Hello, hello, hello. What's all this, then?

My whole life flashed before me when the two men in black unexpectedly appeared on my doorstep on Saturday morning.

Or at any rate it did once I had grasped that they were policemen. This took me a while: first because they were implausibly young, secondly because they were wearing combat fatigues rather than crisp white shirts, and finally because they were simply the last people I was expecting.

How a policeman looks in my mind's eye

I had not spoken to a policeman for around 20 years, when my last Border terrier but two made a poorly judged lunge at the letters our temporary postman was ill-advisedly waving at him.

This time I was pretty sure that my dogs had not harassed anyone, so the part of my life that chiefly flashed by was the 1980s, as I tried to work out which of the secretaries I dallied with at the time might finally have dobbed me in for sexual harassment.

I started croakily making the speech I had been taught by a legalistic friend at university: “It’s a fair cop, guv. You got me bang to rights. It’s bird for me this time. Society is to blame.”

(The theory, as I recall, is that the arresting constable will solemnly read this out from his notebook when the case reaches court, whereupon it – and hopefully the rest of his evidence – will be dismissed as an obvious fabrication.)

Luckily they interrupted my speech by advising me that they had not come to arrest me, but to follow up “the incident” of last Tuesday.

What incident?

Oh yes, when the lady who tends our garden called to drop off some plants, and decided that she “did not like the look” of the men up a ladder on our roof. Men with a property maintenance company’s marked van, who were carrying out some long-awaited repairs to stop water pouring into my younger son’s bedroom whenever it rains.

Mending the roof when the sun shines, in fact. If only Gordon Brown could have got the hang of that, how different all our lives might have been.

They tried to explain this to her, but she was not to be fooled. In her mind, their undoubted criminality was exposed by the fact that they were doing the work at 5.30pm, when everyone knows that all genuine tradesmen knock off by mid-afternoon and go down the pub.

A roof repairer and a burglar. Easy to confuse, I'll admit.

I had also been criminally irresponsible in leaving some of my upstairs windows open, though this did not seem altogether unreasonable to me given that (a) there was a Category 3 heatwave taking place at the time, (b) there were two Border terriers in the house in need of a spot of ventilation, and (c) they were the sort of small windows that only an anorexic contortionist could stand the faintest chance of climbing through.

To be fair to my gardener, she did ring me on my mobile before calling the police to arrest the malefactors, but I failed to answer it because I was desperately busy at the time.

I later got a message asking me to ring the police on their 101 non-emergency number to confirm that the roof repairers were indeed genuine, as they had already told the officers who had turned up to suss them out.

This my wife duly did on my behalf, making me all the more surprised to receive a follow-up visit in person.

We had an inconclusive chat about the wisdom of leaving small upstairs windows open even in the height of summer, then the PCs went on their way.

As they did, I wondered to myself how much more police time is wasted by no doubt well-intentioned Neighbourhood Watch curtain-twitchers, whose willingness to call in the law evidently matches some people’s inclination to dial 999 because they can’t find their TV remote control.

But I also felt profoundly grateful to live in a country where the overstretched police can still handle such encounters with patience and good humour.

And, above all, profoundly glad to live in a society in which “not liking the look” of someone going about their lawful business does not provide an excuse to shoot them dead, just to be on the safe side.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

The best dog in the world? It has to be the Border terrier

What do I have in common with Coronation Street’s Ken Barlow, Andy Murray, David Walliams and Elton John?

I suppose I would have to allow you “boring” as my link with the soap character, and “grumpy” with the tennis ace, but the intended answer is that we all own Border terriers.

An official snap of Deirdre Barlow [L] and Eccles

Andy Murray and Olympic medallist Borders, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph

David Walliams and Border en route to Sir Elton's

Recent articles in Country Life and the Daily Mail have sung their praises – but can it really be news that the Border is the best dog in the world? My Borders and I have never been in the slightest doubt.

Possessing a face with more than a passing resemblance to a teddy bear gives the Border a massive advantage in any cuteness competition. But, for me, it is its personality that is the clincher: playful yet dignified, gentle but rumbustious, a small dog that clearly has no sense of its size or any resulting limitations.

My current dog, Craster (because he is a world class kipper, obviously) turns 11 on Friday.

The birthday boy

Until he was seven, he had hardly even met a child. Now he shares his life with a boisterous toddler and a baby, and does so with the patience of a saint.

