My American colleague in various business adventures has in the past expressed astonishment at the fact that we have a TV show called “One Man and his Dog”. This is a long running show (thirty years or more) about dog trials, yes, really, shepherds and their dogs rounding up sheep in competition. Think the end of the movie “Babe”. Not some charming fantasy from the recesses of a children’s author’s mind but something that regularly drew TV audiences of a million and more. I’ve never really been able to convince Greg that this was true, surely it was some sort of spoof along the lines of “Spinal Tap”?
I give you today proof that sheepdog trialling is an important part of our island life. I need to lay out a little background. The Telegraph is one of 14 national newspapers in the UK. It’s the biggest selling “broadsheet” which actually refers to the size of paper it is printed on but is also taken as evidence of its seriousness. It vastly outsells its competitors, The Guardian, Times, and Independent : around a million copies a day. On any one day it publishes from one to three obituaries. As a national paper these are obviously not of local or regional worthies, but of those who the editors feel are of national importance. OK? The biggest selling serious paper in the land? One to three people remembered each day? The lead into their 1,000 word piece on Eric Elliot today:

Eric Elliott, who has died aged 84, was a prominent figure in the world of sheepdog trials.
He was at various times national vice-president of the International Sheep Dog Society and a judge at both national and international trials. He also represented his country on 24 occasions, and twice appeared in the BBC2 series One Man and His Dog.

There, I told you so. The English really are different.