Dog!

Good old Dean Johns. My matey has published another of his hard-hitting yet amusing columns at Malaysiakini.

His two recent articles Simply treemendous! and Old dogs, no new tricks signalled his return to his old style with its witty play of words, which I enjoy enormously.

In the former the tree word was cleverly used, and just when I was working out something in my mind to wrap around his mention of his Druid ancestors and their reverence for the arboreal patriarchs, he has again hit us delightfully, but this time with a mixture of doggy drollery and some snarling and snapping at the BN.

I know he based the article’s title Old dogs, no new tricks on an old saying ‘You can't teach an old dog new tricks’, supposedly by J. Randolph some two centuries ago.

Perhaps the title could be modified slightly to consider, in the case of the BN, that ‘You can't teach an old dog new tricks … only because it doesn’t want to learn’.

Anyway, with his theme on the canine, he had me (thanks Dean matey) barking at Anwar Ibrahim wakakaka … ooops I mean … 'arf 'arf 'arf, as follows (note his doggy theme in yellow highlights):

My blogger pal K Temoc, recalling what a mongrel he thought Anwar was back when in the days when he was Mahathir’s pet, continues to hound us with his opinion that the man remains his old, rabid self, and is in fact just a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Well, I’ll be doggone, though I must confess to a bulldog tenacity in reminding people about Anwar, that while the pooch may be man’s best friend, loyal and with all those doggy traits, Anwar is more cat-like – you work it out what traits cats have ;-)

I wonder whether it has anything to do with the fact that I was born in the year of the Dog? wakakaka or 'arf 'arf 'arf.

Mind you, the anwaristas brigade may not fathom what the Aussie slang ‘mongrel’ means (= a despicable or nasty person), and may take it literally, thus turning that word into a gross insult against a Muslim ;-)

Anyway, Dean continued:

I have to concede to KT that, if Anwar really has changed, then he’s a rare exception to the rule.

What a canine … ooops mea culpa … canny observation. Once an UMNO pollie, always an UMNO-like pollie, which means he’s no different from his erstwhile political colleagues …

… some of whom incidentally has termed the frog hunter as someone’s running dog.

All these mentions of the creature that Muslims consider as ‘dirty’ perhaps may not be good ... gulp ... for me, so let me end with a message from an unknown author:

A man may smile and bid you hail
Yet wish you to the devil;
But when a good dog wags his tail,
You know he's on the level.

And have you ever wonder what you get when you spell ‘dog’ backwards wakakaka.

I leave you with a saying by Konrad Lorenz: There is no faith which has never yet been broken, except that of a truly faithful dog.