Quite a lot about dogs (sorry)

Also, Anora and Emilia Pérez. And a nice cake. And a very beautiful lampshade.

Immediate life sentence!

Forgive me for what we’re about to discuss, truly, but two things have occurred in the past week which make it relevant.

Firstly, a conversation with my neighbour, who has a Schnauzer called Molly, and who I fell into step with in the park last week while Dennis and Molly tumbled around in the mud like two small whirlwinds. The conversation, I’m sorry to say, was about dog poo. Had I noticed, she said, a distinct increase in the, er, matter on the local pavements?

‘Yes!’ I said, because only the day before I was walking up to the gym and had to dodge something that could really only have been left by a dinosaur smack bang in the middle of the pavement.

My neighbour agreed - tons of it, all around us. I told her that it was making me paranoid when I took Dennis out for his last evening stroll around our block, in case people glanced out of their windows and thought ‘Oh look, there goes that irresponsible woman with her small dog, crapping all over the pavements again. She should be in prison.’ It’s not us! I’m the woman who stands there for half an hour trying to get the SODDING little green bag open (does anyone make poo bags that are easier to open up without the sides sticking together, so you don’t have to spend hours fumbling with it? I’m ALL EARS if so.)

Similarly, when my neighbour takes Molly out, apparently she goes through a very demonstrative, pantomime performance of retrieving a bag from her pocket and loudly talking through the motions. ‘Well done, Molly, GOOD GIRL. Wait a second, just let me PICK THIS UP’ and so on, so that everyone in the surrounding five streets can hear her being a good dog owner.

That was the first thing that happened.

The second thing that happened was that, on the weekend, the Sunday Telegraph ran a story about the increase in complaints about dog poo soaring since the pandemic. They’ve trebled in some areas since the pandemic puppy boom. Rotten luck if you live in the boroughs of Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire, or North Lanarkshire in Scotland, because these are apparently the most complained-about areas. In London, it’s Camden.

So, that’s what we’re discussing today. And I’m sorry because a) it’s a very unlovely topic and b) because I went on about lavatorial Valentine’s cards last week and here we are now talking about dog poo. But I suppose that’s life, isn’t it - Valentine’s cards and love one minute, suddenly much less fragrant the next.

What is to be done about this epidemic? I’ve allso discovered a furious thread on Mumsnet about the subject posted just over a week ago, begun by a mother who took eight photos of separate dog poos on the walk to school which she thoughtfully uploaded to Mumsnet as evidence. Cross respondents suggested more bins, monitoring people via their Ring doorbells, more street wardens, more CCTV, dog licenses and compulsory DNA testing for dogs, so that abandoned dog poo can be identified and the owner subsequently fined (this sounds unfeasible, if I’m honest?), and so on and so on.

Apparently Telford and Wrekin council, aware of the problem, has started spray-painting stencils around dog poo on the pavements in an effort to highlight it, but I honestly don’t understand how decorating the streets like some kind of child’s art project can possibly help. It’s not as if the owner’s going to come back and pick it up because the dog poo has now got a colourful necklace around it, is it?

Talking of which, WHO are the people who manage to pick up their dog poo but then hang it from trees, or leave it somewhere else peculiar instead of going the full distance and popping it in a bin? I am genuinely baffled by this practice. It’s actually weirder, I reckon, than just leaving it on the pavement.

I don’t really have an answer to all this, but the growing fury surrounding dogs worries me a bit because it sometimes feels as if the gulf between Dog People and Not Dog People is widening. At leas it does in London. Us and them, as is the case with so many things, now. I mentioned a very angry local Facebook discussion about dogs on leads here a couple of weeks ago, but having scrolled through the pages and PAGES of crossness on the Mumsnet thread, it seems to be all over the country. Many of us love them, many of us have them, but many people hate them and are increasingly demanding they be restricted to certain spaces.

