R.I.Chalmers Passionate About English

by Moira Allen

Manuscript format should be a fairly simple issue. Yet from some of the questions I’ve received, it would seem that people like to make it complicated — from editors who prefer a particular style and therefore declare that all editors want the same style, to writers’ groups who insist that one must use this font and that layout and so forth.

If conflicting advice on format has left you confused (and wondering if your manuscript will be rejected unread simply because you put your address in the upper right corner instead of the left), the following tips should help clarify the issue.

 

Print Manuscripts: The Basics

Most editors in any genre (articles, short fiction, long fiction, etc.) want a manuscript to conform to the following basic requirements:

• Good quality white paper (20-lb. minimum, never erasable – beyond that, use what works best in your printer) – in the U.S. use 8.5×11 paper, in Europe and elsewhere, use A-4. (Note: If you are submitting internationally, don’t worry about trying to use “their” paper; U.S. editors understand that non-U.S. writers will be using A-4 paper, and vice versa.)
• Double-spacing
• 1-inch margins all around (at least)
• A clear, readable font (more on this later)
• Paragraphs indicated by indents (tabs), not by an extra line space

Articles and Short Stories should begin about halfway down the page (some folks say two-thirds). Your name, address, and other contact information (phone, fax, e-mail, etc.) should be placed in the upper left corner of the manuscript, in a single-spaced block. The wordcount of the article (rounded to the nearest 10 or 50) should go in the upper right corner. Your title should be centered on the page at the halfway point, in a larger font than the text (boldfacing is fine). Skip two lines, and center your byline (either your real name or your pen name) in a slightly smaller font. Skip another two lines and begin your article.

Novels and Nonfiction Books require a cover page. This can be prepared in a variety of formats, but the simplest is to center your book title halfway down the page. Skip two lines, and center your name or byline. Skip another two or three lines, and center your contact information (real name, if different from your byline, address, phone, fax, etc.) If you are using an agent, you may wish to include the agent’s name and information here (or the agent may prepare a separate cover sheet). Skip another two or three lines and include the total wordcount of the manuscript. Then, begin each separate chapter of the book on its own page, beginning halfway down the page with the title of the chapter (or number, if the chapter has no title). Do not include your byline on each chapter, or any contact information.

Running Headers are expected on articles, short stories, novels and nonfiction book. A running header should appear at the top of every page (except the first), and include the following information:

• Your last name
• The title of the article, book, or story — or a keyword from the title if the title is long
• The page number

For example, a running header for an article titled “A History of Feline Chiropractic Care” might look like this: Allen/Feline Chiropractic/…2

Page Numbers in a book-length manuscript should be sequential from the first page of the book to the last. Don’t number each chapter separately (e.g., 1-1, 1-2; 2-1, 2-2, etc.). Today, it’s the rare computer system that won’t allow you to work on an entire book-length manuscript in one document. However, if you find this cumbersome, there’s no reason why you can’t create each chapter in a separate file and assemble them into a single document later. (Keep in mind that these days, most publishers will expect you to deliver not only a printed copy of your manuscript but, eventually, an electronic copy as well, generally in Microsoft Word.) If you find it too difficult to get your headers/page numbers to skip the first page of each chapter, don’t worry about it; this is a manuscript, not a finished product.

Contest Submissions are formatted much like regular article or story submissions, with one exception: All your contact information should be included on a cover sheet, like that used for a book-length manuscript. Do not put your name or any contact information on the first page of the story/article itself, and do not include your name in the running header. The cover sheet will be removed from your submission, so that the judges do not know anything about the author of the piece. (If you see a listing that asks for work to be submitted in “contest format,” this is what it means.)

Fonts and Format

Amazingly, people get into heated discussions over what types of fonts editors prefer. Some folks claim that all editors want manuscripts in Courier (the font that looks like your typewriter font). Lately, some editors and writers have come to prefer Arial. So what do editors really want?

The truth is, most editors really don’t care, as long as the font is readable. (I can state this with confidence, having done a survey of about 500 editors; 90% expressed “no preference” with regard to font.) Very few editors will reject your manuscript because it happens to be in New Century Schoolbook, Palatino, or Times Roman. Generally, it’s best to use a 12-point font size, and to choose a font that doesn’t “squinch” letters together too closely.

