Cardinal rule?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Cardinal rule?

Dog-walking is different. My Today colleague James Naughtie and I took to Richmond Park on the hottest afternoon of the heatwave. The park is the capital’s giant lung (far and away London’s largest open space) and you breathe more easily within its gates. Even after days of pitiless sun, those majestic aspects – with their oaks and deer – looked temptingly lush.

The spaniels took off. Jim’s Tess – a 10-year-old cocker of usually dignified demeanour – spotted a picnic, and the snout was in among the sandwiches. My Kudu sprinted to an oak to defecate – a yard from an elderly lady enjoying her book in the shade. The crimes, satisfyingly symmetrical in a curious way, were simultaneous, and Jim and I broke all those broadcasting rules at once as we restored decorum.

Jim then made his confession: in South Africa recently, he ate a steak from the Kudu antelope. Mrs Naughtie, he reported, had shown greater scruple, and declined the dish out of respect for the Dog. I salute her sensitivity.

To the dogs, Richmond offers the smells of real country. To me, this royal park smells of power; the ghosts of Tudors and Stuarts hunt here, and from Henry’s Mound you can look down on Westminster. So, we fell to talking about dogs and politics.

Richard Nixon, for example, hated the fact that one of his most famous speeches became identified with the family spaniel. Running for the vice-presidency in 1952, he faced accusations of financial impropriety. He responded with a television address that saved his place on the Republican ticket. After a robust defence of his family’s “modest” lifestyle, he owned up to one gift from a political well-wisher. “You know what it was?” he asked. “It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate… black and white spotted. And our little girl – Tricia, the six-year-old – named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog, and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we’re gonna keep it.”