
Brighton's dog show is the highlight of my year
It is time for the highlight of my year: Bark in the Park, in Queen's Park. In what has become an annual event for us, my friends Ben, Janine, David and Nancy and I bring along a light picnic and a few drinks, and we sit down to watch Brighton's finest dogs, and their owners, compete for rosettes awarded for discipline, talent, self-control and generally being a good boy/girl. Some people and their dogs have been training for it all year. And some of them, one suspects, have not.
The first few rounds are nothing special when compared to the final rounds. This might sound dismissive but, really, the last rounds are something else. I arrive at about one o'clock to watch the doggy triathlon. One of its tests involves jumping through a hoop. Very few dogs manage this smoothly, for the owners have to let go of the lead and this leaves the dogs baffled. I turn up just in time to see a bulldog grab hold of the hoop with its teeth and refuse to let go. Its owners, and a few stewards, chase it around the arena to try to prise the hoop from its jaws. This is what we are here for. The crowd goes wild.
There are about 200 people here, I'd say, sitting around a roped-off area about 30 square metres in each direction. People are of all ages, and there is a Mr Whippy van, a French-crêpe vendor in an antique Citroën and numerous local businesses selling dog merch such as freshly baked dog treats from the Paws Bakery. Just behind us is a bratwurst van and the smells coming from it are driving me crazy, so God alone knows how the dogs are keeping it together.
This is fitting, for one of our favourite rounds is coming up: Temptation Alley. In this, the dogs have to run, or pace, a gauntlet of tempting snacks on either side, and ignore them all, saving themselves up for a much nicer treat at the end. The rate of failure is fairly high, and I do not see how it could be otherwise. But first there is the Golden Oldies round, where dogs over seven years old are walked around the arena and expected to survive. They all do. I don't know who won, but it should have been the white, exhausted-looking dog who may have been a Dachshund once, and who measured the ground in slow, deliberate steps.
'That,' said David, 'is my spirit animal.'
Ben sidles up to me and murmurs in my ear.
'Don't look now,' he says, 'but there's a man behind us who's been saying it's weird to turn up to a dog show without any dogs.' (We do not have dogs, but Ben used to look after a savage Pomeranian called, of course, Simon Le Pom. I do not have the space to tell the stories of his reign of terror.) 'Is it really that weird?' Ben continues. 'I mean, if we'd turned up to a school sports day without any kids, then, yes, that would be weird.'
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Then there is the fancy dress round. This, for reasons I am sure I do not have to explain, is a particularly controversial and hard-fought round. One year a dog was given a lion's mane and it looked magnificent, but did not win first prize. 'Fix!' we shouted. It struck me then that this would be fertile ground on which to run an illegal book. One would have to have more inside knowledge, of course, but I have a year until the next one.
The dogs in their glad rags parade.
'There's a dog there that's dressed as another dog!' cries Ben, outraged.
'It's a panda,' says his wife, the unspoken words 'you berk' hanging in the air.
Three days on, and Ben is still fuming about this. 'It's like they skinned a dog, and then made the other one wear its pelt.' (It didn't really look like that had happened. In fact, it looked rather cute, and definitely like a panda.) In the end it won. A red setter dressed as a belly-dancer came third, even though her dress had slipped off by the end. 'Doesn't have the hips,' says Janine.
But the absolute highlight of the day is the sausage catching. In this, the owners throw their dogs a Morrisons cocktail sausage and their dogs have to catch it in mid air without stepping over the line. This is as much a test of the humans' ability to throw as it is of the dogs' ability to catch. More so, in fact. One feels for the dogs let down by their people, who themselves have had all year to train for this. One dog doesn't even stand up to take his sausage. The crowd goes delirious. But in the end, the prize goes to a chocolate Lab, who had also, amazingly, won Temptation Alley. To both ignore treats and catch them in mid air on the same day is a rare, once-in-a-generation skill set. I think of the great England all-rounders: Botham, Flintoff, Stokes.
Look, this is the best of Britain. It is amateur, hilarious, and as wholesome as a sunny summer's day. I am going to pitch a documentary about this to Channel 4. Think of the Great British Bake-Off, but with dogs. And none of that Crufts business where, as Ben puts it, the judges lift their tails up and look at their arseholes. Publication of this article implies copyright. So don't pinch this idea. It's mine. Along with the illegal side-bets.
