Words of wisdom from The Finnster

OCCASIONALLY we get complaints about this column. Yes, I know it’s hard to imagine but there are more bad-tempered ultra-right wing people around than you may think – and also there are an awful lot of dog-lovers.

And it’s the latter who complain most. They say: “The Saturday Hesp column used to be full of stories about your dogs – why don’t you write about them any more?”

We must add, in the interest of fairness, that some of the other complainants, usually those of the ultraright-wing bad-tempered variety, do send missives saying: “Why do you employ that useless Hesp? All he can do is write about his horrible dogs.”

So to prove them more right than they already are, and to make doglovers happy, I have been having a chat with the scruffy hippy-hound otherwise known as Finn to see what he thinks about life, the world and everything.

The thing is, communicating with The Finnster is not as easy as it was with the much-missed Monty, the dear old lurcher many readers remember with kindness. I know that because I still get letters about Monty asking when I’m going to put his memoirs into a book.

From the moment I returned from Silicon Valley carrying a special experimental helmet years ago, Monty took to wearing the device which my computer-boffin friends had given me. As you may recall, that device transcribed his doggie thoughts into English. But Finn hates the hat and won’t wear it for long.

That’s because he is what used to be called “a child of nature”. Which was a kind way of saying “village simpleton”.

Not that Finn is “simple” to use that word in the old fashioned way. Indeed, thinking of that term I imagine lots of children who once were cast aside as being “naught but a mooncalf ” were actually quite bright in some ways, but either they just didn’t fit in or they simply preferred to wander around the sunlit lanes happy in their own company.

The latter describes Finn. He is bright, but he doesn’t want anyone to know it. Because he’s not bothered by what people think. Or what other dogs think. Or bothered about anything come to that. At all. Ever.

He just is. Finn is the true existentialist. “I live and breathe, therefore I am…” is what his eyes say as he walks past bewildered admirers with one of those winning smiles upon his face.

Why don’t you want to write a newspaper column with the help of Monty’s old helmet? That is what I asked him this week when he couldn’t escape because he was licking a paw he’d hurt chasing rabbits.

He answered… “Well, man, it’s like this. I don’t want to have much to do with humans, because you are all screwed. Doomed, I’d say. It’s obvious to every other living thing on the planet that you are not wired-up right.

“Look at the David Attenborough thing you were watching on telly the other night. Are you really telling me you could watch something like that, and then just carry on as normal – the next hour, let alone the next day? You were there, moaning to Mrs Hesp about how terrible it is humans are wrecking the planet, while pouring yourself another glass of wine shipped from Australia and eating a mango sorbet gleaned from some chopped-down-jungle.

“Hypocrite! That could be the one word to sum up all humans. Of course you are. You are hard-wired to screw things up and then feel bad about it. You have these crazy things called ‘guilty consciences’ – which no other creature has. And the reason they don’t have them is because guilt is an evolutionary cul-de-sac.

“I bet 99.9 per cent of the people watching a documentary about the destructiveness of humans will feel bad and say: ‘We must do something!’ Then they’ll carry on just as they were. Look at this pandemic thing you’ve all got your knickers in a twist about. Back in the days of sanity known as The Lockdown, you were all wittering on about how things could change for the better and how materialism and consumerism must be changed so that people could enjoy ‘more meaningful’ lives. Roads were empty and skies were void of polluting vapour trails. Nature breathed, The whole damned countryside breathed.

“And then you were off again. The moment the lockdown was eased it was like watching those lights at a Formula One Grand Prix. Roar! Foot to the pedal and 60 million Brits were going for it with a vengeance. They tell me there were so many people in Cornwall it sank two inches into the sea under the weight of human flesh!

“Look at the discarded face masks we’ve seen on our country walks. Look at the van drivers belting around the lanes like lunatics trying to deliver all the useless stuff that’s made in China.

“And you want me to write meaningful newspaper columns for human consumption? You must be joking! I’m better off lifting my hind leg to mark a stinging nettle.”

With that he wandered off with one of his beatific smiles, leaving me to ponder the meaning of it all.

Hypocrite! That could be the one word to sum up all humans. You are hard-wired to

screw things up