Puppy Training

(Edit: due to me not figuring out how to update stuff, this post for some reason got movedfrom 9/05 to now. This annoys me. It vexes me. Ah well).

So I'm once again up in the frozen northlands known as the land of Scots. I've been sent here for an incredibly important mission, and this mission is to puppy-sit. Yes, you heard me. Puppy-sitting. It all started like this.


Back before Christmas my parents were called up by a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, who is now just a friend. This lady has a beagle lady by the name of Bailey. This lady would like her Bailey impregnated.


Enter Basil, my parent's beagle, an ever-timid hound that has a decent pedigree and the soul of a quivering leaf. Of all the dogs we've had over the years, Basil has definately been the one who stands out, not having a disobedient bone in his body. He's a lovely dog. And he was then hired to do some mounting. Now, knowing Bas as I do, it was pretty difficult to imagine him gettin' it on, as they say, but apparently he managed it (twice, so I'm told, that stud) and now twelve weeks later here we are.


Puppies.


That was the whole idea, of course. And when it comes to hiring out stud dogs, the owner has a choice of payment, which is either a sum of monies (I don't know the numbers involved, it may change on how successful the pregnancy is) or their pick of the litter. Naturally, my parents don't need the money and decided that they wished for the pitter patter of tiny beagle paws. And what did we decide to call him? Our newest? Why, Bailey, of course. 'Cause that won't get confusing at all.


So I've been up in scotland for a week and a half, the pup having arrived about 24 hours before I did, and I've been sitting with him, playing with him, making sure he doesn't wee in the house, attempting to train him and not be chewed too much.


It's been a difficult week and a half, to be honest. You know how absolutely adorable these things are? If you measure out that adorableness, it about equals their destructiveness. He is the destroyer or toys, gardens, serenity and sleep patterns.


But he's gorgeous.


I'll get some pics.


Back down south tomorrow. I'll miss the blighter, he's certainly lively, but I won't miss the constant sitting around and waiting for him to realise that outside is for bowel movements, not the living room carpet. Fun times.


WHITE HEAT
(from the BBC)


Now much like James Herriot, I wasn't sure why I wanted to talk about this series. Much like James Herriot, it had a decent historical setting, and again didn't use all of the potential that it offered. Since most people didn't know it existed, allow me to lay it out for you.


In 2012, six men and women gather to clean out the flat of their former seventh flatmate. All these people met back in the sixties, when they moved into the same flat together as students. Now, forty seven years later, the only one of them to still live there has died and the rest arrive.


It's a bittersweet series and most of the action takes place in flashback, the first episode is 1965, then the second is 1967 and it goes through to 1990 for the last one, with the changing ways of these people's lives, the choices they made and how Britain changed with them.


One of my problems with the series is also it's great strength, are we supposed to be watching the country or the characters? We can see the politics sprawling out in the background and how the characters get involved in it, but there are times when I'm not sure if we should be focussing on the characters themselves or the world behind them.


This being said, it's a kind of haunting look back at the world that we left behind just a short while ago and it makes you wonder if we should have, if things have really changed for the better. I'm no political expert, but time has yet to tell me that we're doing better now than we were under Thatcher. Nice shout out to Greenham Airbase in ep6, however.


(that's not far from my house)


The one thing I would definately say was that with the talents of the cast provided (and they were good, Clare Foy and Paul Copely being favourites of mine, as well as the under-rated Lee Ingleby), I don't think there was enough of this show. True to BBC form, 6 episodes is all you get, but the premise provided for those 6 episodes could easily have done for 6 seasons. I feel that we rushed through these many years far too quickly and there were times that it was hard to fill in the gaps in my own mind as to what had happened in between. Slowing down might have been a good idea, since the whole series was rather sedate, yet rushed at the same juxtaposed time.


Wasn't sure about Tamsin Grieg's lunatic mother character, didn't think she fitted too well.


Yeah, that about sums up my opinions on it. Good show, worth a watch when it next crops up.


Next time: Skins. All of it.