It's too hot where I am to own a husky in good conscience, but for one reason or another I've been telling people lately about a wolf I used to know – sired a popular line of akita-wolf hybrids in this county.

He was a very skittish animal, and a profound digger. The owners lived on something like two acres of land. While most ordinary dogs might dig a few shallow spots in the earth and use them as regular hiding places, the wolf was different. He'd see a stranger and lope off to one of his low places in the yard. Then, a few seconds later, you'd see a curious head pop up from a *different* low place somewhere halfway across the yard. The wolf had dug a network of burrows like a prairie dog.

It was obviously a highly intelligent animal, but I could never get close to him.

It's too hot where I am to own a husky in good conscience, but for one reason or another I've been telling people lately about a wolf I used to know – sired a popular line of akita-wolf hybrids in this county.

He was a very skittish animal, and a profound digger. The owners lived on something like two acres of land. While most ordinary dogs might dig a few shallow spots in the earth and use them as regular hiding places, the wolf was different. He'd see a stranger and lope off to one of his low places in the yard. Then, a few seconds later, you'd see a curious head pop up from a *different* low place somewhere halfway across the yard. The wolf had dug a network of burrows like a prairie dog.

It was obviously a highly intelligent animal, but I could never get close to him.

It's too hot where I am to own a husky in good conscience, but for one reason or another I've been telling people lately about a wolf I used to know – sired a popular line of akita-wolf hybrids in this county.

He was a very skittish animal, and a profound digger. The owners lived on something like two acres of land. While most ordinary dogs might dig a few shallow spots in the earth and use them as regular hiding places, the wolf was different. He'd see a stranger and lope off to one of his low places in the yard. Then, a few seconds later, you'd see a curious head pop up from a *different* low place somewhere halfway across the yard. The wolf had dug a network of burrows like a prairie dog.

It was obviously a highly intelligent animal, but I could never get close to him.

Not Drowning, Waving were an Australian band, active through the 80s and 90s, best noted for their album Tabaran, which basically did for the music of Papua New Guinea what Graceland did for South Africa. I first heard them on the soundtrack for Jocelyn Moorehouse’s Proof, which is probably the best movie ever made about a blind photographer. Bandleader David Bridie is now in My Friend the Chocolate Cake.

The Choir should need no introduction ‘round these parts.

New to the work of wack-a-ding-hoy English pop genius Joe Meek? Imagine a gearhead Phil Spector, only on a much lower budget, and much, much crazier.

I think I started planning a mix like this at about the same moment we seriously decided to get a dog; it would have had the Stooges on it, and Jane Siberry, and that Eggstone song, and it would have been about what you’d expect — kind of pat and obvious. But the reality of it turned out to be lot harder to write about.