He may have been bred to subdue foxes, but savaging the occasional squeaky toy seems to provide an adequate outlet for his instincts.

Borders possess apparently boundless energy: in half a century of close acquaintance with the breed, I have only once succeeded in tiring one out, and he recovered long before I did.

Yet both Craster and his predecessor Arthur have also been lazily undemanding. Many times I have donned my wellies and waterproofs and reached the back door with a lead in my hand, only to find a Border terrier staring at me with a face that clearly conveys the thought: “Have you gone raving mad?” 

Arthur, 1991 - 2007

They are very good at expressing themselves, Borders. Their high sense of their own dignity means that they can never admit to doing anything wrong so, if observed taking a tumble or otherwise fouling up, they will draw themselves up to their limited full height and give a haughty look that conveys: “I meant to do that.”

If you offend them, their deadliest insult is to turn their back on you. I once watched Arthur perform several revolutions on his bottom on the platform of Alnmouth station, as he made clear how disgusted he was with me for catching a train to London rather than taking him out into the hills.

The Border is obedient, and will always do exactly what you ask it, so long as it happens to coincide with whatever it was planning to do anyway at the time. Otherwise you can forget it. Craster will rarely come when called and cannot believe that anyone will not be utterly delighted to meet him. Because he is, after all, the cutest dog anyone ever saw.

Although they can sit comfortably on your lap, Borders are not toy dogs. They do not yap. Indeed, their bark is sufficiently like that of a large dog for my wife to insist, laughably, that I should leave Craster behind as a burglar deterrent when we are apart.

Borders do not require effete tartan coats to face the rigours of winter: they grow their own, and then shed them on your carpet. Around my way I often see working Border terriers that live in Spartan outdoor kennels. Mine regard their natural habitat as our bed and the sofa.

Small wonder that when DFS recently decided to adopt a softer image for their advertising, they should have chosen to have it fronted by an appealing small boy with a Border terrier.

Could I recommend acquiring a Border terrier? Unreservedly, so long as you are not doing it as a slave to fashion. The walks will keep you fit, and their antics will lift your spirits. Just remember always to laugh with them, not at them, or you will find yourself staring at a hairy brown back for a very long time.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Follow your heart and nothing else will matter

Perhaps the strangest advice I have read in the last week was the recommendation that lonely single people should acquire a dog to attract the opposite sex.

I can tell you from bitter experience that this does not work, partly because dogs really do take on the personalities of their owners. The low point for me, some years ago now, was walking in the hills above Alwinton on a gloriously sunny summer morning, and observing the approach of a vision of loveliness in shorts. She was accompanied by a bouncing collie.

As we drew closer I could see that the young lady was smiling broadly at me, or perhaps at my ever-so-cute Border terrier. Clearly a potentially life-changing conversation was on the cards. But it never took place because, at the critical moment, Arthur the Border terrier adopted his usual course with strange dogs and bit a lump out of her companion.

We passed in an awkward silence broken only by my well-worn attempt at an apology, as Arthur gave me his traditional “Sorry, Dad,” look, which I knew meant that he was not sorry at all.

The late Arthur in benign repose

But at least the “get a dog” advice acknowledges in the small print that it may not bring you the love of your life, but it does guarantee that you will be less lonely. Because you will have a dog.

The address to Stanford University graduates by Steve Jobs, much quoted after his death last week, contained great advice on the matter of work. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.”

The important sub-text to which is that your work will almost certainly never bring you the sort of fame and wealth enjoyed by Steve Jobs. But that won’t matter. Because at least you will be filling your days doing something that you love.

For me, the other particularly striking feature of Jobs’ address was the remarkable chutzpah he displayed in standing before a class of eager young graduates and reminding them that they would all soon be dead.

It is perfectly true, of course. The best lesson that the old can pass on to the young is that it only seemed like yesterday when they were similarly full of youthful promise. I can remember my parents trying to teach it to me. But like youngsters through the ages I ignored them, because I believed I had all the time in the world.

Very few of us have the great gift of being entirely original thinkers, able to conjure up products that no one has the slightest idea that they want until they appear on the market, then realise that they absolutely must have. Such inventiveness has been the great contribution to the world of Apple Inc.

The late Steve Jobs

Who knows what more life-enhancing gadgetry would have come our way if Jobs had lived. Though my own principal regret is that we shall never hear him further develop his intriguing line from that Stanford address: “Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent.”