The rationale for Courier dates back to the days when editors did an eyeball “guesstimate” of line lengths to determine exactly how much space a piece would fill in on the printed page. Courier is a “fixed-space” font, meaning that each letter takes up exactly the same amount of space. This made it easier to estimate how an article would appear when typeset. Today, however, very few editors need to do this (or even remember that it was done).

Arial is a nice, readable font — but it is also a sans-serif font, which many editors don’t like. (To see the difference between a serif and sans-serif font, compare Arial to Times.) So before you use this font, be sure your editor really, really wants it.

The bottom line on fonts is simply this: If your editor expresses a preference, or if you’ve heard from five other people who have submitted to that same editor that s/he is obsessive over fonts, use the font the editor prefers. But if your editor has no preference, don’t assume that s/he has one — and don’t “get your knickers in a twist” over the issue of font.

Some editors prefer that you do not include bold or italic type, and use underlining to indicate titles or emphasis. To be honest, I ignore this injunction, and have never found that it “hurt” my sales, with the single exception of Byline magazine, which scans hard-copy manuscripts and therefore does not want formatting. Again, if the editor is emphatic about this, listen to the editor; otherwise, follow your heart.

Submitting Your Manuscript

Submitting your manuscript is a fairly simple process. If your manuscript is short (less than five pages), it is acceptable to fold it and send it in a regular business-size mailing envelope. If, however, your manuscript and cover letter combined come to five pages or more, it is better to use a manila envelope for your submission.

Use as small an envelope as possible that will allow your pages to lie flat, but not slide around. A 9×12 envelope will usually be sufficient, unless you have a very thick manuscript.

Do not staple or paperclip your pages. Insert them into the envelope “loose.” If you are including photos or artwork, protect them with cardboard. (One good approach is to put them inside a separate envelope, with cardboard protectors, and put that envelope into your main mailing envelope.)

Address labels look more professional than hand-written addresses. One easy way to generate address labels is to buy a Dymo label-maker for your computer — you can simply copy the address from your cover letter, paste it into the label-making program, hit “print,” and you have a neatly formatted label. Otherwise, I recommend typing labels (it’s a great reason to hang onto your old typewriter!) I also recommend ordering preprinted return-address labels for yourself — and don’t clutter them up with puppies or flowers or such! (You can also use these return address labels to label your SASE.)

Now that most writers use printers rather than typewriters, most of us consider our manuscripts “disposable” — i.e., we don’t expect the editor to send them back. (And no one expects editors to scribble suggestions and comments on our work anymore!) So it’s no longer necessary to include a return envelope that will hold your entire manuscript, or enough postage to return that manuscript. Instead, just include a business-size, stamped, self-addressed envelope (SASE) for the editor to use to respond to your submission. (Do send a return envelope with postage if you want photos or artwork returned.)

Some writers like to include a stamped, self-addressed postcard with “check-off” boxes for an editor to use. Some editors find this simpler than a SASE, but it requires you to actually develop a postcard for the editor to “check off.” Personally, I consider this more trouble than it’s worth; it’s much simpler to just self-address an envelope and put on a stamp (and a postcard really doesn’t save you that much money).

When submitting a book manuscript, you’ll usually need a box. While such things as “manuscript boxes” do exist, they aren’t easy to find — and they aren’t necessary. Instead, just use a regular mailing box — such as the type of box you might receive from Amazon.com. A file-folder box will also work well for mailing a manuscript, but you may need to pad it a bit to keep the pages from sliding around. (Plastic shopping bags work just fine for this.) Again, don’t secure your pages with staples, paper clips, or heavy clips. At most, if you’re afraid the pages may slide around in the box, you can secure it with a single rubber-band around the middle. If you’re including a disk, put that in a separate envelope inside the box. Again, most publishers aren’t going to make comments on your manuscript, so there is no need to include postage for its return; just include a regular SASE.

