Contains Dogs’ TV, Vladimir Putin’s dating agency, Outlander, movies to tempt politicians into the cinema, love lessons from The Archers
A version of this appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail April 5 2016
Pascal’s aphorism runs “The more I know people, the more I love my dog”. But really, the question is: how dogs feel about us?
People find companionship and consolation in pets, yet in these stressed-out, career-chasing times, you might reasonably ask if they are working as hard on the relationship as we are.
True, they faithfully perform valuable functions for us, such as:
a) Eating anything you give them, and things that you don’t. One year, our golden retriever ate an entire home-made Christmas cake, something no-one else dared to do, even after several buckets of Christmas punch
b) Protecting us, by barking at threats such as bin men, plants, sunsets, somebody at the door, nobody is at the door, another dog possibly in another country, or none of these things.
c) sitting in your car, just behind the driver’ seat, in case the dog is invited to take over and steer.
Somehow dogs seem to drawing disproportionately high-end returns for these services. Dog treats have advanced from bone-shaped biscuits that smell of death, into chic bonbons containing pate or goose, sold at farmers’ markets.
More recently, dog cafés have started springing up. These are meant to be halfway houses for dogless humans, a relaxed setting where you can mingle with adoptable dogs and get to know each other, but the reality is that you sit with a latte and bun, while watched by a group of canines who are wagging their tails slowly and meaningfully. Do you recall the Boys From Brazil, when a pack of Dobermans corner Gregory Peck? You certainly will at a dog cafe.
This week, I was introduced to another level of canine coddling when dogsitting for a friend. Along with Baxter’s bowl, two tins of dog food, dog treats, and fistful of plastic bags for when Baxter was done with the dogmeat and biscuits, we were also entrusted with a dvd box set.
It turned out the dvds were also for Baxter. “Put it on when Baxter gets restless and starts checking his bowl” said his owner, which turned out to be no guidance at all, because Baxter checked his bowl as often as I check my phone. So ten minutes after Baxter’s owner departed, I put on the TV.
Baxter is a happy, friendly dog, but perhaps not the brightest. My mother used to give our dog an intelligence test, where you showed her a ball, then put it under a cushion, to see if the dog could find the ball.
Our retriever could never find the ball but I doubt Baxter could find the cushion. Consequently I wasn’t surprised when Baxter ignored his show.
“Look, I’ve put on one of your dvds,” I told Baxter, which made him rush off and check his bowl again. I tried tapping the TV. Baxter decided to inspect my bathroom. I would have had more luck if I’d coated my TV with marrowbone jelly.
In the end, I tried to set a good example by watching Baxter’s dvd for him. Most of it involved closeups of birds and squirrels eating seeds about a millimetre away from the camera. Each scene last 20 minutes: or 20 hours, in human years.
“Why are you watching a load of trees?” said my other half when he got home, and clicked over to the news.
Immediately Baxter came over and joined us. So if you need a dog video, we recommend Reporting Scotland. Or you could just throw a ball.
According to Helen on The Archers, there are now Fifty ONE Ways to Leave Your Lover…
Trainspotting producer Andrew Macdonald recently lamented that politicians had “absolutely no interest” in movies. Even his last picture, the sunny, home-grown Scots musical Sunshine On Leith failed to entice a single member of the Scottish government to its Edinburgh premiere.
However nationalist MP Drew Hendry offers a beacon of hope.
Drew went to see Eddie the Eagle, and registered his member’s interest by tweeting how much he loved the biopic of an optimistic Olympic skijumper, because despite being told by the GB establishment he wasn’t good enough, he refused to take “No” for an answer.
That’s an odd conclusion to draw, because “GB establishment” were right — Eddie wasn’t good enough, he came a distant last at the Calgary Games.
Still, now we know that if you want to snag a Scottish pol’s attention, you have to make a film they can relate to. On the slate now:
Take the Money and Run — Michelle Thompson
Big Trouble in Little China .– Nicola Sturgeon
Dad’s Army — Kezia Dugdale
Desolation of Rees Mogg — Mhairi Black
Indiana Bones and the Raiders of the Lost Bark — Willie Rennie
The Irn Bru Lady — Ruth Davidson
Salmond Fishing in the Yemen — Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh
The Lyin’, The Rich and The War Probe — Cat Boyd
No Sense and Sensibility — Kenny Maccaskill
Deforestation Gump — Patrick Harvie
A Clockwork Orange — Tommy Sheridan
The Droughtlander is at an end! A second series of the TV show Outlander begins this weekend, with more travails for Jamie and Claire, the McMills and Boon couple at the centre of Scottish saga.
However Scottish devotees will have to log onto Amazon Prime — which has prompted fans of wild-eyed plots to speculate that David Cameron used a meeting with the show’s production company to block the show in Scotland before Indyref.
Alas, the truth is less intriguing: Cameron met with the production company long after UK autumn schedules had been nailed down, and Outlander locked out. Outlander showrunner Ron Moore confirmed to Bafta Scotland that he had not been approached by the British government, nor asked to hold the series over until after Sept 18th.
Indeed STV were interested in screening Outlander — but the show wanted a deal with a national broadcaster, not one that covered only Scotland.
I’m a huge Outlander fan; the first series was wry, smart and surprisingly authentic in its scotticisms but, like Game of Thrones, there are reasons why national broadcasters can’t find a space for the show’s niche pleasures
Its frequent stopoffs for bold sexytime and gory showdowns make primetime problematic for the BBC, yet the series is way too expensive to shunt into a graveyard slot. And a Channel 4 executive recently confessed to me that they declined the show more than a year ago — without any Cameron intervention.
Well played, Wendi Deng. After 14 years of marriage, Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife is ready to love again.
Wendi first revealed herself as a woman of passion at the Levinson enquiry, when she punched out a bloke who tried to push a custard pie into Murdoch’s face. Now she is fearlessly taking another dip into the deep end of the dating pool — and rumour has it, she’s seeing Vladimir “Tax Haven Is A Place On Earth” Putin.
President Putin and his ex, Lyudmila, split up two years ago although the separation is said to have been amicable, since Lyudmila is still alive.
But how did Wendi and Vladimir get together? Perhaps Putin posted that astonishing picture of himself riding a horse, shirtless, on Tinder and Wendi swiped right for more info.
Or maybe Putin found her details while updating hobbies on his eHarmony profile to “love trips to the bottom of our Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest lake, because I get to see rare exotic fish and past political opponents”.
Some Russians might suggest that Putin isn’t that sexy — with or without his shirt — citing his history of election-rigging, oppression of gay people, corruption and admiration for Donald Trump. But you know what these Russians are called? Missing.
Wendi seems to know what she likes — mostly prominence on the world stage — but I do hope she leaves some bad boys for the rest of us, because I’ve been tracking Kim Jong-Un on Match.com for ages.
And if Putin has managed to annex Wendi’s heart, then political protestors may have to rethink any plans to hit Vladimir with a custard pie. Unless it turns out that the initial report was a misprint, and Wendi Deng is actually dating a puffin.
New chef Michael Roux looked a little tense on Saturday Kitchen at the weekend. But James Martin could have made the handover a lot messier, by cooking scrambled eggs and leaving the pan for Michel to clean, grilling sausages without putting foil underneath, or putting a buttery knife into the jam pot
Scotland is gearing up to get more localised content on the BBC website, including specialised video and audio. No doubt it’ll be on the ayePlayer.
