Posts Tagged ‘dog’
The Real World
Anytime I want. Day or night. Summer or winter.
All I have to do is step outside.
Leave behind all the paranoid stoners, political junkies, earnest enquirers and put the deadlines on hold.
Right outside my front door is the real world.
Paradise Valley
Come with me into the crisp, sparkling air of the Dorset countryside. Let the salted breeze blow away your cobwebs and the sheer beauty still your soul.
This is real life. All the rest is illusion.
Go here.
Paradise Valley
Heaven On Earth
It’s that time of the month again!
No, no, no ladies. Happy times! Another walk in Paradise Valley. See here.
Was Tony Blair A Force For Good?
My Non-Appearance On Sunday Morning Live
Since Wednesday the BBC had been in touch every day. This morning they started calling me and testing my webcam and sound from 8.30am. They had me sitting at my desk from 9.45am, 15 minutes before the programme started. I was warned I could be in shot at anytime. I drank too much coffee. I did get a little nervous and jittery. I was desperate for a cigarette even though I gave up six months ago!
Who was that suave, debonair, good looking chap in the crisp white shirt on the background screens? Yours truly of course, waiting patiently for my big moment, trying not to sneer or laugh too raucously at the ridiculous first discussion on animals.
I had my notes blu-tacked to the window frame right behind my webcam, adjusted so that viewers would never lose deep, seductive eye contact with me.
“We’re coming to you now Peter”
“Stand by”
I fancy I can see Susanna Reid flushing slightly in anticipation of introducing me…
“Uh, sorry Peter, we’re not going to be able to come to you. Out of time I’m afraid.”
Such are the trials and tribulations of my life! Suddenly the programme was over.
You'll Get Your Chance, Gorgeous
Turning to far more important things, the dogs and I set off for the hills. My mobile rang and it was Anna from the BBC, apologising and promising me dinner and a hot night with Susanna all at the corporation’s expense. “No, sorry, I can’t be bought off. Call me tomorrow. I’m too busy now.”
On the panel in the studio had been Mary Whitehouse’s successor, frumpy Anne Atkins and the utter jerk, Francis Beckett. What a prat? Why would anyone want to listen to his obnoxious, ill considered views, delivered with all the grace of a blind, three legged rhino?
Was Tony Blair a force for good? This was the question I was supposed to be answering. The BBC had come to me as a result of this article. I had, of course, considered my response and this is what I intended to say.
Was Tony Blair A Force For Good?
I do not count myself as a Tony Blair supporter. I never voted for him. In fact, at all those elections I deliberately spoiled my ballot papers writing “no suitable candidate” across them. I am an admirer though.
I think you have to give him credit for a number of things. He rescued Labour from its madness and turned it into a credible and electable political party. That was good for democracy. He finished off the good work that Margaret Thatcher had done on the unions. He was her true successor. Now the only nutters that we have left are Tweedledum and Twitterdee from Unite and the mad and bad Bob Crowe from the railways.
You have to give him huge credit for Northern Ireland, for Kosovo and Sierra Leone. I think he was also responsible for a fundamental change in British politics in that he reconciled caring with competition. For the first time it was accepted that you could have a social conscience but still believe in business and the free market.
On Iraq, clearly it is a good thing that we got rid of Saddam Hussein although, personally, I think we should have assassinated him. If there was a moral justification for war, for shock and awe, then there was for assassination. Even if we had lost thousands of special forces that would have been better than hundreds of thousands of innocents. I do think that Blair became carried away with George Bush and that was a mistake. Bush will be forgotten long before Blair. He was not of the same calibre. All he had to offer was the might and power of America.
Fundamentally, what you have to ask is did Tony Blair act in good faith? I believe he did. I believe he is an honourable man. Look backwards from Blair to Thatcher and there’s noone else until Churchill and then Lloyd George. That is the company in which Tony Blair will be remembered. He is a great man.
I Was There For You Tone!
The one thing I really don’t understand in this man of vision and intelligence is his conversion to Catholicism. I can just about accept his Christianity although why a man with his intellect needs organised religion I don’t know. I really can’t understand why he wants to be allied to the institution that has been responsible for more evil over the last 2000 years than any other. I think it demeans him. He has far, far more to offer the world than that stupid old bigot the Pope, for instance. It seems to me the Catholic Church will benefit far more from him than he will from it. That’s his business though.