 

Electronic Submissions

As you might imagine, electronic submissions break nearly all the rules listed above. If you are sending a submission as an e-mail attachment, you can still format your manuscript as you would for print; however, if you are including your manuscript in the text of your e-mail, you’ll need to follow very different format guidelines.

In e-mail, obviously, you don’t have to worry about paper quality, ink, margins, or running headers and page numbers. Here are some of the things you do have to worry about:

1. Don’t attempt to double-space text.
2. Double-space between paragraphs.
3. Use a readable e-mail font.
4. Avoid formatting, such as bold, underlining, or italics.
5. Turn off “smart” (curly) quotes in your wordprocessing program,
6. Include your contact information
7. Do not use HTML,
8. Do not send your submission as an attachment unless you have received permission to do so.
9. To be safe, convert your wordprocessed document to a text format before pasting it into your e-mail.
10. When in doubt, e-mail the piece to yourself first, to make sure nothing went wrong.

Most e-mail programs automatically convert a double-spaced document into single-spacing; don’t try to change it back. This will only create format problems at the other end.

You can still indent, but some e-mail programs “lose” the tabs, so a double-space may be the only way to indicate a new paragraph.

I am always amazed to receive e-mail messages in microprint. Mishawaka is a good e-mail font; be sure to select “normal size”. When in doubt, send yourself an e-mail; if the font looks tiny, increase the size or change fonts.

Most e-mail programs still don’t translate these well, resulting in odd symbols that make a transmission look garbled. Indicate underlining or italics by placing an underscore character next to the word being _underlined_. Indicate bold with asterisks on either side of the *word* you want to emphasize.

if you are going to transfer that document to e-mail. This includes curly apostrophes. These do not translate well in e-mail, resulting in a manuscript that is littered with weird symbols — a manuscript your editor will not only find hard and frustrating to read, but will have to go to great lengths to “fix” for publication. Do not use a keyboard-generated “m-dash”; use ” — ” to indicate a dash instead. Do not use symbols at all if you can help it; you never know what an accent mark will turn into at the receiving end.

(name, address, etc.) and wordcount at the very beginning of the e-mail, before the title.

or send material that has previously been formatted in HTML. Remove all HTML codes. Turn off any option in your program that is likely to convert your submission to HTML.

(Do not send any unsolicited submission as an attachment.)

This can eliminate many format problems. (Use plain text, not Rich Text Format.)

 

A Final Word

I mentioned putting your name and address on your manuscript at the beginning of this article, and I’m going to mention it again. I am amazed at how many manuscripts I have received in the past couple of years that don’t even include the author’s byline, let alone full contact information. Keep in mind that when you are submitting a manuscript as an attachment, this document may well become “separated” from the “cover e-mail.” Most likely, an editor (like me) will store manuscripts in one file and e-mail messages in a completely different file. And since, like me, most editors may keep a manuscript six months or more before publishing it, by the time we get back to that article in the file, we may have no idea who wrote it.

Thus, the bottom line in all manuscript submissions is really the top line: At the very least, include your name!
———————————————————-

Moira Allen is the editor of Writing-World.com (http://www.writing-world.com) and the author of more than 300 published articles. Her books on writing include Starting Your Career as a a Freelance Writer and The Writer’s Guide to Queries, Pitches and Proposals.

Posted under Writing

This article first appeared in Country Smallholding, March 2003

Protect Your Smallholding

by

R.I.Chalmers

How would you react to being the victim of crime? You would feel anything from mild annoyance to utter devastation. Having worked hard to achieve a lifestyle you love, you are unlikely to forgive those who trespass against it. Yet you may be inadvertently making your property an easy target by ignoring common-sense principles of security.

Smallholders, farmers and landowners are waking up to the fact that the urban blight of crime is fast seeping out of the towns and cities to infect the countryside. The clarion call to action is often sounded only when something goes missing. Only then do victims begin to appreciate that anything of value needs protection.

Thankfully there are sensible and inexpensive ways that you can improve your security and keep the criminal at bay. The first thing you need to do is to know your enemy. Think of the two common types of criminal as the fox and the magpie. Both will steal if given the chance, but the fox is the professional and the magpie the opportunist.

