We chose you because you seemed so relaxed and happy in your kennel, but curious, gentle and friendly when we took you outside. We knew you were going to need loads of exercise, but we were happy to take you out for two or three hours of walks a day, longer on our days off. And you'd have the garden to run around in between.
On the journey home, I was impressed with your trust, constantly looking to me for reassurance as I held you safe on the back seat. You must have been so bewildered and scared, but you didn't cry or bark or wee.
We did tons of research and listened intently to the good advice the trainer gave us on our introductory talk, but we still probably did everything wrong that first day. We did our best to leave you to discover your new home at your own pace, We tried to see whether you knew any commands. You didn't know "sit" or "here", you didn't even know your name. We tried to get you to play, you didn't seem to know how. But you seemed to forgive us, and you were so good when we put you to bed.
We knew as soon as we got you home that you were a chewer. Still, all dogs chew things, and we were prepared for a level of destruction. The howling that first night was understandable, it was obviously going to take you a while to settle in. We were sad about the wooden window blinds you ate through, but knew it wasn't your fault, so instead of telling you off we went out and bought a huge crate to put your bed in. It was the only way the room would be safe from you and vice versa while we weren't in the room.
We knew you were going to be hard work, Esme, but you are one of the sweetest natured dogs I have ever met, and you deserved the effort. After the first 24 hours, though, you were miserable and we were exhausted. The only time you were happy was out on walks. The rest of the time, you paced the house, crying and chewing things. We could distract you for a few moments with a toy or a chew, but within seconds, you'd be chewing again. We would have called it separation anxiety, except you did it when we were both there. I've known big and powerful dogs, but I've never seen one bite great chunks out of solid wood furniture before. Esme, how could we keep you safe? You would have eaten everything made of wood or plastic if we took our eyes off you for long enough to go to the toilet, and you didn't care if a bottle you were chewing contained milk or washing-up liquid. We very quickly ran out of high places to put things on.
Paul and I were down to one meal a day by day three, to spare us the difficulty of coaxing you into your crate several times a day, and to stop you from thinking the crate was a punishment or a torture. A cup of tea became more trouble than it was worth because you don't yet understand that not everything is for dogs, and would knock it from our hands.
Every waking moment was spent following you around saying no. What kind of life is that for us or for you? I know you will learn, but we simply don't have the experience or resources to look after you till you are trained.
It became clear how wrong we were for you the first time you were confident enough to play in the garden. You raced up and down, but seeing you at full tilt made me realise that an ordinary suburban garden is nowhere near enough space for you. And that if you saw a squirrel, you would be over our six foot fences in a flash. So I let you dig up all our vegetables, because at least you seemed happy when you were digging.
The next day I rang the charity you came from, and they were good enough to agree to let us bring you back there on Friday. I'm telling myself what the charity's vet said - that we have helped you by finding out things about you that no-one could have ever known when you were in kennels. I'll be recommending that the next people who fall in love with you take you to a home with a very large, very secure garden. And that you need to be with other dogs. I think that's what you're looking for when you pace around crying. I found myself telling the vet that you seemed much happier in the kennels than you ever have since we brought you home, and it breaks my heart to realise it's true.
I don't feel sad for you, Esme, because I know we're taking you back to a much better chance than you'll have with us. I don't think you'll miss us anywhere near as much as you've been missing the company of other dogs.
I am sad that we will miss your company and the pleasure of seeing you gradually grow into the happy well-trained dog you have so much potential to be. We will donate all your belongings to the rescue when we take you back, and eventually we'll repair the hundreds of pounds worth of damage you did to our house. But I would swap any amount of furniture for the ability to be the owner that you need.
Thursday 30 May 2013
Wednesday 15 May 2013
And back to local matters...
this is my other Coventry poem. It's not terribly highbrow, but it made me laugh.
How The Statues of Coventry Get Around When We're Not Looking
Frank Whittle
Goes for a little walk
around Millennium Square
Lady Godiva
's not a bad driver
But does it still completely bare
Saint Mike
Has a secret bike
And rides it till he gets a stitch
Jimmy Hill
Can't keep still
And cartwheels on the Ricoh pitch
Things I Have Learned From Masterchef India
Thanks to the Lovely Paul's predilection for cooking shows, I have watched Masterchef UK (foams), Australia (cakes), South Africa (meat), New Zealand (things people have shot) and Ireland (cream on everything). The one I was really looking forward to though, was Masterchef India, and when I discovered it on StarPlus (somewhere up in the 700s on Sky; purveyor of soap operas and talent shows), it did not disappoint.
It took a few episodes to absorb the differences between the Indian show and some of the others in the franchise. In India, Masterchef is firmly a game show. The celebrity guests aren't chefs, they're tv presenters and comedians. The team challenges aren't focussed on scallop-fed fine diners, but snack-hungry passers-by. The contestants are not let loose in Michelin-starred restaurant kitchens, but are taken to different parts of India to learn about local specialities.
