New life
Puppy love
Zenga Longmore
If I were asked to sum up my week with a single word, that word would undoubtedly have to be 'doggie'. Omalara has become obsessed with a picture-book dog known as Spot, the Lovable Pup. The Spot books, a creation of Eric Hill, are selling at the rate of knots, and it is whispered in certain quarters that they are fast outselling the Bible. Now the star of stage and screen, Spot's influence on Omalara has reached the point where I am compelled to venture to my sister Boko's house armed with video tapes of the canine cutie, so Spot can be admired on television.
If you were to sample an animation film of Spot, you may wonder how he could arouse such torrid passions in the under- threes, but that may be because your mind is warped with the cynicism of age. Omalara can watch a Spot video four times over and still cry for more. Spot (or Bap, as it is pronounced in Omalara-ese) does not get up to much, not when the video cam- eras are pointing at him at any rate. On an exciting day, he will meet a snail in his gar- den. 'Hello,' the snail will say. 'Hello,' Spot will reply, and so the long day wears on. But Spot reigns supreme in my household, and I must say, he is a vast improvement on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who are now horribly passé.
Last week, if you recall, Omalara was introduced to Shaka Boom Boom's rott- weiler, Satan, a hound more suited to Baskerville Hall than to my modest council flat. Catching sight of Omalara waddling towards him all set to pull his ears, Satan vanished beneath the sofa, to Shaka's acute embarrassment. There he remained, firmly wedged in a hell of his own, growling at any attempt to remove him. 'Look, Omalara — doggie,' I cooed. 'Bap!' said Omalara defensively. Seeing no dog, she called imperiously for a Spot video, but I was unable to oblige. You see, I have not owned a video machine since the unpleasant day when it broke down and I was charged £50 to have it repaired. In order to pay that extraordinarily large amount, I was forced to sell the video to Boko, who kindly paid the required sum direct to the repair shop. So poor Omalara had to do without her video films, and I read Spot books to her instead. After the fifth book, called, if I am not mistaken, Spot Goes for a Walk, I could see that Sha- ka was getting edgy. You must remember that Shaka B.B., owner of the prestigious Black Cat Sounds system and master of rap and rhythm, has a delicately tuned ear, and all those 'hellos' grated on his nerves. Yet he could not leave, as every time he called 'Satan!' he was answered by a distant rum- ble and the sound of a two-ton dog burrow- ing further beneath the sofa. I placed down the final book, ignoring Omalara's pitiful wails of `Bap!', and began to wonder how to remove Satan. Dog and master had little in common and seemed nervous of one another. A tentative prod with a broom only served to cause the crea- ture to resume the rolling thunder imper- sonations. When the broom emerged riddled with teeth-marks, I grabbed Oma- lara and hastened into the next room. From there, the sounds of shifting furniture and muttered growls could be heard. Finally, Shaka could stand it no longer and began to swear at the top of his voice in a broad Jamaican patois tinged with lurid Anglo Saxon. 'What is this?' a female voice intervened. Mrs Starman, my evangelist friend, had entered by the open front door. She is no friend of Shaka's as she claims that reggae, his 'life-blood', is the music of the devil.
Apparently ignoring her, he swore on. I poked my head through the door to signal to him to stop, when Mrs Starman sudden- ly shouted in a rich voice: 'Depart from here, Satan!' A black whooshing streak indicated that her command had been taken literally.
Satan pelted out and headed for the stairs, with Shaka hot on his trail. It had not been one of Shaka's better days. The rest of us settled down to read more tales of Spot, the Lovable Pup.
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