The fox normally has a buyer in mind, or even an order, before he commits his crime. He’ll normally arrive with the necessary tools, and will probably have established that you have what he wants some days beforehand. His timing will be impeccable, and if disturbed he will have a plausible reason for being there. The best protection against the fox is vigilance and common sense.

The magpie is responsible for the majority of crimes against smallholders. He is the opportunist, driven out of the towns by the growing number of CCTV systems to seek safety in the countryside. He is motivated by the need for quick and easy money, often to support his drugs habit. A drug abuser needs money to support his habit and he is not too fussy about where that money comes from or how he gets it. His only thought is to avoid capture. In prison the only thing on the menu is the nightmare of cold turkey.

He will often be found skulking around a property, soon able to establish whether there is anyone home. All too often people make it obvious that a house is unoccupied. A newspaper poking out of the letter box, a well-used driveway empty of cars with the driveway gates open, lightless windows staring blankly out into the darkness of night.

A high percentage of crimes against smallholdings happen under the shield of darkness, but even the fox knows better than to stick around once caught in the glare of security lights. If you’re away from the house time switches are your best defence. Set lights to come on automatically, yet randomly, when you are out of the house for any time. Passive infrared sensors attached to external lights not only help security, but they also help you find your own way around in the dark.

Consider your boundary defences. The more obstacles you put in the way of the criminal, the more likely he is to go away and find an easier target. But remember that your garden can help both your security and the criminal. If windows and doors are hidden from the road by hedges, bushes and trees, then a burglar will be too. Trim down your hedges and trim up your trees to take away the cover. Let passers by, including the occasional police patrol, see if anything is amiss. Consider thorny bushes beneath windows. A burglar will think twice about trying to get through a window if his legs are going to be shredded in the process.

For the rural criminal a vehicle is a necessary part of the tool kit. Our fox will have been in the area some days before a crime. Make a habit of noting down the number plates of any unfamiliar vehicles and you might secure a valuable clue for the police. Rural police patrols tend to pay special attention to any vans that they find in the lanes. You should, too.

You could really help the magpie by giving him your own car. The easiest way to do this is to leave the keys on the kitchen table or hanging up on those little hooks by the back door. They’ll attract him as surely as any bright, shiny object. The number of vehicles that get stolen during burglaries is remarkably high thanks to this kindness on the part of the householder. By the time the stolen car is reported stolen it will be miles away, or already “torched” and destroyed, along with any evidence.

And it’s not just the car keys that will attract the magpie. House keys, too, are often the victim’s undoing. Common sense tells you that it’s important to make it as difficult as possible for a burglar to get into a house. What fewer people appreciate is that it’s just as important to make it as difficult as possible to get out again.

In a staggering 20 percent of burglaries the burglar enters a property through an unlocked door or window. Once inside the burglar often has no trouble at all getting back out. Having struggled to squeeze through a small window he can simply walk out through a door that has a key in the lock, “in case there’s a fire.” Or he might have found the keys lying around inside the house, or used the simple latch lock that had been lazily pulled to behind the busy householder.

If he has to squeeze out through the small window he squeezed in through he will have difficulty taking anything other than the smallest of items. Your television, stereo, and video will be safe. If you had the foresight to install a small, fireproof safe then your bank books, bank cards, personal papers, jewellery and other high value small items will also be safe.

So think about where you leave the spare keys, not just to your car, but to your house, outbuildings and machinery. Even the most expensive lock is useless if the thief has access to the key.

The Home Office advises you to fit five- lever mortice locks kitemarked to at least BS3621 on both front and back doors. Ideally bolts will also be fitted to the top and bottom of the doors with good, strong screws and fastenings. An automatic deadlock that can be locked from the outside should be added to front doors. Your ground floor windows and your doors are the weakest points of your security. Make them that much stronger by fitting laminated glass and key-operated window locks.

Dogs and alarms also have a great deterrent effect, though circumstances and type can be important. The bark of a dog or the clamour of an alarm activation are sure to drive away all but the most determined burglar if there is someone around who might hear it. But if your property is out of the sight and hearing of your nearest neighbour, unless the alarm system is one of the more expensive monitored types then it won’t be as effective as you might hope. Your dog might not be quite as ferocious with a steak or biscuit in front of its nose, either. Plenty of pedigree ‘guard dogs’ get stolen during burglaries.

