At last, the East Yorkshire village where I was born and raised has become famous. It is home to what is officially England's ugliest dog. Four-year-old Peggy is believed to be a Pug and Chinese Crested cross or in other words - a Pugese. She won the coveted national prize earlier this week fending off stiff competition. Owner Holly Middleton said of Peggy, "She is beautiful inside and out".
Surely this means there's hope for any ugly bloggers, trolls and regular commenters out there. It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, it's what is on the inside that counts.
Peggy's main prize was a spa session and makeover in a dog salon in Beverley, East Yorkshire where I went to school. To clarify, I did not go to school in the dog salon. I attended Beverley Grammar School between 1970 and 1972 and that's where I took my A levels in English, Art and Geography.
That scholastic achievement was as nothing compared with Peggy being crowned The Ugliest Dog in the kingdom. Go Peggy!
Peggy is what the enterprising Chinese call Uncooked Food.
ReplyDeleteSweet & Sour Pugese with Egg Fried Rice.
The Banana Fritters for dessert are her kidneys served in a lychee sauce.
If you're not eating Peggy now you will be soon.
En-joy !
Very popular in Korea I believe.
DeleteAfter another trip to Ringinglow, the location of an Enid Blyton adventure,
Delete( *Five Have A Wet Whitsun in Ringinglow* ) you and Shirley can eat out at
the new Pugese Diner & Take Away in Sheffield.
Neil, savouring his last half glass of Chablis :
*That were a nice bit of Grilled Dog, tender as chicken, succulent as pork.*
Shirley, trying to catch the waiter's eye for another glass of wine :
*Eee, but I don't fancy them Banana Fritters, not after what Aggerty said.*
Neil, thinking he might have a beer on the road home since they left Clint behind :
*He were only having us on pet. But we'll have the yak's milk ice cream just to be on't safe side. It's a delicacy in Nepal is yak's milk. Dead nutritious.*
It is uncanny how you are able to replicate the exact way that we talk!
DeleteI have too much respect for Northern writers to think I can write in their idiom.
DeleteAnd I know that you and Shirley do not speak with broad Yorkshire vowels.
My father and I were huge fans of The Likely Lads & Auf Wiedershen, Pet.
My mother would refer to my young brothers as the Likely Lads.
On my last trip to London to see Brian and Ian, Brian put on the DVD of The Likely Lads for me on the morning I was leaving.
Brian died six years ago.
In my youth I watched all the Ken Loach television films with scripts by Jim Allen who lived in Manchester all his days.
Warren Beatty asked Allen to come out to Hollywood and Allen said, 'No, you can come out to Manchester.'
I remember an Alun Owen TV play with Timothy West & Ian Hendry as Northern brothers and business partners.
West had a speech at the end about going back to see their old home in Scotland Road so I had to visit Scotland Road myself, shades of Cilla Black.
Owen wrote the screenplay of the first Beatles movie.
Ian Hendry had a critical scene with Michael Caine in *Get Carter* which I went to see twice in one week.
Hendry was going through a bad period in his life and was nervous at the thought of working with Caine.
You may remember Hendry in *Live Now, Pay Later* based on the novel by the inimitable Jack Trevor Storey.
A BBC documentary on Stan Barstow saw him leaving Ossett and visiting literary London about which he had a deep distrust.
Stan was filmed at a party hosted by David Mercer who said :
*I've just been reading Joby again. Bloody marvellous !*
Mercer was an enigma, the Wakefield-born Marxist with a Czech wife, dying in Israel.
Mercer's stage play *After Haggerty* was put on with Frank Finlay and Lesley Sands as Finlay's father (Sands was Cluff in the detective TV series).
Haggerty who is a Cuban revolutionary never appears on stage.
Frank Finlay was brilliant as Albert Finney's brother in the Liverpool-based film *Gumshoe* with Billie Whitelaw.
I have Billie's spoken autobiography on tape.
She was stand-out in *Charlie Bubbles* (script Shelagh Delaney) which I must have watched twenty times. Georgie Best's favourite film.
There are the great Liverpool films of Terence Davies, all on DVD.
And I mean to read the autobiography of Christopher Eccleston which I bought last year.
