The joys of dogship

I came downstairs this morning wondering what I should do first (after breakfast of course - nothing comes between me and my Bran Flakes - except Harvey) to find that Harvey had solved the dilemma for me. (Yes, I know you aim to please, Harvs, but you really shouldn't have bothered.)

While cleaning the floor I pondered. Did he bark in the night to be let out? I could have slept through it; as I've said before, I like to sleep. Was he overtaken by events causing him to pooh first and worry about it afterwards? Or is it a continuing sign of the senile incontinence that the vet mentioned?

He looked sheepish when I got up. Oh, dear.

I think I will have a rant as I am here. I do not want to shout at Harvs as I he will have forgotten by now what it is he did. He is becoming increasingly goldfishlike.

So first of all, men drivers. In particular stupid men in big white mercedes who don't have the sense they were born with. That's what Michael Moore should have called his book. But I forgive him - stupid man in bwm not Mr Moore whom I don't need to forgive as he has done nothing to upset me - because I am a Christian. I am not letting it hang on and fester. I would just like to ask what it is about cars that makes men so ... aww, stupid?

Rant number two. Editors who do not reply. All it takes is a polite little 'no thank you' and I would know where I was. As it is, I sit and wait like a lovelorn duck. I think hope is the worst thing. If you hope, you are destined for pain.

Of course I don't really mean that. Well, I do but it won't stop me hoping.

Climbing out of the pit of despondency into which I have fallen, I will tell a joke. I heard it on the radio last night. I should point out that the significance of it is not the joke itself but what will follow. (I have to say that because I make a mess of the joke.)

Man walks into a bar with a newt on his shoulder. He orders a pint for himself and a whiskey for his newt. The barman says, '... can't remember' but the man then says, 'Because he's my newt.' It must have been something to do with whiskey and shorts.

Anyway, the point is that a nurse told this joke to her patient (in a crime drama) who had had a stroke and couldn't smile and it made him laugh. She explained that even though the part of his brain that allowed him to make himself smile didn't work, the bit that controlled involuntary laughter did. She said it was quite common with brain-damaged people. I really liked that. Smiling can be false but laughter is harder to fake.

It occurs to me that I am training myself to ignore Harvey's barking during the day as he is almost always barking for no reason. Perhaps he did bark in the night and my subconscious brain ignored it. That is a much better - and more hopeful - excuse than senility.

He must be dreaming about frolicking in the fields; his back legs are running in his sleep. Bless.

The spellcheck on this is very good. It looked at dogship and wondered if I meant Toshiba.