The police do recover a lot of stolen property. Unfortunately, they are often unable to prove that is is stolen and are often unable to return recovered property to its rightful owner. For this reason the police advise everyone to mark their property. Marking property has three benefits. It makes it more difficult for the criminal to find a buyer. It allows the police to trace the owner, and it makes it more likely that a prosecution will follow an arrest, as a successful prosecution needs both a victim and an offender.

Mark property in both an obvious and not so obvious manner. Even if the criminal manages to remove the obvious marks, he may well miss the hidden ones. Large items such as trailers can have a postcode or other mark welded onto them. Metal items can have permanent marks scribed or punched into them. Property can be engraved or have electronic tags fitted, while small items can be marked with ultraviolet pens or paint. Keep a detailed inventory of your property, including records of serial numbers, part numbers and model numbers, and a photograph of each valuable item and the chances of getting your property back increases dramatically.

If you find yourself the victim of a crime, no matter how trivial it might seem, report the matter to the police. The police may not manage to solve every crime, but they can do nothing to combat crime if they do not know it is happening. What seems trivial to you might just be the final vital piece of an ongoing jigsaw puzzle.

You can help yourself, the police and your community by remaining vigilant. Look out for your neighbour’s property as well as your own. A good way to do this is to join an existing Rural, Farm or Country Watch scheme, or start one of your own. By maintaining vigilance you can also have a positive impact on other quality of life issues such as fly-tipping, abandoned cars and general trespass.

But all is not doom and gloom. As they say on Crimewatch, it is the fear of crime that is greater than the actual threat. The British Crime Survey clearly shows that people living in rural areas are far less likely to become the victims of crime than their urban neighbours. Take sensible precautions and the only foxes and magpies you need to worry about are the ones that were enjoying the countryside long before people came along.

© R.I.Chalmers 2003

Posted under Clips, Lifestyle, Society, Writing

This article first appeared in Dogs Today, April 2003

Law and Order

When your dog’s life and your own freedom are at stake, it’s time to wise up to the law

Were you given any information about the law when you first took on the responsibilities of dog ownership? When I got my first dog, 15 years ago, I had no idea how our newest family member could get me in trouble with the law. Luckily she proved loyal and obedient, and the first insight into the legal aspects of dog ownership was when I became a constable four years later.

They say that ignorance is bliss, but try telling that to a magistrate and you’ll soon be told that ignorance is no defence in law. However, my new role showed me that many dog owners remain ignorant of key legislation until their beloved pets’ actions bring them into conflict with the law. The best time to learn the law is not when a constable knocks on the front door. When you’re facing the very real possibility of an unlimited fine, up to two years’ imprisonment and the destruction of a beloved family member, it’s already too late.

So what exactly constitutes a dangerous dog? Surely not little Spot, playfully chewing on a rubber bone in the front room? Don’t bet on it. Most people’s understanding of a dangerous dog is the American Pit Bull, or one of the other three dogs specifically named in the Dangerous Dogs’ Act 1991. Though the Japanese Tosa, the Dogo Argentinos and the Fila Brazilieros are specifically deemed to be dangerous, you might be surprised to know that the law says that your own dog, regardless of breed, “shall be regarded as dangerously out of control on any occasion on which there are grounds for reasonable apprehension that it will injure any person, whether or not it actually does so.”

Your dog may only pose a danger to spiders and unwary slippers, but every dog comes with a complete range of canine instincts and behaviours. In 1999, a typical year for complaints, 730 owners found this out to their cost and were prosecuted under the 1991 Act. From this number, 406 were convicted and 200 received cautions.

The dog’s behaviour must be in a public place or in a place “which is not a public place but where it [the dog] is not permitted to be.” A public place is defined as “any street, road or other place (whether or not enclosed) to which the public have, or are permitted to have, access whether for payment or otherwise, and includes the common parts of a building containing two or more separate dwellings.” Even the inside of a car parked on a street has been deemed a public place.

