Animals, animals, animals, animals, animals everywhere!

The dog next door is the cliched yappy, scrappy terrier who hates postmen and delivery peeps in general. He's usually behind a fence, but once he was in the front yard when the postie came along on his motorbike. The dog went straight for him, causing the poor bloke to fang it up the street. I wondered at the time whether that delayed our mail a day or two. In fact, this suburb is one of the city's worst for dog attacks on postmen, etc. There was a list of shame published a while back. Not a statistic of which I am proud. Then again, not my fault, either!

When I was new to magazine journalism, I made the mistake of whinging to a superior about an editorial tweak to one of my stories that had ruined the joke. Rather than offering sympathy, she said, "Don't worry about it, mate. Those pages are already lining a budgie cage somewhere." A rude lesson in not being precious about one's copy. Although I still am, depending on the situation. It's different as a freelancer - you can submit the piece, submit your invoice, then never look at the finished product if you're stressed about errors being introduced.