There was one suggestion on the thread which is probably sensible, but which also made me feel ill, and this was that dog owners pick up other dog poo if they see it in a collaborative effort to improve the situation. That is maybe fair, but if there’s anything worse that putting one’s hand into a small plastic bag and picking up your own dog’s warm poo, it’d be putting it into a small plastic bag and picking up someone else’s cold dog poo. SORRY SORRY I KNOW IT’S A TUESDAY MORNING CAN I GIVE IT A REST.

But is this what it’s come to?

Picture of the week

Right, a palate cleanser after the above. Look at my lovely lampshade! I bought it as an early birthday present to myself, to go with the very magnificent olive wood lamp my dad and stepmother gave me for Christmas. It came from a company called Bloomsbury Revisited, which is run by two women both called Jane, who hand-paint THE most beautiful lampshades. You can find their website HERE. I’ve been hankering after a fig one and also a naked lady one for aaaaages, but decided figs worked best with the olive wood. But I would honestly have any of their shades because I think they’re all incredibly lovely, and quite different to shades you see elsewhere. Because much though I love Pooky, you do often walk into someone’s house and think ‘Oh look, yet another Pooky shade’, don’t you? (In a crowded field, this is possibly the most middle-class thing I’ve ever written.)

If you need a different size or something’s out of stock you can just email one of the Janes and they’ll sort it out. Again, this isn’t an advert because I paid for it and everything. I just think they’re wonderful shades and they were equally wonderful to deal with, and my figs will now bring me GREAT joy every time I wander into my sitting room.

Their naked cherub quite jolly too, no?

Recommendations of the week

We’re talking films up for Oscars today, and they’re both available on streaming platforms. I didn’t watch Anora for ages because of the trailer. Look, here you go:

Doesn’t look like a laugh a minute, does it? It looked gritty and intense in parts, and I could see why it had been dubbed the new Pretty Woman. Young American ‘dancer’ meets rich Russian oligarch’s son, they get married, drama ensues. But I wasn’t particularly desperate to see it, even though it’s been nominated for six Oscars. Then my little bro told me it was great, so I did watch it over the weekend and, lo and behold, I loved it. What you don’t get from the trailer is how funny it is. And tbf for the first 20 mins or so, it isn’t that funny. But then it morphs into a manhunt with such a funny and well-cast set of characters I genuinely gurgled with laughter throughout. It is quite intense, and very sweary if that’s not your bag, but it’s also very entertaining, and Mikey Madison - brittle, mouthy, fierce - is rightly up for a nod as Best Actress aged 25.

Also, because of all the brouhaha over the other big Oscar film, Emilia Pérez (read about the problem that erupted a couple of weeks ago HERE, and Marina Hyde neatly summing it up HERE), Anora is apparently now more likely to pick up various awards. It’s on Apple if you have Apple.

(Talking of which, I also watched Emilia Pérez over the weekend, having initially been put off by the fact that it was a musical about a Mexican drug lord. Actually, despite the fuss surrounding it, I quite enjoyed it, which I’m not sure we’re even allowed to say now? It’s original, at least, and on Netflix if you want to watch and understand what everyone’s banging on about.)

Right, second recommendation: THIS CAKE RECIPE, which is very, very good, orangey and sugary and feels a tiny bit lighter than some cakes because it’s gluten-free. A GF cake that’s actually nice, I promise. It also comes with an attached ramble, brace yourself…

A month or so ago, my sister and I had lunch at my uncle’s house. My uncle is an exceptional cook and he’d made this cake for pudding. It was his mother’s recipe (or my grandmother’s), he reminded us, because we’ve had various times it over the years and I’ve always loved it, but never made because the cake myself felt like one of those things that might be quite complicated. Too many elements; too much faff.

Anyway, my uncle emailed us the recipe after that lunch (titled ‘Mum’s Tunisian Almond and orange cake recipe’) and I decided to make it this weekend because I was staying with a gluten-free pal. Turns out, it’s very easy and I promise I’m not just saying this. I’m a lazy cook who never wants to make anything with 63 ingredients. You just need to remember to make it a day ahead of eating because it’s best once the sugar syrup has soaked through it, and keep it in the fridge because it needs to be served cold.

