DOGS

I haven´t really had a conversation with anybody today, apart from an extremely irritating chat with an Australian about the Ashes.

"Well," he said, "it took you 16 years to win them back, and only 16 months to lose them again." I saw exactly the same quotation on Guardian Unlimited today, so I award him nul points for originality. "Still," he continued, "you did a great thing for world cricket last summer - good on you." Fuck that - what does he think we are, some sort of charity case? He then proceeded to expound his view that England were more or less lucky to win the Ashes in 2005 anyway, at which point I pushed him out of a third-storey window.

After that bad start, I have turned my attention to animals today. Argentina claims to be a nation of animal-lovers. Well, for a country that loves its dogs, there are a hell of a lot of stray ones about. There are hundreds of reasons to love Buenos Aires, but streets strewn with dog shit is not one of them, especially if you are wearing flip-flops.

But although I would never touch one of the flea-ridden beasts, there are the source of some amusement. In the park outside the Congresa today, I watched a medium-sized poodle chase a terrified Alsatian across a lawn. It was obviously all in good humour though - the poodle concluded its pursuit by dry-humping the Alsatian in a flower-bed.


THE HUMBLE POODLE - IN REALITY, A FEARSOME SAVAGE.

And as I ate my mixed salad in San Telmo this lunch, another mutt chased a flock of pigeons which some annoying bint was feeding with bits of ham and cheese sandwich. I mean really - would you toss your lunch to a plague of rats? Of course not. Anyway, the dog managed to catch one of the pigeons and was conscientiously chewing its wing off before the woman noticed what was going on. The look on her face was priceless.