The Psychic Pug....

Lots has happened since I last posted the daily ramblings of man and hound. We've all passed a lot of water over the bridge (but not over the Twentieth Mile bride, in case we hit the electric train cables) but man and pug are still going strong - admittedly a year older but I can't be bothered to change the blog's title. Obi Pug Kenobi still rules the roost in our house. On a recent trip to London she saw a sign on the Underground reading 'Dogs Must Be Carried' and has decided that this doesn't just apply on the Tube....

So why am I writing again? Well, a few months ago Hertbeat was tucked up in bed with a nice milky drink, its favourite teddy and a dog-eared 'Famous Five' book only to re-emerge the next morning as a bold and confident, slightly more edgy teenager called 106 Jack FM. Jack's Breakfast show crew, which is effectively the same lovely people who did Hertbeat Breakfast, wanted their own take on Paul, the psychic octopus, who was so good at getting Germany's World Cup results spot on.

The Jack team wasted no time in getting Obi Pug Kenobi's (the chocolate biscuit being frantically waved in front of er nose probably helped). Would she be willing to put her puggy nose on the line and guess how Stevenage FC would do in their first ever League game against Macclesfield? With not one, but two, bowls of food on offer, how could she refuse?

So, ladies and gentlemen (if, indeed, you are), I bring you - the Psychic Pug......



P.S. - she wanted a crystal ball and a mystic looking headscarf - I said that if it wasn't good enough for Russell Grant it wasn't good enough for her....

Shurely Shome Mishtake....

Tuesday, 8.30pm

Thought for the Day - The length of the traffic jam a mile from home relates directly to the fullness of your bladder

Pug Status - Jammed in the corner of the settee, snoring her head off

A slight problem with my little car is slowly becoming a little pimple of inconvenience on the bottom of normality. The driver's side door won't open with the door key so I have to open the passenger side door and lean out.

Not too much of a problem but a little embarrassing at petrol stations and also a bit fraught if I park anywhere on slight nearside-offside slope, as I lunge across the gear-stick to use the inside handle then gallop round as fast as I can so that it doesn't slowly swing out into oncoming traffic....

I had an email at work today from one of the bid writers, commenting that one of the documents in the case study database had spelling and grammar errors. He had spelt 'grammar' wrong in his email....

Obi Pug Kenobi is suffering from Seasonal Affect Disorder I think; she has seemed a bit depressed since the clocks went back and she now has to venture out for a walk in the rain and cold. There's nothing that quite tugs on the heart strings as a pair of chocolate brown eyes peering out from a mask of dejection with an expression that says 'please take me away from all this...'

Who's the Goblin in the Nappy?

Wednesday, 9pm

Thought for the Day - Raw onions are never a good idea - especially when you have to kiss your mother goodbye

Pug Status - Severely affronted to find another pug in her chair

A toasty house and a hot pug on my lap - who could ask for more?

Had a very interesting few days at work, culminating in our department running an Autumn Fayre as a promotion for the rest of the firm to enjoy. Each of us had to help run a different stall, such as 'Splat the Rat' or 'Trick or Treat', but ours was a 'Whose Baby' competition with each of us submitting a cute (or, in my case, not so cute) photo....

Now, people who know me know that my memory is legendary. I am famously absent-minded and so it would come to no-one's surprise that I forgot to ask my parents for a photo until the night before the deadline. Luckily, Facebook came to my rescue, in the form of one of my siblings who has posted a photo of me in all my Terry-towelling chubby-cheeked glory! I quickly copied and cropped the pic and emailed it on to my colleague who was coordinating the picture board....

Unfortunately..... the scanning process and subsequent retouching for the purposes of display left my photo with a decidedly green tinge, making me look like the youngest goblin in the enchanted wood....

Still enjoying the driving to and from work - but I face a dilemma. Perhaps someone could help me out here - is it wrong for me to snigger to myself every morning that I drive past signs for The Camp Industrial Estate....??

It's a long time, and not just in politics....

Monday, 8.30pm

Thought for the Day - BBC Radio Oxford traffic alerts only ever come on the radio when you are at least ten miles away from Oxford, and nowhere else

Pug Status - Guarding her dinner from a greedy puppy....

Has it really been a week since my last blog post? A busy weekend what with shopping, cleaning, hallow'eening ad trying to drag a reluctant Princess Pug out for a walk in the kind of weather that even Gene Kelly would balk at hoofing through with an outsized brolly....