This last is interesting, as, compared to other Mastercheffy countries, India has such a vast geographical, ethnic and cultural spread that it's hard to pinpoint a "national" cuisine. So it makes sense that they choose the contestants via a series of regional public cook-offs. Of course, this gives a slightly higher than average proportion of people who just want to be on the telly, but even the most persistent of squeaking, hopping drama queens on the show at present can at least cook.
The challenges are much more compelling than the ones on UK Masterchef, having been devised with a cackling insanity worthy of the Generation Game. Challenge one: here is a sumptuous platter of fruits, vegetables and dairy for all the contestants to coo and marvel at. Before they've finished plotting their spectacular dishes, the goodies are whipped away and replaced with the real ingredients for their invention test: the stems, rinds, whey and other leavings from what they thought they were getting. They're cooking with a compost heap. Now that's a challenge, sod the "ooh, whatever am I going to make with just a jar of larks' tongues, an ox and a fistful of razor clams" vapours that tend to overcome the UK contestants.
You'll notice, as well, that there was no meat or fish in that challenge. It is genuinely not an issue. The vegetarian is not a second class citizen in India, and it's the first cooking show I've seen, from anywhere in the world, that takes vegetarian cooking seriously. One of the best cooks in the competition (a young man named Happy Singh who was eliminated shockingly early) had recently become vegetarian, and this was hardly remarked upon. When he was required to cook chicken, a team-mate tasted it for him with the same casual air that the presenters assumed when helping the talented, popular and illiterate Kokhu with written recipes. The participants seem to automatically adjust the competition to be fair.
Compare this with the New Zealand Masterchef-before-last, when the unlovable presenters made some poor vegetarian bastard force down a sausage in front of them before they'd let him progress to the next round. Surely a good chef should be able to make an excellent meal without using meat? (and don't get me started on how the Aussies call meat and fish "protein", as if vegetarians somehow magically survive on just carbohydrates and fat.) Anyway, even Ishrat - who went out first and always had sauce in her hair - is a better bet to make a good veggie dinner than most meat-obsessed Michelin starred chefs (with the exception of Angela Hartnett, whose vegetarian food I have enjoyed as she seems to regard it as a challenge rather than a nuisance).
It's endlessly fascinating to watch, but obviously a culture shift for the average Brit viewer. As a non-Hindi speaker, I'm reliant on subtitles, and though they're generally excellent, now and again one finds oneself derailed by a "terrain of dedicated coconut". Health and safety appears rather casual (here, have a feel of this dry ice), though I haven't noticed many fingers seemingly stuck back on with blue plasters, a look UK Masterchef contestants seem to favour. The Indian judges, to me, seem to enjoy playing god a little bit too much, but then most Masterchefs tend to try and convince viewers that they hold much more drama than any meringue-based situation actually deserves.
A big difference is the AMOUNT of food cooked. In one challenge Doyel and Devyani each had to fill a metre-high sundae glass with some kind of multilayered falooda pudding. What happened to it afterwards? Was all that food simply wasted? It wasn't the sort of thing that could easily be packaged up for the crew to take home for their kids, or given to homeless people. It would be bad enough being homeless, you wouldn't want to be sticky as well. In other Masterchefs, quantities are so tiny that the question is never raised. Saira, highly placed in the UK version recently, defined fine dining as "food that there isn't enough of". This caused John Torode to raise his eyebrows in what he imagined was a wry fashion, and me to applaud. Is the difference because most of the Indian kitchen superstars have learned their craft cooking for family, so are used to making in bulk? Or is Western dining over-dainty? It's something that hasn't come up in any other Masterchef I've watched, so while I can't say huge quantities are peculiar to India, there must be something going on that I haven't understood.
Now approaching the end of the series, the producers, in one of their beloved "twists" have brought back contestants who were previously eliminated, so at this stage it is anyone's game (my favourite is Yasmin, who seems to know enough about food to be confidently experimental, but tends to just quietly get on with producing excellent dishes). The "real-time" aspect of the show means that we genuinely can't guess the outcome, unlike the UK version, filmed months before it is shown, and also means that the programme can exist in the real world - it's Holi: create a celebration dish!, it's Chef Sanjeev's birthday: bake him a cake!
I will be sad to see the series end, as the gameshow format allows us to get to know the contestants (as does the Australian one, which makes them all live in a big house together, and once threw someone out for having a mobile phone). However, once I'm not spending my time actually watching it, I'll be able to try out all the new recipes and techniques I've learned, with the aid of subtitles and search engines. What does holy basil taste like? How do I use jaggery? This is going to be fun.