As he pointed out, “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there.” But as my late next-door neighbour was fond of saying, in only slightly more colourful language, “No beggar gets out of this one alive.”

It is a shame that Apple have not yet beautifully packaged the inevitable as a must-have iDeath that we could all covet. Until they do, the best advice surely comes from Horace in what the BBC would have us describe as BCE: “Carpe diem”. Seize the day and follow your heart.

So if you’re lonely as you read this, maybe you should crack on and buy that dog. Or possibly try advertising a vacancy for a wife on your business website. That was my one original idea so far, and it certainly worked for me far better than the irascible Border terrier ever did.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Age slows us down as time speeds up

With age comes the sense that time is passing more quickly, and the certainty that routine tasks take ever longer to perform.

I got up to write this column at 6.30 yesterday and reached my desk two hours later, after a bath and a simple breakfast of porridge. Once the process would have taken 45 minutes, and even then my girlfriend used to chide me for being a terrible slowcoach.

On Saturday I took advantage of the splendid weather to take a favourite circular walk in the Breamish Valley. Ironically, I started recording the times taken to complete my walks because the authors’ estimates in my guidebooks always seemed so wildly generous. In 1997, it took me 3hr 10min. By 2006, this had increased to 3hr 40min. In 2010, it has become a 4hr 20min hike.

Soon it will be an all-day expedition, rendered impossible because I won’t be ready to leave the house until mid-afternoon.

Having a young child renders my deterioration all the more depressing, particularly since he is already starting to outperform me right across the board.

Charlie has sadly been a bit poorly of late, and his doctor prescribed an antibiotic to supplement the ubiquitous Calpol. The first time he approached us with an open bottle of medicine and a spoon, the Strict Blame Culture operating in the Hann household swung into action and I duly interrogated my wife on who had dispensed the last dose and failed to secure the cap properly.

By the third time it happened, I had been forced to concede that our one-year-old son can open supposedly childproof closures that often defeat his parents. Though why should this surprise us, when six months ago he had already comprehensively reprogrammed my wife’s mobile phone?

The penicillin proved an unnecessary precaution, since the shock news finally emerged some time after our consultation with the GP that Charlie is actually suffering from foot and mouth disease. I was on the Internet trying to track down a captive bolt gun and some old railway sleepers for the pyre when my wife arrived with a print-out from the NHS website listing the symptoms (with a large red tick in her own hand against each item) and the reassurance that, in humans, this is normally a mild viral infection.

The final successful diagnosis was reached through mothers’ gossip in the office. Which was at least cheaper than the staggering £369.73 that it cost me last week to be informed that my dog has an enlarged heart. “Stone me!” I gasped at the vet’s when his receptionist announced this total, causing a ripple of merriment around the waiting room, though I soon lost their sympathy by pointing out that I could have had the dog put down, bought a new puppy, paid for it to be microchipped and vaccinated, and still had change for a good night out.

I don’t even know whether the diagnosis is correct. I was shown what was supposedly an X-ray of my dog’s chest, but it could just as easily have been a black and white Luftwaffe aerial photo of French defences along the Maginot Line.

The good news is that the alleged problem can be treated with drugs. And the one helpful tip to be gained from this column is that it is never a brilliant idea to embark on a four hour drive with a dog that has recently swallowed a diuretic pill unless you want to find yourself doing 70mph on the M62 wondering where that noise like running water can be coming from.

I think the long walk on Saturday did him good. It certainly energised this sufferer from an enlarged stomach. And at the pace I can manage these days, could there be a better companion than a valetudinarian Border terrier or an ailing toddler?

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Tolerance is surely the right answer

I am married to a Muslim who resolutely refuses to wear a burka, no matter how often I point out that black is terribly slimming.

This should come as no surprise, given that the principal celebration she organised for our son’s first birthday was a hog roast. Or the fact that we share our bed with a Border terrier, in defiance of anything that the Koran might say about the uncleanliness of dogs (on which, let’s be honest, it’s probably not wrong).

As usual, I blame the parents. My Iranian mother-in-law refuses to eat lamb on the irrefutable grounds that it ‘tastes too lamby’ and substitutes pork in her otherwise traditional Persian dishes.

Even making allowances for Mrs Hann’s unconventional upbringing, I am struck by the fact that whenever the latest shock horror story about Muslim intolerance hits the media, it is usually her rather than me who launches into the standard reactionary rant about ‘how dare these people come over here and expect us to change our ways to suit them’.