Trevor Griffiths spoke about his career to a live audience (YouTube).
I would like to see A.E. Whitehead's *Alpha Beta* again which opened in a London theatre with Albert Finney.
Whitehead wrote the TV script for the Mayor of Casterbridge under the name Ted Whitehead but he has little Internet presence, just an old photo.
A Liverpool man, I think, resident in London.
Forgive me for not mentioning Andrea Dunbar (1961-1990).
DeleteBorn in Bradford, her life cut short, she wrote *Rita, Sue and Bob Too*.
This was Yorkshire during the wretched Thatcher era.
There is a short YouTube film on Andrea's tragic life and two online pieces from The Telegraph & Argus and Yorkshire Live.
Then there is Alan Plater (1935-2010) born in Co Durham, he moved with his family to Hull as a boy of three. A friend of Stan Barstow.
Plater wrote *The Beiderbecke Trilogy* filmed in Leeds which looked like home to me.
James Bolan was born to play this role as a technical teacher turned sleuth, and so too Barbara Flynn as his good-natured girlfriend.
Plater was a tutor at the Arvon residential writing schools.
He wrote a stage play set in a barbershop which I would like to see.
James Mitchell wrote *Callan* and *When the Boat Comes In* which my parents never missed.
I have the Callan series in boxset and the two Callan films.
*A World of My Own: James Mitchell.*
Yorkshire Film Archive.
Mitchell returns to South Shields in pre-Thatcherite England.
An exceptionally worthy winner and with a ghastly red garment assisting where nothing more was needed. Is that her tongue hanging out of her mouth or is she extra pleased about something in a female kind of way. It is hard to imagine how any kind of makeover will help.
ReplyDeleteLady sex bits are in a different location Andrew.
DeleteI'm glad I read and post in the evening versus waiting for morning as I normally do.
ReplyDeleteYou might see Peggy in your dreams.
DeleteLooks are only skin deep, inner beauty shines through
ReplyDeleteI guess you always say that when you look in a mirror Travel.
DeleteShe's OK except for the tongue. I'm sure she is very lovable in spite of her jolie laide looks. I'm sure glad that I don't go by the nickname Peggy. I'll stick to my full name.
ReplyDeleteIs it okay if I call you Marj? Like Marj Simpson?
DeleteThat is one ugly dog.
ReplyDeleteYour eyes are working fine.
Delete"coveted" prize? lol Peggy is, in my opinion, pretty darn cute except for that tongue; the tongue would be kind of hard to get used to.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the long tongue is characteristic of the Pugese.
DeleteIs that her tongue hanging out of her mouth? Yuk. At first I thought she was someone's home made stuffed toy.
ReplyDeleteYes that is her tongue. She could lick your face with it River!
DeleteVery kissable.
ReplyDeleteI agree that I am.
DeleteSorry to hijack you blog YP, but this morning (5/2) I've just tried to access Jaycee's blog and found a message to say it no longer exists! Blogger playing up again?
DeleteJust what the world needs, a competition for The Ugliest Dog.
ReplyDeleteBeauty gets far too much airtime!
DeleteBeauty is in the eye of the beholder. She's cute and I'm glad her family love her.
ReplyDeleteI believe all of her family are blind.
DeleteI can see why she won!
ReplyDeleteBilly would have come last in that competition!
DeleteHow does that tongue fit in her mouth? Poor thing. But even the ugly have their day.
ReplyDeleteThat's true. Liz Truss for example.
DeleteI hate that they call her ugly ... she's just unusal.
ReplyDeleteThat's what they call Marjorie Taylor Greene too!
Delete👍🏽
DeleteWho am I to judge?
ReplyDeleteIsn't that a quote from The Bible?
DeleteIt seems like Chinese Crested dogs (or mixes thereof) often win these competitions.
ReplyDeleteOlga would not have stood a chance in that particular competition!
DeleteApart from the tongue hanging out, that is what I feel I look like at them moment. lol
ReplyDeleteBriony
x
Could Peggy borrow a pair of your spectacles?
DeleteBut somebody loves her anyway! Sweet!
ReplyDeleteI would suggest (respectfully) that Ms. Middleton needs her eyes examined.
ReplyDelete