Jack Russell terrors

That’s it. The training starts here!
On my return from work tonight, and finding no dinner waiting on the table, I decided to get my trainers on and head out for a quick 5k. I’m running a 10k in September in aid of Sands and have not been out on the streets for a run for months.
In fact, I’ve never run 10k in my life. The family used to run 5, 6 or 7ks when we were younger, in and around Strathclyde Park on the Motorola fun days, but I’ve never attempted 10k in one go. So, with this in mind, I thought I’d better start doing a bit of training. Okay, I know September is ages away but the longer you leave it, the harder it will be (in my measly opinion).
With grey clouds smothering the sky and the occasional droplet of water hitting off my nose, I started running, expecting the occasional droplet to turn into a raging downpour as that’s usually what happens on these 5k runs around Calderwood and St. Leonards.
Thankfully I ran the length of the lap with no rain but, thanks to my lack of jogging in recent months, struggled for the majority of the 35 minutes, passing the occasional walkers and growling or muttering dogs. Dogs who were sometimes held back by straining leases or allowed to run free, running up threateningly towards me and growling angrily at my audacity to be running with shorts on, keys jangling in my pocket. Thankfully none of the dogs were Jack Russell Terriers. If it had been I may have lost my shorts… or worse.
I have a history with Jack Russell terriers.
For some reason, this particular breed of dog seems to dislike me. For years every single one of them that has passed me in the street has took an instant dislike to me. These small, white and brown dogs may seem innocent looking upon first glance but don’t let them fool you.
Upon meeting them in the street, some of these little terriers, simply growl as they pass and others bark. Others have been known to stop dead in their tracks and glare at me threateningly or stop and then snarl and snap, some jumping about wildly on the spot, flashing their small, but not insignificant jaws, filled with sharp, straight teeth.