Also, it turns out it wasn’t my grandmother’s recipe, because I’ve found the above recipe online attributing it to the famed Irish cooking school, Ballymaloe. So someone’s been fibbing about that (🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️ ), but as my magnificent, much-missed grandmother isn’t here anymore, I can’t pull her up on this.

Nonsense of the week

Now, I’m a bit embarrassed about this. Especially given the above about dog poo. Especially given last week’s ranting about Valentine’s cards, but did you know that Britain has a ‘National Poo Museum’? It’s slogan, naturally, is ‘have you been?’

I haven’t, but I read about it in The Times over the weekend because it’s going on tour after nine years in its current home, a public convenience on the Isle of Wight. We don’t know where it’s going on tour because they haven’t announced yet but it sounds like the kind of thing that would entrance small children. And quite possibly some big ones.

The curator, Daniel Roberts, apparently had the idea for the museum a decade ago when he nearly trod in a lynx poo while on holiday in Sweden, and its exhibits include various animal poos (they can have some from my pavements, if they like), plus plenty of history and facts about the matter (did you know, for example, that wombat poo is square?). Apparently there’s also a poo perfume you can try. Don’t ask me. I haven’t been.

I’m sorry to say I spent at LEAST half an hour reading its Tripadvisor reviews yesterday and barking with laughter at my computer screen. I liked this one very much, for example, from Alison M: ‘My advice is take your time, read and try everything, if there are people behind you, let them pass. It’s like a good poo, best not rushed.’

Also this from Julie D: ‘We failed to visit the museum in 2022 and 2023 but 2024 was ‘turd’ time lucky for us.’

Sorry, sorry, one more, from Shakeel, who declared it ‘excrement value for money.’

I was being all prim about this kind of subject last week, I KNOW. But tbf that was in relation to Valentine’s cards. I don’t want anything about poo on my Valentine card. But something about the above really tickled me.

AND THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH ABOUT THAT FOR ONE WEEK.

An exhibit at the museum. You never see this sort of thing at the Royal Academy, do you?

PS. Dennis update of the week

I went walking around the park last Thursday morning with the Today show in my ears (via my lovely new headphones as discussed the other day), while listening to an item about lab-grown dog food. The UK has just become the first country in the WORLD to launch lab-grown dog food, or lab-grown meat, a bit like the lab-grown Impossible burger, and Radio 4 were quizzing dog owners about whether or not they’d give ‘lab-grown chicken’, made from a few chicken egg cells, to their furry friends.

Everyone they interviewed seemed pretty nervous about the idea BUT did you know that nearly a quarter of the meat consumed in the UK is by pets (a quarter!), which means they’re significantly contributing to the our carbon footprint? Cut back the meat our pets (and in this case, dogs) eat, and reduce carbon emissions. So, lab-grown food. According to my pal Andy, who knows about these things, owning a medium-sized dog is the equivalent to owning a medium-sized car, in terms of emissions. Your cockapoo is essentially the same as a Skoda Octavia, in other words. If you have a dog AND a car, you might as well be flying about the place in a private jet. Sort of.

Anyway, I was pretty sceptical about fake dog meat until later that day when my friend Laura from the Sunday Times called and said would Dennis be up for trying it? At the time, I believe Dennis was eating his 37th insole of the morning (he’s obsessed with insoles. Every shoe I own is missing an insole. If I’m running out of the house in a hurry, I pick up a shoe and its insole is gone, so I have to find another pair of shoes, and their insoles are also gone, so I bury deeper in the shoe basket for another pair, and so on and so on. Pretty soon I’ll just give up and leave the house in bare feet.)

So, given that Dennis’s diet is 63 per cent insole, I figured I couldn’t be that precious about giving him lab-grown meat. I spoke to a lovely woman called Evie at Pets At Home, where the lab-grown meat has been launched, who biked me over a bag of the Chick Bites and we tested it. HERE is the piece about it all, and about how silly we dog owners have become about what we give them in general…