A bad rap
The United Kingdom, however, bans not only the “pit bull type,” but also the Dogo Argentina, the Japanese Tosa, and the Fila Brasileiro, all breeds with some reputation for being trained as fighters or as guards. According to Mr. O’Meara, the other breeds never had much of a presence in the United Kingdom.

Specific recognized breeds such as the Staffordshire bull terrier and American Staffordshire terrier, close relatives to the “pit bull,” are not specifically outlawed in the United Kingdom. But if they have broad chests and short hair that fit the general perception of a “pit bull type,” they can fall under the law, Mr. O’Meara said.

Link

I absolutely love the Kindle. It’s so unimpressive to look at, but it’s awesome.

I have long since believed the Amazon Kindle will do for books what the iPod did for music – it just makes too much sense that there will be a digital revolution of the written word the same way there was with sound.

To order the Amazon Kindle in the UK, you actually have to go to the Amazon website in the USA. But don’t let that put you off!

This widescreen Kindle is going to be distributed in the United Kingdom and if you haven’t yet taken the plunge, this would be the model to go for.

I honestly can’t say enough good things about the Kindle (it’s got a good competitor in the B&N Nook e-Reader – you can find out more about buying the Nook in the UK) but for me, Amazon’s range of books is such a strong selling point that it’s impossible to ignore.

Go get your own Amazon Kindle, you won’t regret it (I promise!)

3rd: Paper Review – BBC Radio Nottingham (Breakfast show)
14th: Re: Dangerous dogs – BBC Radio Nottingham (Frances Finn mid-morning)

February

9th: Re: Dangerous dogs – BBC Radio Wales (news)
9th: Re: Dangerous dogs – BBC Radio Northants (Lunchtime)
16th Re: Vet fees – BBC Inside Out (filming)
21st Paper review – BBC Radio Nottingham (Breakfast show)

March

3rd: Re Dog attacks – BBC Radio Derby (Breakfast show with Shane O’Connor)
4th: Re What your dog says about you – BBC Radio Nottingham (Frances Finn)

April

25th: Paper review – BBC Radio Nottingham (Breakfast show)

May

22nd: Re dog training – BBC Radio Northamptonshire
28th: Re dangerous dogs – BBC Radio Nottingham (news)
29th: Re dangerous dogs – BBC WM

June

18th: Doing business online – BBC Working Lunch (filming)
20th: Paper review – BBC Radio Nottingham (Breakfast show)

July

9th: Re: Bruce in Northern Ireland – U105 (morning show)
15th: Re pet travel – BBC Radio Northamptonshire (Bob Warmsley)
21st: Doing business online – BBC Working Lunch (aired)
22nd: Dogs in relationships – BBC Radio Nottingham (Frances Finn)
24th: Bring Bruce home – BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (Sue Marchant)

August

3rd: Re Dangerous dogs – BBC Radio Derby (Breakfast show)
10th: Re Canine intelligence – BBC Radio Nottingham (Drive time)
10th: Re Canine intelligence – BBC Radio 2 (Chris Evans show)
24th: Re Bruce / Northern Ireland – 4FM
24th: Re Canine intelligence – BBC Three Counties (Breakfast show)
24th: Re Canine intelligence – 4FM (Drive time)

September

2nd: Re car safety and pets – BBC Radio Northants (Lunchtime show)
3rd: General dog issues – BBC Radio Nottingham (Frances Finn)
9th: Dog behaviour – BBC Radio Wales (Drive time)
17th: Re Dog attack – BBC Radio Sheffield (Breakfast show)

October

26th: Re Better British Dog Owners – BBC Radio Nottingham (Morning show)

November

9th: Better British Dogs – BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (Sue Marchant)
12th: Re Dogs as fashion items – BBC Radio 4 (Woman’s Hour)
30th: Re: Dangerous Dogs and dog attacks – BBC Radio Derby (Drive time)
30th: Re: Dangerous Dogs and dog attacks – BBC Radio 5Live (Richard Bacon)

December

1st: Re: Dangerous Dogs and dog attacks – BBC Radio Derby (Morning)
1st: Re: Dangerous Dogs and dog attacks – GMTV
3rd: Better British Dogs – BBC Radio Kent (Drive time)
9th: Better British Dogs – BBC Radio Nottingham (Frances Finn)
14th: Better British Dogs – BBC Radio Leeds (Breakfast)
14th: Better British Dogs – BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (Sue Marchant)
15th: Status dogs – London LBC (Jenny Barnett)

I go in to training for Christmas. By that I mean, I start to dramatically reduce my food intake and increase my exercise in the run up, purely and simply because I intend to indulge.