Most of the recurrent accounts of uniformed servicemen being turned away by Muslim shop staff are, I strongly suspect, urban myths. It would be comforting to believe the same of the tales of dog owners being turfed off buses because their companions offend drivers or passengers. But, since the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association confirms that this is indeed a common problem, I suppose it must be true.

How do sightless Islamists find their way around, I wonder in passing?

Then there is the vexed question of the veil. Is it an instrument of male oppression or a genuine symbol of faith? We have at least one outspoken imam telling us that it is simply an ancient Byzantine or Persian custom, and that there is nothing whatsoever in the Koran that enjoins its wear.

Whenever the media go out to interview burka wearers, they invariably seem to happen upon eloquent, intelligent and happy fans of the garment, keen to explain how much it means to them. (Hint for interviewers: anyone who has been forced to wear the thing probably isn’t going to feel free to tell you all about it).

In encouraging my wife to adopt it, I was mainly hoping to contribute to the family economy drive, but she assures me that beneath those flowing robes there is no skimping whatsoever on expensive make-up or designer labels. I guess my secondary aspiration of creating a new, post-Moat talking point in the shops of Rothbury is destined to come to naught, as usual.

Underlying all discussion of the burka issue is the following serious dilemma. On the one hand it is clearly profoundly unBritish to go around covering your face, but on the other it is equally obviously unBritish to order anyone not to do so. We are a tolerant country, after all.

Our problem is accommodating a tiny minority of people who are profoundly intolerant. As I recall, one group last year threatened to kill anyone who dared to suggest that Islam is a violent religion. Who says it’s just Americans who don’t get irony?

For most of us, faith has become an irrelevance. The last Government was fond of talking about Britain being ‘a secular society’, overlooking the fact that it is in fact an institutionally Christian monarchy whose anointed head of state proclaims on each coin that she reigns ‘Dei Gratia’- by the grace of God.

The behaviour of followers of other religions may occasionally seem like appalling cheek, but the correct Christian response is to turn the other one. Yes, it is a challenge in the face of fanaticism and bigotry, but the right answer surely has to be tolerance. Maybe my wife should offer a master class in it. God knows, the poor woman gets enough practice.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Changing times in Alwinton and Brussels

Alwinton Show is over, and the evening of the year has begun. So I always reckoned, as I marked the second Saturday in October in my diary, though it has been some time since I made the short journey to the show ground.

Until last weekend, that is, when I had a new wife and son to introduce to one of the undoubted highlights of the Northumberland countryman’s year. But whatever happened to all those smart old men I used to see, impeccably turned out in tweed jackets or suits, with matching caps?

Sadly I think we know the answer to that.

Turning back to the first show catalogue I can find, from 1991, and comparing it with Saturday’s, there has been a noticeable slump in entries across nearly all the agricultural, horticultural and domestic classes – though more people than ever are having a go at producing loaves of bread, cheese scones and jars of chutney, so perhaps all is not lost.

Elsewhere, do we no longer have the skills, time or inclination for this sort of thing, or are the incentives simply inadequate? Although prize money has doubled in the last 18 years it is still only £4 for first place in most classes, which is perhaps not enough to set the pulse racing.

Still, we enjoyed what we saw and can only applaud the innovative thinking behind the new (to me) category of “Baking Gone Wrong”, providing a welcome fall-back position with its encouraging note “Entries taken on day”.

One thing that has not changed is the appealing directness of my fellow Northumbrians, perfectly illustrated by the Show secretary commiserating with me in the queue for the chip van because my Border terrier was too fat to be worth entering for the dog show. This came as news to both me and the dog.

Then there was the steady stream of people who approached me to admire my son, snoozing peacefully in his sling on my chest, then addressed me sympathetically as “Granddad”. I felt compelled to put them right, but it clearly did no good. I could tell by the shaking of their heads that they now had marked me down as pathetically confused as well as terminally decrepit.

I was a bit saddened by the decline in sartorial standards in the Cumberland & Westmorland wrestling ring, where I waited in vain to see someone turned out in the traditional white combinations and coloured trunks. Was I just too impatient, or has this get-up finally gone the way of admirals’ tricorn hats and the Speaker’s wig?

That is the problem with traditions. You take them for granted, comfortably assuming that they are continuing just as they always did, then find that some bright spark has done away with them in the name of “modernisation”.

