It would be very niche kind of erotica

In the living room with Daughter Number Two. I’m online looking for a birthday present for J [1]. Daughter Number Two is on her phone Snapchatting and texting (as usual) and half-watching the television. The ads are on. There’s one for Audible, a company that offers book downloads. The ad involves a woman walking her dog. Daughter Number Two looks up for the science bit, but doesn’t quite grasp the concept. “Why would a dog want to hear Fifty Shades of Grey?” she asks me.

“It’s the woman who’s listening not the dog,” I tell her. “I don’t think dogs are interested in erotica. There is always a human leg nearby at the very least if the urge arises.”

“In Wallace and Gromit, Gromit reads Fifty Shades of Greyhound,” J says, entering the room. Luckily, she can’t see the page of diamond necklaces I’m looking at. [2]

“It would be very niche, wouldn’t it?” I say. “Canine erotica. Lassie Does Dallas. Marley and Three(somes).”

I laugh. No one else finds me in the slightest bit funny. Nothing new there.

It’s only later that I wonder how Daughter Number Two has even heard about Fifty Shades anyway.

And it’s even later before I start thinking about why Audible might think that descriptions of Christian Grey’s Red Room is exactly what you want to listen to while cleaning up after Fido or Rex down the park. [3]

Then again, what should you listen to at such moments? Is a bit of Bach or the Beatles the proper accompaniment to pooper scooping? Doesn’t the activity rather diminish the sublimity of the aural experience?

Or is that the wrong way to think about it? Maybe it’s exactly at such moments that you want to be in another place. In your head at least. In which case literary sex or musical sax (a spot of Spandau? A rush of Roxy) are the best possible aural escapes from the mundane – and frankly messy – reality.

The present-search isn’t going well. For Christmas I bought her a bag. I’m always buying her bags. It’s a safe option. But how many bags do you need? We don’t have a dog so Audible book downloads aren’t appropriate. Plus, she’s never expressed any interest in EL James’s work. She’s reading about the origins of the First World War at the moment instead.

I operate at a lower level. Later I tell J I’ve come up with the best Scottish dog porn title. “What’s that?” “Greyfriars Boabby.”