Under Pressure
About four months ago I embarked on a course of medication for high blood pressure. For some time I’d been warned that I was marginal with a reading of 140/90 so I decided it was time to start looking after myself. I was a heavy smoker and drinker. My only redeeming factor was that I walk with my dogs every day for about an hour – and that’s vigorous walking, up and down steep hills.
I was started on a calcium antagonist and within a few days I had virtually lost the will to live. I had no energy at all. I’d lost all motivation. In the most degrading epsiode of all, one morning I found myself prostrate on the sofa watching “Homes Under the Hammer”. That’s when I knew it was serious.
I took myself straight off that poison and went back to see my GP. My blood pressure reading was now 168/100. He advised a change to a thiazide diuretic. Being the not so patient patient that I am, I insisted on a full explanation as far as my “O” level science was capable of understanding.
This time it was more subtle. My energy, motivation and enthusiasm was sapped gradually. As my positive life signs went down my thirst rocketed to absurd proportions. After a month or so I was regularly up six times a night with a raging thirst and a full bladder. When I cleaned out the space behind the passenger seat in my car I had two carrier bags full of empty drink bottles.
In the meantime, I gave up smoking. I give the pharmaceutical industry credit for this. A month of patches and a nicotine inhaler weaned me off the evil weed easily. About this I am both pleased and proud. I have at least one “cigarette moment” every day but I am not going back to it. Although I can recognise no physiological benefit at all (if anything I seem to get more breathless now), I am much richer and everything around me is cleaner as a result.
The next visit to my GP saw my pressure reduced to 150/95. Better but not good enough. He advised me to start taking an ACE inhibitor as well as the diuretic.
I researched ACE inhibitors and was horrified at the range of side effects and contraindications. Then, suddenly, coming fast up behind and undertaking me before I knew what was happening (forgive my blushes) I discovered I was impotent. One embarrassing date and then a dawning realisation that nothing was happening, even involuntarily. No more waking up with a big itch!
I’m not ready to give up my sex life just yet. The one and only criticism I have of my GP is that he never warned me of this side effect. I have also cut my drinking by a huge proportion. From a half bottle of whisky upwards a day I am now comfortable with a single glass of wine or a small beer. In the last few weeks my motivation has gone again. I can’t be bothered with long walks with the dogs anymore. Just half an hour out in the mornings and I’m exhausted. I’m not interested in anything. My occasional lunchtime nap has become a necessity. Sometimes, even before midday I feel so exhausted, I just can’t wait to go back to bed.
Four days ago I stopped the diuretic and yesterday I felt like I had got my life back. I have so much more energy. I’m enthusiastic as I can’t remember for months. I fair romped up the hill with the dogs this morning. My thirst is calming down and I was only up twice last night. My mojo isn’t back yet but I can feel a little twitch developing. Come Christmas time I advise you to lock up your daughters once again.
The punch line? My blood pressure is now 170/110. I may be heading for a massive stroke or heart attack any minute but at least I’ll die happy. Despite giving up smoking and decimating my alcohol consumption, my blood pressure is much worse than when I started. So what does that tell me?
I have no idea at all but at least now I have a smile on my face!
Man’s Best Friend
Dogs have lived alongside man for tens of thousands of years. Even before our species could be so defined our predecessors made a pact with each other. Mutual advantage was the bargain and so it has been ever since. The relationship is in our DNA. There is a primeval bond between us.
Capone & Carla
Dogs can be dangerous. Mostly this is a function of how they are treated but there is the wild card. I would never, ever leave any breed of dog alone with a child. Thankfully, considering how many badly treated dogs and irresponsible owners there are, tragedies are few and far between. Nothing can extinguish the agony of what happened in Liverpool yesterday but there is a solution.
Bring back the dog licence. Make it cost £100 per year. Give pensioners a rebate of £90. Every dog must be microchipped to correspond with its licence. Enforce it. Guaranteed, problem solved.
Instead we have idiotic politicians who play about with incompetent, ridiculous and irrelevant legislation like the Dangerous Dogs Act – while children are mauled to death in their own homes.
Paradise Valley – Heaven On Earth
Today I started a new blog on Paradise Valley, the beautiful heaven on earth where I am so fortunate to live.
This will be where I write about walking my dogs , Capone and Carla, and all our adventures in deepest Dorset.
Peter Reynolds 