I should know better

I`m sweating over a hot computer this weekend.

Literally hot. I`m having to run the 11 year old machine known as Old Chuggy, and it`s labouring under the strain. With the Qosmio dead, and the backup laptop only configured for getting online, I have a struggle ahead to redo all the paperwork for our seminar this weekend coming.

Seminars are the new black for the Kennel Club. In order to judge, you have to jump through hoops, more of them every year, and assessment at seminars is the foundation of this process. Does passing exams make you a better judge? I couldn`t possibly comment. Meanwhile, people are travelling the country, running up mileage desperatgely trying to pick up on whatever elements they lack.

The KC,of course, has other fish to fry at the moment. They are suffering from what can happen when what is esentially a private club financed by dog shows takes on a self-declared position as the arbiter of everything doggy. No, I`m not going there either. My breed has no health problems that are due to the Breed Standard, and we should be able to weather the storm.

No ,my immediate problem is a collection of eager people converging on a hall this weekend to listen to me speak on the Standard, and put an assortment of volunteered Papillons in the correct order.

I hope Chuggy, at present assuring me that it is midnight on the first of January 1995, holds up under the strain.....

I hope they all remember to bring a pencil.