In Manitoba Crescent, our second family home, the permed neighbour owned one. This neighbour was a quiet, airy fairy type of woman, with a large, dark permed hairdo and one of those vaguely annoying, patronising voices. The kind of voice that, coupled with her habit of tilting her head to one side when talking to you, sounded like she was constantly being sympathetic towards your situation. As if she pitied you as she spoke.
She’s now a waitress in the local Beefeater. She served our table one night when I was out for dinner with the family. We didn’t recognise her at first as her perm is now gone but she still does the mourning voice and the head tilting, sympathetic, nodding during conversation.
Anyway, she owned a Jack Russell and was one of my paper round customers when I delivered the East Kilbride News.
Every Wednesday night I’d walk to the town centre after school and pick up a huge pile of newspapers from the office’s front desk and trudge all the way home on foot, come rain or shine. Not an easy job as the East Kilbride News wasn’t the lightest of weekly local rags. Little did I realise then that I’d end up helping putting the paper together every week.
From behind the large glass window of the neighbour’s front door the wee mutt would constantly bark, growl and snap at me as I tried to safely deliver the permed neighbour’s newspaper. As soon as I prized the letterbox open to start sliding the week’s latest East Kilbride News in through the opening, the Jack Russell’s teeth would be there, snapping and snarling at me from the other side.
I don’t mind admitting that sometimes I would aim the first end of the rolled up paper directly at the dogs snapping mouth, hoping to give it a wee smack across the jaw. Usually the paper’s end would be torn and shredded within moments on the other side of the letterbox, the crazy wee mutt attacking it with a violent, psychotic hatred.
This neighbour had a baby girl as well?! Can you imagine having such an animal with this lunatic nature around a baby? Nuts.
One afternoon, after picking up my usual pile of papers, I decided to treat myself to a paperback I’d been looking forward to reading. I dropped in at WH Smith on my way and headed on out up the road to make my deliveries. Hours later, with only the permed neighbour to go, I started making my way up her Manitoba Crescent drive when I heard the weekly snapping and barking start once more from behind the large glass front door. I seen the familiar brown and white blur of ears and teeth jumping up and down as I made my way up the drive and, just as I got around two thirds of the way up the paved path, the permed neighbour appeared out of nowhere in the small porch and, to my horror, swung the front door wide open to greet me. The crazy little mutt of a dog sprinted right for me. Barking, growling, snapping.
A blur of rabid dog hatred, galloping towards my legs, spittal spinning out from it’s black dog gums, upon which the small, sharp teeth snapped. My steps faltered but I kept walking, pulling the paper from my bag, ready to deliver, striding up the path as if undeterred by the coming white and brown onslaught of noisy, yapping teeth. Then, as if on a spring board built into the permed neighbours pathway, the dog fired straight up into the air, aiming for the face. I swerved to the side, the dog missing, barking and snapping all the way, as it landed safely on it’s four paws at my side.
Almost instantaneously, it leaped up again, snapping at my arm.
This time it hit. Biting my arm briefly but thankfully letting go just as the teeth found some grip on my arm. The jacket I was wearing at the time was some kind of canvas number so the teeth did not manage to do much damage but it was enough to make me kick out at the little runt on his way back down to ground. The permed neighbour stood in her doorway, gently chastising the little git of a Jack Russell for playing, with that pathetic, quiet voice of hers and that tilting head of pity. Undeterred, the Russell paid his master’s voice no heed and once more lept up into the air spraying me with another volley of barks and yelps and snapped onto the WH Smith carrier bag in my other hand. This time the dog bit in and wouldn’t let go. My new book was in there and the little terrier had it’s grip on it with it’s vicious jaws. I shook and swept the bag through the air between myself and the permed neighbour in an effort to separate the mutt from my newly purchased book but with a dogged determination the dog held on by the teeth. The struggle lasted for at least a couple of seconds before the permed neighbour eventually took hold of her pet’s body. The mutt released the book upon the touch of his owner and continued with his barrage of verbal abuse, but this time from the safety of his owner’s hands, snapping and growling at me as I threw the paper into the doorway and retreated back down the garden path.
On getting home I pulled my new book from the slightly shredded carrier bag to find one large set of jaw prints cut into the lower half of the book. Proper, deep, tooth marks embedded through each side of the cover and buried down, gnawed into at least 100 pages on either end of the book. Throughout the following weeks, reading that book, turning those tooth marked pages, I never shook the feeling of anger and hatred towards that little b**tard of a dog.
I remember it was only a matter of weeks until I was walking up the hill to school one day and an older gent passed me, innocently walking his dog. Of course the dog was another Jack Russell Terrier and stopped in its morning ramble to fiercely yap and bark in my general direction, jumping around madly on the spot of pavement before me.
“They’re all insane!”, I remember thinking, but inadvertently half shouting at the same time, at the rather puzzled elderly owner as he clipped the end of the dog’s lead on and pulled it under control.
There have been more than a few other similar incidents over the years, all with Jack Russells.
Even a few months ago another one of these little runts destroyed my nephew’s football the day we took him, and our niece, Morgan, over to Strathclyde Park. Joshua, Morgan, Ka and myself stood and watched helplessly as the mutt ravaged the blue football to blue, plastic smithereens, growling the guttural noises of a wild animal after running across half the park, out of nowhere and descending on the ball like a bat out of hell.
Perhaps that’s why I didn’t enjoy ‘The Artist’ as much as everyone else seemed to.

Okay, Uggie did look a little friendlier than most Jack Russells but I couldn’t help but spend the majority of my time watching that movie being highly suspicious of the supposedly wonderful little co-star. I don’t care if he could rescue someone from a burning building, play dead with an imaginary bullet or walk on two hind legs, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him (or even kick him). All of those skills just make him all the more dangerous for when he starts attacking people in the street, regardless of how many awards he’s got on it!

