ANNA GRACE, my online cyberspouse, has been worrying herself ragged because her tiny pet porkshire terrier, Elle (short for Eleanor Rigby), has been diagnosed with doggie breast cancer and went under the knife at the weekend.
I just left a comment telling Anna the worst thing her doggie will now have to endure will be wandering about Green Bay, Wisconsin for the next week or so dressed as a furry light fitting. Doggies get just as embarrassed as we do when they think they look silly. Our late dog Glodemmer, who looked like a silvery furry seal, once had such bad "diredalls" as we called it (diarrhoea) that she had to have a fur-cut around her backside to get rid of all the "cagal" ~ as it's called in Welsh. (As far as I know there is no English word meaning "dried dung on animals' backs".)
Poor Elle has had to have the surgery all down her chest ~ with dogs having up to ten teats it all has to go. I told Anna I don't think Eleanor will be in that much pain, especially by now, as the surgical invasion is superficial as operations go. (Less than a centimetre deep ~ surely?) My friend's landlady once had a quadruple heart bypass and that was agony, but only because they'd gone so far in, and to get in had to saw her ribcage open. So every time she breathed post-surgery she was in agony... Eleanor Griggsby's surgery is superficial in comparison and I reckon that by now she'll be fine.
When I went to buy my lemonade from Sainsbury's this morning I saw a cute scruffy terrier with beady chocolate drop eyes tied up by the automatic doors. This doggy's eyes were so beady you couldn't see any whites to them. I so much wanted to kidnap the shaggy swine and take it home. But alas an old lady who looked like her name was Marge appeared with pats and kisses and yummy tripe dinner ~ and that was just for me! When she saw Chocolate Drop's lead in my hand (because that's what I'd renamed him) she started screaming like a wicked witch passing a kidney stone and security chased me right down the high road. No I'm just kidding. I always fantasize about taking the little doggies outside supermarkets for a walkies all the way home. And sometimes the great big ones. One time I came across this giant akita with the bushiest white fur,
but there was no chance of making off with it. The dog was so enormous I'd have had to drag it away. And being an akita, the most faithful of all dog breeds, her eyes were fixated ceaselessly where her very bourgeois owner was gliding up and down the smoked salmon and bagle isles. And I do think she was a "she". That's what I've always wanted. A gigantic female akita with really bushy white fur. Or toitoiseshell brindled fur. Or brown fur. Or grey fur. Or black for that matter. Or any kind of fur, really ~ just as long as it's ultra bushy and she has slanty kindly caring faithful Japanese eyes. My business model in owning an akita was to make sure she did NOT get spayed. And I was going to make sure I got to know the whereabouts and walkies habits of every male akita in the area. So when she did come on heat ~ hey presto! A basketful of snaggling, wailing, baying bushy-furred akita puppies! Which cost anything up to £1000 ($1597.50 each these days (which is why I can't afford one). I have looked in the local animal shelters' sites but they NEVER have akitas. Basically these shelters are running (and barking and baying and whistling and groaning) over with STAFFORDSHIRE BULL TERRIERS and I really don't want one of those. They've always been "a bit common"... and now just about everyone seems to have one. And more to the point they DON'T HAVE BUSHY FUR. I want a doggie with really thick shagpile-style fur. And it must be enormous with Japanese eyes and a tail that piggles up on its back. In other words it must be an Akita!
I went and bought some glossy magazines for inspiration. I have always wanted to own and edit a magazine since my teens. Yesterday I got Vanity Fair. Today I got GQ and
i-D (which used to be a lifestyle magazine, but has transmogrified into a fash mag. But it's cutting-edge fashion. Not the kind of dull fashion-victim crap British Vogue seem to specialize in).
I also got a title called
Hero which seems to be men's fashion. But this is ultra-cutting-edge, with arty paper and ideosyncratic text layout. Whoever is head of ad sales for that title should get shot between the eyes with their head on a plate for apart from the back cover, there was not a single ad to be seen throughout the entire publication. For my magazine I want cutting edge photography, artwork and overall layout. It needs to have a real "picture book" style to it, so you can just flick through and be transported into a different world. But then you flick back and the text is in-depth and full of the intriguing details we all wanna hear. I will specialize in really really long features about fascinating things and people. I can't be more specific than this as I don't want
Condé Nast nicking my ideas! Some of my concepts are fabulous. Eg I thought of doing a society magazine for the rougher elements of the lower classes. I was going to call it Second Class Socialite. And I'll cover the social scene in places such Essex, Coventry and Manchester's Moss Side ~ don't you think that would be a massive seller?! We'd be over-run by ads for
Ratners Jewellers, herpes creams, pound shops etc. Our restaurant reviews would focus on KFC, McDonalds, Burger King and the like ... hey what am I saying ~ KFC's far too "posh n pricey" for my readers! And we could do "Crack House Couture" "The World of Council Flat Interiors" and fashion spreads of stuff stolen from the charity bins. O, I can really see this taking off...
Now I MUST GO I never slept last night and my mind is bleary. Any submissions ~ text or artwork for Second Class Socialite are gratefully accepted. You can save money on wages by just taking on loads of interns, all desperate to work in "the media" who'll slog their guts out for free! Each month we'll put all contributors' names in a bucket and the winner will get a £5 ($7.99) Argos voucher! How does that sound...?
Talking of fashmags here's Linda Evangelista ~ the most Superbly Superlative of all Supermodels in her time...
Illustrated: Anna's Porkshire Pooch ~ the original Eleanor Rigby; beautiful white akita pup; Hero magazine...
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