ribs.
Mr Dog is uglier than a Velociraptor. His fangs drip. My spine turns to marrowbone jelly. My Daughters are petrified. We must not show fear. Mr Dog likes Fear....
‘Oi! ‘Brains’! Its owner arrives and hails the Beast. They look as if they haven’t two cerebral hemispheres between them.
'Brains’! I said that’s enough!’ This doesn’t appreciably modify ‘Brain’s antics.
‘Oi! I said stop it!’ ‘Brains’ continues it.
Both bark a lot more until ‘Brains just about desists - and plunders the scotch eggs.
The Owner feels compelled to make 3 observations. They always do....
Brains is ‘only playing’. At what? How can we tell? There’s a fine line between the frolicsome and the homicidal.
He is ‘only a puppy.’ A Puppy that kills... What will the little fellow be like in his more mature years?
He’s a bit ‘aggravated’. Our fault. Our fear got the old bloodlust going. Maybe we should have offered the foaming fellow a little claret.
During our conversation ‘Brains’ spies some old folk in their deckchairs. Exit Brains in pursuit of pensioners.
Our little idyll has been wrecked. There is no apology.
I’m jogging in the local park...and there’s Hellhounds on my trail. Another malign and pointless Owner has unleashed his brutes. They romp incontinent in the long grass. Here comes one of them charging towards me. Is it a Bloodhound or a Wolf? I don’t know what to do..
If I go slow he’ll think I’m playing - and eat my head.
If I go fast he’ll think I’m prey - and eat my head.
If I stop and pat him - he’ll eat my hand. And give me rabies.
..It launches itself at high speed at me. I am felled. I yell at the owner to save my life. The owner is elsewhere baying ineffectually at another hound and explaining to weeping children why it has eaten their football - it was presumably just playing. So I wait until I’m not eaten and shuffle home off in trauma. I’m not going there again...nor’s my wife. She used to go jogging with a friend...BUT MR DOG - HE SAY NO!!
... here he comes the little terrier. How playfully he tears at their tendons.
They kick the little chap.
‘Don’t kick my dog!’ barks the owner drunk on a bench. ‘I’ve fought in two world wars!’
‘Well, keep it under control!’ They jog off..
‘You Fat Arsed Communists!’ the Owner roars. It wasn’t the political comment that stung. Exit Fat Arsed Communists pursued by Tiny Hound.
No-one ever quite controls a dog. An otherwise cerebral friend deludes herself that she can. She goes all gooey with hers. Anything can happen. There you are conversing about Geo Politics or Mozart - and her dog is attempting carnal relations with my shin. ‘More tea?’ she says.
‘Good dog! Bad dog! Fetch! Chase! Beg! Give it back! Kissy! Kissy! No! I said no! No! No!’ goes Owner.
‘BARK! BARK!’ goes Mr Dog. Which loosely translated means:
‘You? You talking to me? No way. I do what I want when I want. I’m a DOG.’
If dogs are your bete noir
tell us about it on the message board.
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