Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the Inbox… “Oh, he’s back.” Yep. It was just a brief sojourn. I’ve been working on another project, you see, entitled 100 Reasons Not To Get A Dog. I won’t give away the plot, but many of you will know this already because Substack, the platform on which I decided to serialise said work, took it upon itself to mail the first post out to all of my contacts! That includes half a dozen Doha taxi drivers and a number of old friends who are no longer with us. If you received it, I apologise.
“But you’ve been spamming us for years. Why apologise now?”
Well, here’s the thing. I’m a little nervous about the dog project. I fear it could cause offence. Dog owners are a touchy breed. I can say that because some of my best friends are dog owners. Show anything less than a gooey adoration for the horrible smelly things and you could be branded a hate criminal. And as for the dogs themselves… Woof! Woof!
Fortunately, this project is not aimed at dog owners. For them it’s too late. The ship has sailed. The lawn is already ruined. The car already reeks (no, it does – to everyone else, it does). 100 Reasons Not To Get A Dog falls into the category of preventative self-help. In other words, it’s for people who don’t own a dog but are thinking of doing so. These are the ones we can save. It’s the equivalent of a quit smoking book for people who don’t smoke. It’s much easier to prevent someone from falling into addiction than it is to pull them out.
So anyway, if you really want to see what this project is all about, I suppose you could subscribe. I mean, it’s pretty easy really. But you don’t have to. You’ll probably hate it, especially if you’re a dog lover. And that’s why I didn’t want anyone to know about it. In fact, forget I ever mentioned it.