Tail ends and tall tales

Uncle Laurence and Auntie Maria have a really cool bell on their front door. You push it and jump as a tremendous shout blasts out from somewhere in the interior hallway yelling:
"Michael, get down here and take this dog out - the living room's stinking!".
Within moments Maria was opening the door and greeting us with her usual big welcoming smiles and hellos. Thankfully, by the time we got into the house's living room, Taz, the dog, had scarpered, or had been kicked out, one or the other, and Michael, Maria's eldest son, (or 'Big Michael' as he's now called in the family, whilst I, apparently, am now, 'Old Michael') was ambling down the stairs behind us. Megan and Lauren, my two younger cousins, were sat at the foot of the television stand, scribbling away with their pens and pencils, creating more colourful masterpieces (another pair of Reid artists, like their Dad, cousins, uncles and aunts before them). Once Michael had got rid of the dog and the coast was clear, Laurence appeared from upstairs and added to the speculation, perhaps started by myself, that Maria had been blaming poor Taz for her own misdemeanors to which she adamantly objected.
Laurence and Maria had invited Ka and myself round for Sunday dinner, which involved the ever popular joining of tables and the gathering of different sized seats. Before dinner, Michael kept us entertained with stories from sixth year involving many strange characters from his class, including 'Big Stuart' (whose apparently around eight feet tall) and 'Wee Cheesy' (whose around three feet tall). Michael, who counts Home Economics in his favourite subjects and makes the greatest birthday cakes known to man, stood at the kitchen door, telling us his tall tales whilst Maria slaved away in the kitchen and Laurence nipped out for the trifle's missing ingredient - custard. Most of Michael's tales involved folk farting and others inhaling, Big Stuart making things break by merely standing next to it or the teachers giving Michael and his mates attitude and vice versa, including one teacher who allegedly 'looks like a pedophile, but isn't'.
Michael then went on to rave about his favourite programme, a BBC three effort called 'Coming of Age'. This series is based around a bunch of school pupils who seemingly spend their time farting, breaking things and giving their teachers attitude. And who says the young are not easily influenced by the media?
Once Pauline arrived in from Ikea, we all sat to dinner. A fantastic sunday stew with puff pastry and veg. As we ate, Taz the dog and the cats circled the table, occasionally sniffing around to see if anyone would be foolish enough to give donations. The conversations ranged from the Blair With Project, other rubbish horrors and shadows in the dark to up and coming First Communions and receiving a more admissible Virgin bill.
Trifle was then served as pudding, which Big Michael demolished within seconds, before waving a quick 'Adious' and disappearing upstairs to his playstation.
As I finished my last spoonful of trifle, I just happened to look down at my feet. Moments before, Megan had abandoned the chair beside me in the search for shortbread and her darting away had revealed the lounging form of Taz lazing below, his arse pointed straight up at me. Nervously, I gulped the last of my trifle down and was just about to start edging away when the inevitable happened. With a gentle hiss, (like the subtle spray from one of those fancy automatic air fresheners in the ads that make the passer by smile and nod), the pungent, familiar stench of eggs rose up into the air from Taz's rear end. I groaned and after a short quizzical look from those gathered around the table everyone yelled in objection, diving for cover, using the bottom end of their cardigans, T-shirts and tops as last minute, makeshift gas masks as Taz was quickly evacuated from the living room once more.
With nose firmly covered, Maria yelled through her blouse and fingers at the ceiling, "Michael!! Take the dog out! He's stinking!".