Sometimes you can find yourself in a distressing situation even when you’ve taken all possible precautions, as the owner of a young German Shepherd learnt when the dog bit two boys in her absence. One of the boys was badly injured and required a lengthy stay in hospital. The dog involved was of previously good character and the boys had regularly played with him in the garden with the owner’s permission. They had been warned not to enter the garden when the owner was not present, but they did so on this occasion, climbing over two locked gate to do so. By their own admission, the boys began to tease the dog. When one of the boys took a toy from the dog, he attacked them both, snapping and snarling, and forcing the injured boys to flee.

As the investigating officer, I looked first at the Dogs’ Act 1871. This Act has served Britain well for more than a hundred years and is still widely used. This Act gave rise to the saying that “every dog has two bites”. This popular misconception arose because magistrate often impose an order to control the dog under this Act. They do not always do so, however, and they do have the power to destroy a dog in the first instance.
Though the dog had obviously been dangerous at the time he bit the boys, he had been confined to a rear garden, the access to which was by two locked gates. As the owners had clearly done everything possible to ensure that the dog was under proper control, no action was possible under the 1871 Act.

Had the dog not been kept under proper control, the magistrates would have had the power to order that the animal be kept under proper control by muzzling, keeping him on a lead, or excluding him from specific places. They could also have ordered that, as a male, the dog should be neutered. In view of the boys’ injuries, they would probably have ordered that the dog be destroyed.

I then looked at the Dangerous Dogs’ Act 1991. This Act was rushed through parliament in response to a series of high-profile dog attacks, the most notable of these being the attack by an American Pit Bull Terrier on six¬-year-old Rucksana Khan in Bradford. Once again, because the dog had not injured the child in a public place, he had not committed an offence, even though he would have committed an aggravated offence under this Act.

Many dogs seem to have something against police officers, and I’ve been bitten more than once when making enquiries. Thus, it was with some trepidation that I examined the dog. Thankfully, he showed himself to be good-natured, with no signs of aggression. As I could find no offences that he had committed, I submitted a report recommending that no further action be taken. This was immediately overruled by my supervisors, who had obviously based their opinion not on the legislation, but on their emotional response to the child’s injuries.

Fortunately, after much debate, the Crown Prosecution Service finally agreed with me and no action was taken against the dog or the owner. Unfortunately, so distressed was the owner by both the incident and the manner of the investigation that she made the heart-rending decision to have the dog destroyed anyway.

A police investigation into an allegation that your dog is dangerous will always be traumatic, even when the allegation is blatantly unfair. You become suddenly aware that the courts have the power to order the execution of a beloved member of the family. You face the possibility of a substantial fine and even a prison sentence. Even if the court only imposes an order to keep the dog under control, you and the person in whose charge the dog was at the time of the incident could well end up with a criminal record.

But just how do you mount a defence against an allegation that someone had “grounds for reasonable apprehension” that your dog was going to injure them? As the legislation means that the burden of proof is reversed, you have to prove that your dog was not dangerous at the time. This can be almost impossible, depending, as it does, only on the allegations of the ‘victim’.

In the case of Beth, a 13-year-old dog that growled and barked at an elderly woman in Aberporth, Wales, in 2001, proving her innocence was somewhat easier than usual. Maxine Turner, Beth’s owner, explained that the woman had complained to the police about Beth on three separate occasions over two years. When the police arrived to investigate the woman’s malicious allegations, Maxine’s nightmare began.

“Beth does bark,” says Maxine. “But everyone knows her. The old woman made a habit of walking past my house with her own dog. Her dog annoys other dogs. It would bark at Beth, and Beth naturally barked back. But Beth couldn’t have bitten her.”

Why? Because Beth had lost most of her teeth years before the alleged incident. When this fact was brought to the court’s attention by Colin Taylor, Maxine’s solicitor, he rightly complained that it was, “the most ridiculous case ever brought before this court”

“What was she going to do — lick her to death?” asked Maxine.