[See also: The lost futures of Stereolab]
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Tensions were felt in May, earlier this year, when the pair were no shows at any of David's 50th birthday celebrations - with The Mail revealing that Romeo's girlfriend Kim Turnbull had been made the 'scapegoat' in the feud. A close friend of David reportedly told The Sun: 'David and the family genuinely fear Brooklyn could be lost to them forever. 'The word "lost", here, is especially poignant as it was the exact sentiment used when David fell out with his dad. Ted believed his son would never speak to him again, and he was heartbroken. It was an extremely tense few years, and devastated the whole family.' David previously revealed he had to wait 'over two decades' before getting any approval from his father over his successful football career. Chatting to James Corden on his podcast series This Life of Mine in 2024, David admitted his ambitious drive came from the desire to please his father Ted - earning a 'you've made it boy' only after he won 100 caps. 'My dad never told me I'd done well really until my hundredth cap. That was the first time my dad turned around to me and said, "you've made it boy".' He said he didn't get the same recognition at any other point in his career despite six Premier League titles, two FA cups, four Community Shields and a Champions League title. David was said to be fearing that history is 'repeating itself' as he and Victoria have faced reports over a growing distance between themselves and Brooklyn. A source told The Sun: 'This is Victoria's worst nightmare. The thought of any of her children falling out gives her sleepless nights. 'It's been difficult with Brooklyn since he met Nicola, and there's no denying that there was a family fallout over their wedding. 'But Victoria and David have worked hard to get things back on track, so this is a real blow.' In May, Victoria's social media was filled with photographs from various parties held to celebrate David's 50th birthday, including a bash at their Cotswolds home. The fun-filled celebrations culminated with a massive party held at London's esteemed Michelin-star restaurant Core - andattended by A-list stars including Tom Cruise. David and Victoria's children Romeo, 22, Cruz, 20, and Harper, 13, all attended - though Brooklyn was notably absent. It was claimed Brooklyn and Nicola pulled out of attending the Met Gala with the intention of attending David's birthday party, but were no shows at both events. Brooklyn was reportedly planning to attend David's 50th birthday party, but felt too uncomfortable to come after he felt Nicola was being blamed for the rift with his family. Claims that Brooklyn and Nicola were rebuffed when they asked David and Victoria to celebrate David's birthday privately were also said to be untrue. Sources close to Nicola told TMZ they wanted 'to get together privately' to avoid Romeo's girlfriend Kim Turnbull as the couple are said to 'have a problem' with her. Brooklyn missed out on David's early celebrations in Miami last month as well as parties in the Cotswolds, France and London this week. Following the birthday party snub, it was revealed Brooklyn also declined an invitation by his father to join him and his brothers on a 'boys' fishing trip to celebrate his 50th. The Mail revealed David invited Brooklyn on a short break months ago - when he began planning, yet his son failed to go despite arriving in the UK the day he went with Romeo and Cruz. Sources have suggested that Brooklyn's decision was influenced by his American actress wife Nicola, 30. 'Brooklyn was asked to join them ages ago,' one claimed. 'Then he came to London in time but he didn't go. Once again David made the best of things and had a great time with Cruz and Romeo.' David still offered an olive branch to his son as he shared snaps from the trip, as he captioned one of his posts: 'You were missed @brooklynbeckham.' Elsewhere, The Mail reported that Romeo's girlfriend Kim Turnbull was being made the 'scapegoat' in the feud between Brooklyn and David - with Nicola 'at the centre' of the rift. Kim and Brooklyn were undeniably close for a brief period – as photographs of them together in 2016 show - but suggestions that they were ever an item are wide of the mark, according to well-informed sources who spoke to The Mail. In fact, younger brother Cruz, 20, personally shut down the gossip recently when he responded to an Instagram post showing a picture of Romeo and Kim together. In a now-deleted message, one user commented: 'It's appropriate to date your brother's ex too? Cool.' Cruz replied: 'Brooklyn and Kim never dated.' One friend told the Mail's Katie Hind at the weekend: 'This is nothing to do with Kim and is all about Nicola. 'All David and Victoria want is their son back – and they will be there to welcome him any time.' Family friends claim Brooklyn's wife has a pattern of 'starting an argument' before family events and then preventing her husband from attending. Some believe that friends of Nicola have been behind the briefings about Kim being the cause of Brooklyn's rift with his family, some of which went so far to claim that he had told them he refused to come to any event at which Kim was present. A source close to the family told MailOnline: 'Brooklyn was close to Kim because she was dating Rocco and they all hung out in a tightknit friendship group. But that was years ago. Brooklyn and Kim were close, but there was never any romance. 'It seems Nicola doesn't like Brooklyn spending any time with the Beckhams full stop and is using his previous closeness to Kim and her getting in with the family as a reason to not be around them. 'She denies it, but Nicola has been controlling him since the wedding. The family - including the brothers - have had enough of it. 'This is the narrative that's been put out to other news outlets, that Romeo is dating his brother's ex-girlfriend - and that's really weird, so that's why they wouldn't want to be around the family when she is there. 'But none of this is true. And it's really upset Romeo and his parents because Kim is seemingly being used by Nicola as a reason to start the rift. Romeo is furious at the suggestion that he would bring an ex-girlfriend of Brooklyn into the family when there never was any romance.'