Why was Balding rolling around on a sofa with a spaniel when she should have been presenting?
With Crufts completed and the winning dog crowned, I have a large number of complaints, chief among them the interminable wait until the next Crufts. I honestly don't get it – it's like having one football match a year. All that lost skill, all those fans, the empty stadiums, the vast reservoir of interest gathered and then left to stagnate. Where is an average person supposed to watch heelwork to music for the rest of the year? Do they expect us to teach our own dogs to do it?
I have nothing against whippets, but upon the coronation of Miuccia – gracious congratulations to Italy for its first best in show in 134 years of Crufts – I need to point out that these are not full‑fat dogs. I don't mean they are too lean – I would never body shame an animal. I mean they are too self-possessed, too standoffish, too independent. They are cat-dogs. If you are going to crown one of those in a dog show, you need to split the top award into categories: best dog in show, best cat-dog in show … hell, throw in a best cat if you are bent on ruining everything.
Just as I would never make a personal remark about a dog or a cat-dog, so I would never criticise a six-year-old, least of all Freddie Osborne, the youngest person ever to win a prize at Crufts. Except to say: if you are from Staffordshire, lad, you don't arrive with a fox terrier. You arrive with a staffy.
I regretfully point to evidence of bias – not among the judges, but from Clare Balding, the long-term presenter of the competition. She manifestly loves spaniels, to the extent that she let one on her presenter's sofa and then rolled around with it. The only way to rectify this is for Balding to let all the dogs on her sofa next year and roll around with them.
Other than that, excellent work, everyone.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
11 hours ago
- The Guardian
Sudoku 6,921 hard
Click here to access the print version. Fill the grid so that every row, every column and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 to 9. To see the completed puzzle, buy the next issue of the Guardian (for puzzles published Monday to Thursday). Solutions to Friday and Saturday puzzles are given in either Saturday's or Monday's edition.
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Daily Mirror
Harry and Meghan 'feared children's passports were being held up by King'
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle reportedly became exasperated as they struggled to get British passports for their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet and believed their royal titles had something to do with the delay Prince Harry and Meghan Markle feared passports for their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet were being held up due to the use of their royal titles, it has been claimed. The couple are said to have been left exasperated as they waited months for British passports to arrive and reportedly believed it was due to the fact they included their children's royal titles on the application. Archie and Lilibet got prince and princess titles when their grandfather King Charles became monarch in 2022. The first time their titles were formally announced was after Lilibet's christening in March 2023. Due to the reported hold-up, it is said that Harry started to explore the possibility of changing his family surname to Spencer in a nod to his late mother, Princess Diana. A source close to Harry and Meghan reportedly told the Guardian: "The King hadn't wanted Archie and Lili to carry the titles, most of all the HRH, and the British passports, once created, would be the first and perhaps the only legal proof of their names." However, Buckingham Palace has strongly denied that the King or any of his aides had anything to do with the delays in issuing the passports. Eventually, the passports were issued but the insider added: "Harry was at a point where British passports for his children with their updated Sussex surnames (since the death of Queen Elizabeth II) were being blocked with a string of excuses over the course of five months. "Out of sheer exasperation, he went to his uncle to effectively say: 'My family are supposed to have the same name and they're stopping that from happening because the kids are legally HRH, so if push comes to shove, if this blows up and they won't let the kids be called Sussex, then can we use Spencer as a surname?'." They also claimed that the Sussexes want their children to retain their titles and HRH styles so they can choose to become working royals if they so wish when they are adults. A spokesperson for the Sussexes said they do not comment on private issues about the couple's children. The Home Office declined to comment. Archie and Lilibet are eligible for both US and UK passports as dad Harry is a UK citizen while mum Meghan is an American citizen. There has been continued controversy over the Sussexes' HRH titles since the pair quit their royal roles five years ago. As part of their Megxit negotiations with the Palace, Meghan and the Duke of Sussex agreed to stop using 'Her Royal Highness' and 'His Royal Highness' at the end of March 2020. They still retain the styles, with Harry having had his since birth, but they are essentially held in abeyance. However, earlier this year, it emerged Meghan had used her HRH style on a gift basket sent to make-up entrepreneur Jamie Kern Lima last year, with a monogrammed card reading: 'With Compliments of HRH The Duchess of Sussex'. Kern Lima showed an image of the present in footage of her podcast interview with Meghan. It contained a jar of Meghan's jam which she has started selling as part of her As Ever lifestyle business brand. A source described the basket as a 'personal gift'. The duchess's representatives denied that the couple used them, but a source later said that the Sussexes did not use HRH publicly but retained the style, and did not use it for commercial purposes. Get Royal Family updates straight to your WhatsApp!
The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
I've learned a new word – and now I'm seeing the people it describes everywhere
A friend held a controversial opinion about something, which he shared with me on WhatsApp. He insisted he wasn't being an edgelord. A what? I took this to be a typo, a typo that happened to suit him quite well. But he claimed an edgelord was an actual thing. He defined it as a person who specialises in edgy opinions, especially if they don't really believe them. I checked with a few people who are more across the ways of the world than I seem to be these days: my daughters, a neighbour, an on-trend colleague or two. Blank looks all around. 'Sounds dirty,' said one of my BBC colleagues. Then I asked one of my handlers at the Guardian, who not only knew the word but also failed to hide their surprise that I hadn't. Which just goes to show that this publication is indeed at the cutting edge of things, even if some of its writers need educating. Edgelord isn't in my Chambers dictionary, and WhatsApp itself doesn't recognise the word. The laptop on which I'm writing this, however, is comfortable with it, offering no squiggly red line beneath the word. The Merriam-Webster dictionary and both have it, but they're American, so are not, in my view, to be fully trusted in these matters. I bet myself that the Oxford English Dictionary would have no truck with this nonsense – but no, here it is: 'A person who affects a provocative or extreme persona, esp online.' Furthermore, the OED says the word has been about since 2013 and was 'attested earliest in the context of video gaming, denoting a type of online player who customizes his or her character's appearance, username, etc, in a manner deemed to be overly self-serious'. I'm not sure what the OED thinks it is doing spelling customises with a z, by the way, but I'll let that pass. Not for the first time, I feel clever and foolish at the same time. Clever for knowing what an edgelord is when others don't; foolish for taking 12 years to join the party. As a new recruit, it ill becomes me to be picky, but surely there's a gender issue here. I've come across several female edgelords in my time. What are we to call them? Not edgeladies, surely? But what else? And another thing: what's the opposite of an edgelord? Perhaps they are thought so dull, they don't merit a name of their own. Now I'm seeing edgelords everywhere. I may even see one when I look in the mirror. They're not just online, either – they're to be found in conversations everywhere, at work and at play. Saying whatever they think it takes in order to be heard and seen, to help them feel relevant. The edgelord community is a broad church indeed, encompassing everyone from common-or-garden bar bores to the vilest of internet trolls to the most erudite of columnists. In a society of short and shrinking attention spans, their lordships provide an essential service for all of us. We crave something different, something radical, something interesting, whether or not it's complete bollocks. If we don't like or believe whatever edgelordery we're listening to, our anger makes us feel alive. If we like what we hear, we'll repeat it in order to edgelord it over others. But if too many edgelords spout the same line, it will soon lose its edge. This means some edgelord or other will have to come up with something new. And so it goes on. The edgelords need to be aware of something important, though: they play with fire. Because what started as an opinion they only conceived in order to shock may, like Tolkien's ring, overwhelm them. It will become their truth, and the edgelord will turn into Gollum. Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
