It’s a dog’s life for bread addicts going cold turkey on hot toast

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Dear Mum and Dad,

It’s your dog Clancy writing from the city. It’s 10 weeks since I last wrote to you. That letter was a sombre missive in which I detailed the toast drought gripping our household.

You may remember the problem: Man and Lady, the humans with whom I share the place, had joined a crazy food cult that demonised a substance which, according to the Bible, is the staff of life.

Toast: absolutely delicious but now missing in action.Credit:

OK, in the Good Book it’s bread, not toast, but I’ve eaten both bread and toast, and toast is better.

Man and Lady spend their days stuffing their faces with various substances – as approved by their cult leader, Michael Mosley – but they no longer countenance the smallest sliver of bread, toasted or raw. This despite toast being my personal favourite, especially when served with a generous amount of butter, a finely judged scrape of Vegemite, and dropped into my mouth by a small friend, name of Pip. Absolutely delicious – umami up the wazoo – but now missing in action.

In my previous letter I described my emotions concerning Pip and the way he – a growing boy – has also been denied toast. Just like a bottle of gin, purchased “in case a guest ever wants a gin and tonic” and then drained the moment it’s brought into the house, these two cannot trust themselves around toast, even if the toast in question was purchased for an innocent child, or an equally innocent dog.

And so others must suffer for their lack of control. Honestly, it’s like the siege of Troy in here. Pip and I are now reduced to dreaming of a Trojan horse filled with toast.

Facing this intransigence, I have indicated my willingness to compromise and consume something that is toast-adjacent. I nose my way into the pantry. How about some Jatz? Crowned, perchance, with a triangle of cheese. But, horror of horrors, they’ve also got rid of the Jatz! They talk of Jatz as if it’s a gateway drug: one Jat and they’ll be back on the toast.

If I were to paint the scene, the title would be: “The Addict Denied His Fix”.

To be fair to them, they did have a significant toast problem. When Lady was writing one of her TV shows, me at her feet, she sometimes had to make up a fresh bit of plot or invent a new character. Here was her method: she’d rummage around in the bread bin hoping she’d find the answer within.

By what means the toast spoke to her, I am unsure. Did it matter if the toast was wholemeal or white? If she had a slice of sourdough, was the resulting storyline a little more artisanal? Would a slice of Danish rye push the plot towards Scandi noir?

Man, meanwhile, was a complete toast pig. He’d cook so many pieces that they’d fall off his plate as he stumbled towards the couch. Due to my fast action, they’d rarely hit the floor. No wonder he now spends most of his time staring plaintively at the empty bread bin. If I were to paint the scene, the title would be: “The Addict Denied His Fix”.

Worse, he’s now come back from the first leg of his book tour in a somewhat negative mood. His temper already frayed by a lack of toast, he now has complaints about me.

There he was, banging on about his own writing, and – at every single gathering – most of the questions would be about me. “Is Clancy OK?” Or “Can’t Clancy write a little more often?” Or “I worry every time I pick up the paper and see that he hasn’t written. He’s such a lovely writer.”

It’s a fair point, since Man can’t help himself when it comes to snaffling up the available space, week after week. Personally, I think he has a self-esteem problem. He has too much of it. As if people want to read endlessly about him and the pleasure he takes in high-pressure hosing and sorting through the garbage.

Meanwhile, he recounts how he has taken to talking about dogs, and how he wishes they lived longer. This, apparently, is one of the wishes in his book: “I wish dogs would live longer. They should be with us for life.”

A gentleman in the audience got to his feet and said there was already an answer to this problem. If Man wanted a long-lived pet, he should get rid of his dog (!) and invest in some koi. According to the man, who was full of fishy facts, koi live until they are 90.

I don’t know why Man told me this story. In fact, he’s told me several times. Maybe he thinks I should stop whingeing all the time about the lack of toast.

Now, whenever I find a way of mentioning the issue – collapsing on the floor as if from hunger, or staring into my food bowl as if I can’t believe there’s no toast there – Man comes over and says: “Clancy, do stop carping on and on about the toast”.

Yes, I know. Disgraceful. His use of the word “carp”, given the context, is rather passive-aggressive.

Could someone kindly call the RSPCA and tell him to stop?

Love, Clancy.

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