#90 🩳 We have the TECHNOLOGY 💿
Listen, to the timbre of the neighbourhood
Is a poodle cross a good choice for a guard dog, if your neighbourhood is embroiled in light to medium crime? A new podcast episode has finally landed, which tackles this hard-hitting question. Tis a tale of posh pets, local delinquency, and a fear of snobbery.
- 👂 Listen to it with your ears (on this page, or wherever you do podcasts)
- 📖 Read it with your eyes
A snippet:
When a mob of men advanced down our street, swearing at the night sky and bashing anything with the temerity to cross their line of sight, my first thought was: it’s okay, we have a dog. Growing up in the ganglands of Whanganui, I learned that a mean bastard of a dog can deter most low-level trouble, whichever side of the fence you’re on. These dogs are built low to the ground like cannons, with small, piercing eyes, vice jaws perfect for tearing open trespassing flesh, and legs rippling with muscle primed to explode. Come within a block’s distance and these dogs will issue a warning growl which so obviously portends your death your insides will liquify.
Whoa buddy, that’s not what we’re here for
The lifeguard at the pool reception was tall, with a deep voice. While I was paying, she surprised me by asking, “How many laps this evening, then?”
“Um, I usually try to swim a K,” I said. “So like, 40 lengths.”
It was a nice touch for her to ask, but no one had ever asked before, which made me suspicious. Might this mean some kind of lane-access quota was in the works? Or worse, was some assessment of swimmer quality on the horizon? The flailing which propels me from one end of the pool to the other can only charitably be called swimming. Typically in the lane to one side a troupe of club swimmers smash through the water like teenage jetskis; and in the lane to the other side a gentleman with an enormous potbelly at least a decade older than me, looking like a huge white buoy at rest, powers through the water like a great fat torpedo once in motion.
I was at a compromising moment of undress in the changing room when some guy putting on a collared shirt started a video call. It sounded like a call with his wife, about plans for cooking dinner.