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Otto the Hill

OTTO THE HILL 1. 1066 and all that

Good morning good morning good morning! Is everyone wonderfully splendiferously gorgeous, I trust? Gosh, this is my first ever missive; I’m a little nervous. No one has EVER asked for my opinion, EVER! Truly an honour.

Where to begin? The trouble with having an audience with such a short life-expectancy as humans (a CENTURY! Good lord, honestly, I had to laugh in disbelief. Managed to pass it off as a small earth tremor. Blamed it on the fracking) is that the beginning is so very long ago that it won’t make much sense to you.

One thing most of you have heard of is the Battle of Hastings. You know, 1066, William the Conquerer annihilates England’s governing classes in a field in East Sussex. Well, that field was me! And let me tell you, having a ruddy great battle fought on your very person is no way to wake up at the crack of dawn. No morning chorus, no how-d’you-do, just a lot of yelling. How rude. As though they owned the place…

Well my short-lived little darlings, I’ve been asked by the Continental Shelf to keep it short, so I shall bid you all goodday. Anon, adieu, a-bye!

Next week: Precambrian or Cenozoic – which had the best fashion sense?

Otto the Police Dog

OTTO THE POLICE DOG 1: Games of Thrones

The 2014 Commonwealth Games are finally here! So excited! The coming weeks are so important for the police, where I work, and for me in particular. There’s just so much to do!

So many perimeters to safeguard, bags to sniff, teeth to bare, bad people to identify; No one has actually said so, but I think the success of the Games may depend on me. (Well, they’ve told me that its failure will be my fault, so it stands to reason that I will be thanked for any success as well).

What is particularly exciting is how the bosses have tasked me with so many things only last week, when they have known about the Games for a few years now.

Like I have to mark all the high risk locations along the Baton Relay route based on ALL previous incidents EVER! To give my Chief Inspector an idea of where to “position resources”, is how he put it. Sarge later said he knew where to position resources which made everyone laugh, although I’m not sure why exactly.

So I started the job this morning and so far I reckon I’ve marked almost every inch of the route. I don’t think I can be doing it right. But apparently it’s better to be over-excited and even cry wolf (or cry explosives sniffer dog, huh) than remain calm and proportionate.

And that’s easy to do because it’s just so thrilling, all this last-minute stuff! So many bosses walking very quickly from one end of the operational incident room to the other, all bellowing orders, ordering coffee or just polishing their lapel things.

And the fact that I’m working 12-hour night shifts, 8 nights in a row, while there is no overtime (at least not for support dogs) and way fewer police dogs than only a year ago, makes me feel that this is really SERious.

So I know that if I do a good job, I’ll be doubly appreciated! Just so excited.

Next week: will Otto meet his deadline?