It took a few episodes to absorb the differences between the Indian show and some of the others in the franchise. In India, Masterchef is firmly a game show. The celebrity guests aren't chefs, they're tv presenters and comedians. The team challenges aren't focussed on scallop-fed fine diners, but snack-hungry passers-by. The contestants are not let loose in Michelin-starred restaurant kitchens, but are taken to different parts of India to learn about local specialities.
This last is interesting, as, compared to other Mastercheffy countries, India has such a vast geographical, ethnic and cultural spread that it's hard to pinpoint a "national" cuisine. So it makes sense that they choose the contestants via a series of regional public cook-offs. Of course, this gives a slightly higher than average proportion of people who just want to be on the telly, but even the most persistent of squeaking, hopping drama queens on the show at present can at least cook.
The challenges are much more compelling than the ones on UK Masterchef, having been devised with a cackling insanity worthy of the Generation Game. Challenge one: here is a sumptuous platter of fruits, vegetables and dairy for all the contestants to coo and marvel at. Before they've finished plotting their spectacular dishes, the goodies are whipped away and replaced with the real ingredients for their invention test: the stems, rinds, whey and other leavings from what they thought they were getting. They're cooking with a compost heap. Now that's a challenge, sod the "ooh, whatever am I going to make with just a jar of larks' tongues, an ox and a fistful of razor clams" vapours that tend to overcome the UK contestants.
You'll notice, as well, that there was no meat or fish in that challenge. It is genuinely not an issue. The vegetarian is not a second class citizen in India, and it's the first cooking show I've seen, from anywhere in the world, that takes vegetarian cooking seriously. One of the best cooks in the competition (a young man named Happy Singh who was eliminated shockingly early) had recently become vegetarian, and this was hardly remarked upon. When he was required to cook chicken, a team-mate tasted it for him with the same casual air that the presenters assumed when helping the talented, popular and illiterate Kokhu with written recipes. The participants seem to automatically adjust the competition to be fair.
Compare this with the New Zealand Masterchef-before-last, when the unlovable presenters made some poor vegetarian bastard force down a sausage in front of them before they'd let him progress to the next round. Surely a good chef should be able to make an excellent meal without using meat? (and don't get me started on how the Aussies call meat and fish "protein", as if vegetarians somehow magically survive on just carbohydrates and fat.) Anyway, even Ishrat - who went out first and always had sauce in her hair - is a better bet to make a good veggie dinner than most meat-obsessed Michelin starred chefs (with the exception of Angela Hartnett, whose vegetarian food I have enjoyed as she seems to regard it as a challenge rather than a nuisance).
It's endlessly fascinating to watch, but obviously a culture shift for the average Brit viewer. As a non-Hindi speaker, I'm reliant on subtitles, and though they're generally excellent, now and again one finds oneself derailed by a "terrain of dedicated coconut". Health and safety appears rather casual (here, have a feel of this dry ice), though I haven't noticed many fingers seemingly stuck back on with blue plasters, a look UK Masterchef contestants seem to favour. The Indian judges, to me, seem to enjoy playing god a little bit too much, but then most Masterchefs tend to try and convince viewers that they hold much more drama than any meringue-based situation actually deserves.
A big difference is the AMOUNT of food cooked. In one challenge Doyel and Devyani each had to fill a metre-high sundae glass with some kind of multilayered falooda pudding. What happened to it afterwards? Was all that food simply wasted? It wasn't the sort of thing that could easily be packaged up for the crew to take home for their kids, or given to homeless people. It would be bad enough being homeless, you wouldn't want to be sticky as well. In other Masterchefs, quantities are so tiny that the question is never raised. Saira, highly placed in the UK version recently, defined fine dining as "food that there isn't enough of". This caused John Torode to raise his eyebrows in what he imagined was a wry fashion, and me to applaud. Is the difference because most of the Indian kitchen superstars have learned their craft cooking for family, so are used to making in bulk? Or is Western dining over-dainty? It's something that hasn't come up in any other Masterchef I've watched, so while I can't say huge quantities are peculiar to India, there must be something going on that I haven't understood.
Now approaching the end of the series, the producers, in one of their beloved "twists" have brought back contestants who were previously eliminated, so at this stage it is anyone's game (my favourite is Yasmin, who seems to know enough about food to be confidently experimental, but tends to just quietly get on with producing excellent dishes). The "real-time" aspect of the show means that we genuinely can't guess the outcome, unlike the UK version, filmed months before it is shown, and also means that the programme can exist in the real world - it's Holi: create a celebration dish!, it's Chef Sanjeev's birthday: bake him a cake!
I will be sad to see the series end, as the gameshow format allows us to get to know the contestants (as does the Australian one, which makes them all live in a big house together, and once threw someone out for having a mobile phone). However, once I'm not spending my time actually watching it, I'll be able to try out all the new recipes and techniques I've learned, with the aid of subtitles and search engines. What does holy basil taste like? How do I use jaggery? This is going to be fun.
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