The case would be laughable if it was not so upsetting for both Beth and Maxine. “My solicitor told me that if Beth was found guilty, then an order would be made for her to be destroyed. I had to live with this worry for months. The police said that, as a complaint had been made, they had no choice but to take me and Beth to court”

Police funding is partly based on crime figures. Because of this, there is little incentive for the police to use common sense if there is an easy opportunity to boost their performance statistics. Better-performing forces are given the most funding by the government, and it is in the interests of the force to detect as many crimes as possible.

So what can you do to avoid being turned into a criminal by the unforeseen actions of your best friend?

 

• Most importantly, understand that all dogs are capable of behaving in a manner that would fall within the definition of dangerous.
• Make sure that there are adequate signs alerting people to the presence of the dog when it is in your garden, regardless of whether you have any concerns about his behaviour.
• Make it clear to people where they can and cannot go on your property.
• Place a post-box at the gate. The 6,450 postal workers who are bitten by dogs each year will at least applaud your efforts.
• Always supervise your dog when he interacts with children or strangers.
• When you’re with your dog in a public place, make sure you have full control at all times. If your dog will not immediately respond at a distance to voice commands, keep it on a lead all times when there are other people animals around.
• Be aware that your dog can be intimidated by groups of strangers and even familiar people. Crowds especially can frighten dogs, so be extra cautious near schools and shops.
• Don’t leave your dog tied up and unsupervised outside a shop. This will certainly be deemed to be a public place and a court is unlikely to accept that dog was properly under control.
• Understand your dog and its moods. Look for signs of injury or illness, both of which can make a dog behave in an unpredictable way.
• Never encourage your dog to chase people or animals
• Do not let children under 16 walk the dog alone. They will not be in a position to control the animal adequately in a difficult situation. As a dog owner, you can avoid prosecution only if you can prove that you left the dog in the care of a person you believed to be responsible. Where the dog’s owner is under 16 years old, it will be you, as the head the household, who will be prosecuted.

Be aware of the legislation as it affects you and of your responsibilities as a responsible dog owner. Don’t assume that your dog will always behave in a rational and calm manner. Your dog’s life, your good name and even your liberty could well be at stake.

UK Animal Legislation relating to dogs.

Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953

Under this Act, the owner and the person in charge of a dog will be guilty if he chases or attacks livestock on any agricultural land, or is not on a lead in an enclosed field in which there are sheep. Livestock includes cattle, sheep, goats, swine, horses and poultry. Agricultural land includes all farmland, market gardens, allotments, nursery grounds and orchards.

The Animals Act 1971

This allows the owner of livestock worried by a dog to claim compensation through the civil courts.

The Road Traffic Act 1988

This allows local authorities to designate certain roads where dogs must be kept on a lead at all times. Such roads must have visible signs displayed.

The Dogs (Fouling of Land) Act 1996

This states that you must clean up after your dog if it fouls any land that is open to the air and to which the public are entitled or permitted to have access. It does not include land used for agriculture, woodland, marshland, heath or moor, common land, or roadsides where the speed limit is normally above 40 mph. If you fail to clean up after your dog, you may be presented with a fixed penalty notice. It is not a defence to say that you were unaware of your dog’s actions.

The Control of Dogs Order 1992

This says that if a dog is found in a public place without a collar and identification bearing the owner’s name and address, then the owner (or person in charge of the dog) will be guilty of an offence.

© R.I.Chalmers 2003

Posted under Clips, Writing

Asod’s Fables

The Pilot and the Soldier

There was a plane flying high over the jungle. On board the plane was a pilot, six crew members and a hundred and ten passengers. On the passengers the crew depended for their livelihood and on the passengers the crew fawned. The passengers had paid a lot of money for their seats and the pilot always tried to please all of the passengers all of the time, even if this was patently impossible.

The pilot not only tried to please each and every passenger all the time, but he also tried to please the owner of the airline. The owner had drummed it into the pilot that the first purpose of an airline, or any business for that matter, is to make money.

So it chanced on that fateful day that the pilot had been so busy making certain that his passengers were all happy with the service they received, and that his airline was making the maximum possible profit that he had overlooked the relatively important task of filling the plane’s fuel tanks with fuel.