We will be seeing an awful lot of that on a much broader canvas once the European Union secures its new Lisbon Treaty, through its usual unattractive mixture of lies and intimidation, and the small elite who alone can be trusted to make decisions get on with their mission of abolishing what is left of our national independence.

Yes, the quality of British politicians of all parties is such that we might well feel inclined to allow someone – anyone – else to do their job, but I will still miss my once in five years opportunity to have an indirect say in sacking the man in charge.

This is very much the evening of the United Kingdom and the political and legal systems we have known all our lives. Eurosceptics pin their final hopes on the Czech President, as the Czechs in 1938 placed their hope in us. The precedent is hardly encouraging. Still, perhaps the red glow from the bonfire of our ancient liberties will at least give us an autumn sunset to remember.

www.blokeinthenorth.com

Originally published in The Journal, Newcastle upon Tyne.

A tale of the unexpected

Do something unexpected. It was never advice that appealed to me, as a lifelong bachelor and dyed-in-the-wool curmudgeon. Yet in February I astonished my friends by marrying a beautiful woman who is young enough to be my daughter (though luckily she isn’t). Even more remarkably, I find myself looking forward to the birth of my first child in July, a month after my 55th birthday.

Like many people, I had taken stock of my life as I approached my half century. By then I had worked in the City for 25 years, mainly as a PR consultant to companies in various sorts of difficulty (if they weren’t when they appointed me, they soon were). Thanks to my brilliant insight that the London property market was hugely overvalued by the mid-1980s, I commuted every week between a poky rented flat in Pimlico and a spacious but inexpensive house in Northumberland. I was overweight, over-stressed and taking a daily cocktail of drugs for hypertension, depression and thrush (the last, admittedly, only because of a ludicrous mix-up at the pharmacy).

Sod it, I decided; I’m going to pack this in and spend more time with my Border terrier, walking the hills and finally writing that Big Novel. On the plus side, I lost weight, relaxed and weaned myself off the pills; on the minus, I became relatively poor. Not a word of the Big Novel got written, but the local paper kindly gave me a weekly column and I set up a couple of websites to keep my writing hand in, notably a daily blog about my sad decline called Bloke in the North.

Just before April Fool’s Day last year I received an email in response to a spoof advertisement on www.keithhann.com (a site created in 2004 for the sole purpose of discouraging potential PR clients, and thus one of my few undisputed successes). This contained the unlikely claim that the sender had “a friend” who was interested in applying for the vacant position of my wife, girlfriend or carer.

Yeah right, I thought. Particularly when the writer seriously overplayed her hand by claiming that her friend was a six foot tall, 35-year-old, blonde, buxom nanny. The only thing that prevented me from pressing the “delete” button on this obvious wind-up was the fact that the sender claimed to work for a company that had once been a client of mine. So I forwarded the email to her Chief Executive, who confirmed that she really did exist.

There ensued a bizarre correspondence about the alleged friend – who was, as it turned out, entirely genuine. But I fell in love with my initial correspondent’s way with words, which suggested that she possessed a sense of humour almost as peculiar as my own. Something made all the odder by the fact that she had a name that read like a nasty accident on a Scrabble board, and had spent the first ten years of her life in Iran. How could someone from such a different background and culture have acquired the mindset of a northern club comedian and a repertoire of old jokes that would put even the late Bob Monkhouse to shame?

I simply had to see her to find out, even though we lived 222 miles apart. Luckily for me she had started reading Bloke in the North, and found it amusing enough to think that it might be worth meeting me, even at the risk of upsetting her friend. She later admitted that her reaction on walking into the restaurant for our first date was “Oh God, he looks like someone’s dad!” But she bravely went through with dinner, and by the end of it the first of many subsequent dates had already been arranged. Our shared sense of the ludicrous swept all before it.

Months later, she asked what had first attracted me to her and I explained that it was simply that her first email had been so very funny. “But didn’t you notice?” she said. “I just copied all your own lines off your website and repeated them back to you.”

The important lessons to be learned from this strange little story are therefore as follows. Never laugh at your own jokes. Never dismiss blogging as a complete waste of time. Never assume that you are too old to need contraception. And never dismiss the possibility that even something as completely unexpected as true happiness might be lurking just around the next corner.

Now all I need to do is sell my house, relocate to Cheshire and go back to work until the age of 80 to support my new family. All in the teeth of the worst recession for a century. Still, compared with finding a gorgeous, loving and hilarious wife like Maral that looks like a piece of (wedding) cake.

Originally published in SAGA Magazine.