When I see a bowl of sweets, I’m grabbing a fistful. When I see a plate of mince pies, I’m having two. Hell, I’ll even eat Christmas cake and I don’t even like it.

Any way, here is my patented Christmas over-indulgence recipe.

I think I shall call it my Christmas Coronary Concoction.

You get yourself a large (very wide) wine or brandy glass. It needs to be big.

Squirt a hearty dose of chocolate sauce in to start.

Next, you get four After Eight mints, place them in the chocolate sauce and smash them up in to a goo.

Next you load in your ice cream – I pick a high quality vanilla but NOT Hagen Daz, no thanks!

Don’t fill to the top with ice cream, you need to leave room.

Next you get four Oreo cookies, smash em up and crumble them on to the ice cream.

Handful of M&Ms (the nut ones) – but you can sub with Smarties, if you like.

Now, the kicker…

Get two brandysnaps – insert a finger of Twix in to each (Twix fingers fit perfectly in to brandysnaps, it’s like they were made to measure), plonk your brandysnaps in to the icecream and eat.

All in all, probably too many calories to measure – but so what. A couple of thousand extra press-ups and sit-ups in New Year will remind you how good it was.

The topic was related to the recent book ‘Dogs in Vogue’ which is, as it happens, a very nice book – amazing shots (as you’d expect) and in my opinion didn’t portray dogs as fashion accessories at all.

Any way, you can listen to the show in full should you have an interest in this topic by visiting this link:

Woman’s Hour: Are Dogs Fashion Accessories?

Find out more about ‘Dogs in Vogue’

For some former print titles, the switch to digital edition is a step into the unknown, is not always done for the right reasons, and is done with little imagination. For K9 Magazine, a print title from an overwhelmingly digital stable, it was like coming home. Ryan O’Meara explains why they ditched their flagship print magazine and what they hope to achieve from its digital rebirth.

I think we’ve done absolutely everything back to front in publishing. From day one, we did things the wrong way round, always have.

K9 Media, the publisher behind K9 Magazine and a portfolio of some 40+ digital properties (that’s the fancy term for websites so I have learned) was started back in 1999.

We were / are a digital media company. But in 2001, K9 Magazine was launched. I have never denied the fact that K9 Magazine was born of the result of advertisers telling us how much they “loved what we’re doing, we just don’t really have an online marketing strategy at present. Do you have any print media?”

It took us seven issues to get K9 Magazine right and we even had to go out and get additional investment to sustain the company after this hungry new inky addition ate all of our cash in a way that our digital children never did. When we did get the magazine right though, we really got it right. It grew fast. TV coverage, major, world-exclusive celebrity interviews, brand recognition, we made a magazine that I became very proud of. Despite this, I still couldn’t get as passionate about print as I was about pixels.

Read the full article here

They are, to my mind, in the must read category and should be compulsory reading for young people as soon as they’re ready to understand the principles. My only regret is that I didn’t read them earlier.

1) The Richest Man in Babylon by George. S. Clason.

The take away:- Take 10% of EVERYTHING you earn (everything, no matter what your financial predicament at the time) and make it work for you. If you read this book and don’t take away that single, powerful message – ask for a refund for the book shop, because they gave you the wrong book!

2) The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.

The book that the world’s most successful investor cites as his favourite book on investing shouldn’t be ignored. So I didn’t. Once read, I completely changed my strategy from trading to value investing. Is it paying off? I don’t know, I’ve not even looked at my portfolio for a while! Which is, kind of, the point. I’m in for the long term rather than the zero sum game of wins v losses. In 10 years, I think I’ll be up

The Three Counties piece was an item on the importance and value of socialisation for dogs (and their owners) – they asked me which breed I thought was the most intelligent, I said Afghan Hound, purely to buck this trend which keeps seeing them ranked low on the intelligence tests. Unintelligent is not an accurate reflection of the Afghan’s I’ve met and I think some people like to call a dog’s intelligence in to question just when that dog doesn’t do what they want – non compliant is not the same as unintelligent!

The 4FM item was discussing the survey of two weeks ago which contrasted canine intelligence to that of a two-year old child.

Something which I don’t agree with!

Nope. Neither.

It’s…………

……JP Morgan Chase!

Knock me down with a feather. I would have never have got that question right in a pub quiz. But it’s true. Just heard it on Bloomberg.

What next? Am I going to find out that the largest manufacturer of running shoes is not Nike or Addidas but Barclays Bank?

Probably not.