As a natural consequence of not being able to run on air, and without a filling station for miles, the engines stopped working and the pilot, his crew and his fawned-upon passengers found themselves making an unscheduled stop in the middle of the jungle.

As the plane came down in the trees, the pilot noticed that the jungle was unusually infested with all manner of wild and dangerous beasts. There were countless tigers, leopards, crocodiles and poisonous snakes staring hungrily up at them as the plane crashed down among them into the thick canopy of trees.

The pilot was a very good pilot. He was as experienced at being a pilot as he was at making a profit for his company and he could fly a plane as well as he could please the most obstreperous passenger. And because he was a very good pilot, he managed to land the plane in the wild animal infested jungle without injuring a single passenger or member of the crew.

The plane did not fare as well as its passengers. Its wings were torn off, much as a child might tear off the wings of a captive fly. Its body was ripped open like a tin of sardines. The sardines, in the shape of the passengers, were left gazing out of the gaping side of the plane at hoards of wild beasts. The beasts were advancing slowly amongst the trees. Not a few of the passengers were a little disappointed that the beasts were not rescue workers coming to render aid but were instead hungry carnivores attracted to an easy meal.

The pilot, being a good pilot, and being firmly in command, began to give his orders. A case of guns and ammunition were pulled from the hold. A chest of maps, compasses and sundry survival equipment was also produced. The pilot handed out the guns and ammunition to the crew and reassured the passengers that there was nothing whatever to be alarmed about and that normal service was going to be resumed as soon as possible.

The crew, most of whose experience of weaponry had been drawn from American movies and trashy novels and was somewhat inadequate for the situation, fumbled with the guns and spilled their bullets onto the floor. Only one of them, a quiet, dependable man who had never been anything other than the perfect crew member, quickly loaded his gun, cocked the firing mechanism and began shooting the advancing carnivores, scattering the ones that escaped a bullet in panic.

“What on earth are you doing?” demanded the pilot.

“Don’t worry,” said the man with the gun. “I used to be a soldier. I’m fully trained in the use of guns like these. I can show everyone how to use them if you like. I can also use the maps, the compasses and the survival equipment to help us escape from this jungle safely.”

The pilot shook his head and frowned. “That’s unacceptable behaviour for a member of my crew,” he said. “You’re not to do that again.”

“But I know what I’m doing,” said the soldier.

“Yes, but we don’t,” said the pilot, waving a hand at the other crew members. “We need to start slowly, make sure that we are consistent in our approach.”

“Consistent?” said the soldier.

“Of course,” said the pilot. “We can’t all be geniuses with guns like you. But you can try not to be better than the rest of us, until we all learn how to shoot.”

“So if I see a tiger, I can’t shoot it?” asked the soldier.

“You can shoot at it,” said the pilot. “One shot only, and make sure you miss like the rest of us would. That way the passengers will see that we are all acting together. This is no place for skilled mavericks like yourself.”

“If you don’t need someone skilled now,” said the soldier, “you never will.”

“It’s my plane and I’m the captain,” said the pilot. “I’m in charge and you will do what I say. Shooting all the bullets in one go is bad practice.”

“Why?” asked the soldier.

“Because I say so,” said the pilot, trying to appear as forceful as possible.

“That’s madness,” said the soldier.

“It may be madness,” said the pilot, “but it’s company policy. I’ve been to the management meetings and I know what the policy is. You don’t.”

“It’s getting dark,” said the passengers.

Night came as it had always done since long before the jungle was there and long before the first animals had found it nutritionally satisfying to eat less ferocious animals than themselves.

In the morning, after the screaming had been replaced by the song of morning birds who were not mourning at all for the loss of the fawned-upon passengers, all the animals bigger than a mouse were sleeping off a heavy meal. Only the pilot’s hat and tattered uniform remained as a testament to his limitless authority.

A few days later the soldier stepped from the jungle into a small town on the coast intent on catching a steamer back to civilisation. He had used the skills he had to save himself from the fate of the hundred and sixteen packed lunches he had left back in the jungle.

The moral of the story is, always make full use of the skills of others and never try to make them conform to the lowest denominator of incompetence. That way everyone benefits.

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