Back to the Future and the bow and arrows

Back to the Future. Still a brilliant movie, even 25 years after it's original release. We went along to see the 25th anniversary release in a packed cinema on friday night and, although a movie I've seen more than a few times on DVD, TV and the good old VHS, it was still just as entertaining on the big screen. From the opening sequence with the guitar amplifier blasting Marty back into that book shelf, him lifting his big, mirror sunglasses from his nose to the parents first kiss and the Doc's climatic struggle at the top of the clock tower it has all aged pretty well. Unlike Lucas and other fantasy movie makers, Zemeckis has refrained from any jazzy new effects and shoddily pieced together 'extra special' sequences, which says it all really. There's not much you can do to a classic.
My mate Chaz introduced me to this movie back in, what was probably, 1986 one day after school. He was always the car maniac and kept harping on about this movie with the DeLorean.
Before dinner, after getting back to his house from school, we had been firing arrows inadvertantly on to his roof and over into his neighbours garden with my new bow, the same bow Kenny, my brother, later 'borrowed' for a halloween party. Kenny was going as Robin Hood. A feather cap and green tights, and all he needed to complete the outfit was my much loved bow and arrow set. I had told him no, he wasn't borrowing it, as he would break it. But no. Mum said 'just lend your wee brother it for the day and he'll bring it back'.
Did he bring it back? No. Or maybe he did but it was in pieces, I can't remember the exact details of the remains. So I lost most of my arrows to Chaz's neighbours, and his roof in Tasman Drive, and my bow to a shoddy Robin Hood in green tights and glasses. I was gutted about that.
Anyway, on the same visit to Tasman Drive, I was also introduced to Chaz's German Sheperd, Max. Chaz swears to this day that I spent the visit cowering from his dog. Chaz will occasionally bring it up to this day, how I was so terrified of his beast of a dog. How I yelped with fear when I seen it lumbering towards me. The truth of the matter was that I perhaps was cowering to some extent, but only because, upon meeting Max, I discovered his liking for the crotch and it spent most of the first hour of Back to the Future trying to eat my groin. Very off-putting.
It never put me off the Back to the Future movies though as I became hooked as a kid and beyond. Rather disconcertingly, some of the guys in the work call me 'Doc Brown' and have been for some time, for some, strange reason. Not sure why. Gareth and DVD Andy asked if, after watching the movie on friday night, I stood outside and signed autographs? Ka frowned on hearing this and, remembering Marty's Dads dancing at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance, said that I had more similarities with George McFly rather than the Doc.

DJs and Jack Russells

Another Wedding with Jane and William getting hitched at the weekend in The Byre, East Kilbride's newest bar/restaurant. Jane is one of Ka's bosses and William is the brother of Claire, Ka's mate from the same work. In the short times William did talk to me he was calling me Scott Mills. Apparently I look like the Radio 1 DJ now. The last time I met William he was calling me Shakin' Stevens as I was wearing jeans and a denim shirt (I probably deserved that though). I'm not sure whether this name calling is because of some unfounded dislike for me or not but I suppose he could be calling me worse names though I'm not sure about the whole Scott Mills lookalike comment. I'm sure Scott Mills would be more than a little offended.
After the wedding celebrations Claire, Martin, William and Jane were all heading off to Ibiza with their kids to enjoy some sun, coincidentally on the same day that Scotland had it's sunniest day of the year. Saturday was roasting and we were all sitting in The Byre's beer garden, or rather beer decking, chatting in the good weather. As far as I can remember the best weather since May when we got a brief few weeks of great weather quickly replaced by the rain of the following months.
The women were not long in going off to their own table leaving us blokes to talk amongst ourselves. Conversations over the large beers ranged from the dire state of the property market, BMWs, jagermeister, encounters with strippers, saving people's lives whilst fishing and the rise in the price of drink. Apparently the latter two were closely connected with an instance Ian experienced on the edge of a cliff somewhere up north overhanging one of the larger rivers. After The Byre most folk ended up in Chris' house, another of Ka's work colleagues. Chris, along with her husband Jim, own possibly the biggest house I have ever been in that I have not had to pay an admission for. Doing the housework would take a week in that home. They also own a friendly Jack Russell. Something I'd never encountered - a friendly Jack Russell. I've had some quite bad experiences with various Jack Russells in the past, the majority of them involving this particular breed of dog wanting to bite my face off. In one particular instance, when I was around thirteen, and delivering papers a Jack Russell literally attacked me as I delivered it's owners newspaper and I literally had to fight it off with a paperback I had been reading at the time. The paperback, and my trousers, barely survived the vicous onslaught and gnashing incisors. Thankfully Chris and Jim's dog was surprisingly amiable though and no trousers or paperbacks suffered in the meeting. Perhaps Jack Russells have a liking for Scott Mills these days.
Chris ordered in pizzas and kept us all fuelled with alcohol until the end of the night when Ka, Sara, Margot and myself piled into Chaz's car leaving Carol singing to her Romeo from Chris' balcony. Chaz was the Romeo in question in this case, (well, as is usually the case), and he replied by quickly starting the engine. Not quite how Shakespeare would have intended things to happen...