I don’t know why this suddenly came to mind as I was standing in my kitchen making myself some toast, but many years ago my friends Rick and Liz got a pet hamster for their kids. He was named Orby, because he had large black circles around his eyes, reminiscent of Roy Orbison’s dark glasses. Roy’s somewhat hamsterish face probably assisted in Orby’s naming.
Another friend, West, had a scruffy who-knows-what/collie cross mongrel called Elvis who was completely daft. He loved travelling in cars and created a very embarrassing incident one day during the great hetwave of 1976. We were walking to the village shop along a rural lane and Elvis, presumably to cool his feet, jumped into the ditch along the side of the road, which had a few inches of water in it. Shortly after, we approached a crossroads, where a car passed us and stopped so the driver could look before continuing. The car windows were all open. Elvis, assuming the car had stopped for him, dived in the driver’s window onto the guy’s lap, realised he was not in fact welcome in the car and jumped onto the guy’s wife’s lap and out of the opposite » Continue Reading.