We thought that Obi Pug Kenobi may have taken umbrage at our fancy dress garb for next door's Hallow'een party, what with the wife dressed up as the Wicked Witch of the West and me sporting a greasepaint 'tash as Super Mario but she never even bothered to offer up a slight wuff; possibly being hunkered down in the comfiest armchair snuggled up in a warm blanket may have had something to do with her 'can't be bothered' attitude....

She did, though, get worked up into a frenzy this evening. With the fridge. What happened was that her dinner bowl slowly moved nearer and nearer to it as she attacked her liver and special pug biscuits - as it came to rest against the fridge door some biccies fell out and under the naughty chiller, tantalisingly out of reach of her little snout.

Of course, when you first come into the kitchen to be confronted with a small dog barking at a fridge door, it's really difficult to find a rational explanation....

Winter Draws On....

Monday, 9pm

Thought for the Day - Windscreen washer reservoirs always run out halfway through clearing severe bird guano carnage

Pug Status - Hating the early morning rain....

Has it really been a week since my last post? Ah well, that's the Royal Mail for you....

All the leaves are brown (the leaves are brown), and the sky is grey (and the sky is grey). I went for a walk (went for a walk), with a spoilt pug who barks irrationally at any leaves that tumble past in the wind, refusing to bound happily through the piles of red and yellow foliage unlike puppy Bob, who virtually swims through them like a pig in the proverbial. She even lifts a leg daintily in the air whenever she has a little Princess wee to minimise her contact with the nasty damp grass....

Ah well - soon be Christmas - you can tell by the thousands of adverts on TV that have suddenly sprung out of the woodwork. Time to start saving for a turkey the size of Basingstoke and to take collection of the food hamper you have paid £3.79 a week since January, that always contains a catering size can of fruit cocktail, a Dundee cake in a tin that you can only get into with a tin opener and then only after you have severed three fingers trying to carefully prise the top off, and the Ye Olde Oak Ham, a cylindrical-shaped mush of mechanically-removed grit and fingernails, held together by three square feet of jelly that tastes like it's been scooped straight from the Dead Sea....

Izzy Wizzy, Let's Get Busy!

Tuesday, 9pm

Thought for the Day - The day you get diverted in heavy traffic on the way to work will be the only day you don't have a map in the car

Pug Status - Doing her best 'rag doll' impression when picked up

Another busy day at work but I am really enjoying it, especially the interesting project work that I have been given. I met a new colleague for the first time who introduced herself and said that she had heard that I was 'really starting to pull up some trees' - perhaps she saw me parking yesterday....

The one thing I haven't mastered is the office doors. They are access controlled, activated by a card which I keep on one of those retractable fishing-line type contraptions on my belt. I have already been caught, quite embarrassingly, trying to open the door like a quick-draw Wild West gunslinger, but it hasn't put me off yet....

I tend to forget about the doors occasionally, and haven't quite got the hang of opening the door whilst carrying three mugs of tea - however, I have mastered the art of the 'right leg lift and hop', a bit like an apathetic conga - the first time I did it I resolved not to fill the mugs too full next time....

I left Obi Pug Kenobi on the bed this morning when I got up. I haven't got the heart to drag her outside when she wants to remain warm and cosy. Besides, the scrape of her claws on the headboard as she makes a determined effort to stay put keeps waking the wife up....

A lubricant-based Guitar Hero....

Tuesday, 9pm

Thought for the Day - Eating raw onions before a hospital visit = muttering under breath

Pug Status - Ears down and slightly narked by the current moving of living-room furniture

Just as you get into an early morning routine for a new job than the seasons conspire against you. For the first time in living memory I can't wait for the clocks to go back. It's like waking up inside a bar of Bournville at the moment....

The hardest part of the whole thing is trying to find a reluctant pug on the bed in the pitch black in order to take her down for, ahem, a morning 'visit'. Obi Pug Kenobi is not a morning dog and has taken to creeping away from my outstretched arms and burying herself into Mummy when I try to gently excise her from the toasty duvet. I gave up this morning when I realised I had left the bedroom carrying two pillows....

An interesting drive into work today. After the daily heart-ache of losing the Hertbeat FM radio signal just as I motor on to the old M10 I happened to pass one of those lorry tankers that refill the pumps at petrol stations. On the back end of the tanker it read 'Emo Oil', which got me thinking; is this either an angst-ridden lubricant that will lead me to wear skinny jeans and studded belts, or do they only sell it to people who have a 'Jimmy Eats World' album and a penchant for the colour black?