Brian Sewell: She's Such A Bitch!

Dogs are utterly unselfish and will give their little souls to you if that is what you want, responding to your foulest mood by minding their own business, asking nothing more of you than food and water, a daily walk or two and physical gestures of affection.

By many, even by some dog owners, all this will be dismissed as sentimental nonsense. But my affection for dogs is not in the least anthropomorphic and I do not see them as proxy human beings easier to manage than the real thing; I see them only as dogs and it as dogs that I love them.

The fierceness of my affection is, with age, as resolute as ever. I have lost my interest in cars; I no longer have stamina enough for concerts; I could, at a pinch, give up the exhibitions that are my means of earning a living; but I could not bear to be without dogs and I hope that when I die it will be with dogs on my bed.

An extract from Brain Sewell's new book, Sleeping With Dogs (!), published in where else but ... the Sunday Express.

Hope they don't find out the Daily Mail's already run two extracts.

Oh, and here you can watch a videograph of Mr R Sewell reading an exclusive extract for the Standard.

Splendid.