Best posts made by Graeme

Disco at a Sprint Dog trial last week. He can outrun Usain Bolt, as he covered a hundred metres in just under nine seconds. His uncle does it in under eight, so he's got some speed to come.

The main reason that I didn't make it to the Iron Heart party this year was because I got myself a dog. This is Disco, he's a Peruvian Inca Orchid.

He's currently about four months old, and probably about the size of a Whippet. Like his owner, he's also completely bald.

Disco playing with Stormy the Blue Heeler.

I had a guest hound, Tex, for the first half of this week. He's a Peruvian Hairless puppy, about eight months old. His owner had fallen ill a few weeks after getting him, and he'd gone to stay with her friend. Unfortunately, after a few months in hospital, she passed away. I went to pick him up in Wagga Wagga, which is a couple of hours from where I live.

Here's Disco meeting Tenor the Azawakh, with Tex in the background. Azawakhs are a really rare sighthound that were originally kept by the Tuareg people in North Africa. They can be a bit prone to biting, as they were kept as guard dogs, but Tenor was friendly. He also quite liked Disco.

I made a stop about halfway home because the weather was hot, at over 40°C or 105°F. My car's air-conditioning had been unreliable for months, which didn't help, and the compressor blew up halfway to Wagga.

Peruvians come in three sizes. Disco is about 64 cm or 25" at his withers, which is at the top of the large size, whilst Tex is 50 cm or 20", which is borderline between a medium and a large. Unlike a Poodle, the sizes exist more as a spectrum. The dogs have the same father, but Disco's mother is a large, whilst Tex's was a small medium.

The heatwave continued all week. I took the dogs out on Tuesday morning, and they cooled off in the river. Tex decided that swimming was quite fun, apparently he hadn't done it before. Disco doesn't generally go in any deeper than he is in the photo.

I had to drop Tex off at the airport on Wednesday afternoon. The heat built during the day, so I headed to Melbourne in the morning, as the weather was much cooler, and we went to the off-leash dog beach.

Disco tried to steal a ball.

Tex had a ball running through the water...

... and he got plastered in sand about an hour before his flight!

I did wash him off before taking him to catch the plane.

Tex is a lovely pup. He's gone back to his breeder, and I think that she's planning on keeping him long term.

Having two dogs was a different experience, and I've only had one before. I think that Disco enjoyed having a playmate, which meant that they entertained each other, but handling two on a walk was much trickier than one.

I got a pair of Papa Nui Sailor Moku pants a few months into the competition, and I didn't wear them as much as I should have.

The mud is from a Sprint Dog competition over the weekend. It was rather wet...

When you've been to Adelaide and back over a few days...

This is a Kookaburra. They're a relative of the Kingfisher that's native to Australia, and they're about the size of a crow.

They're hunters, and I saw one today that had caught a small snake. That's the large worm in its beak. It's not a great photo, as I snapped it with my phone on maximum zoom.

The Aurora Australis was visible from outside my house this evening.

There's an area of native bush or woodland in the park near where I live, and there's some wildlife that frequents it.

Yesterday I saw a couple of older gentlemen on the bridge across a creek that runs through it. It turns out that they were watching a Platypus. It climbed out onto a log, and I got a rather poor photograph with my phone's camera.

The sighting came about half-an-hour after I'd been verbally abused by a woman for having my dog off-leash in an off-leash area...

I saw an Echidna back in December. They're a spiked marsupial that resembles a Hedgehog or Porcupine.

I've seen a couple of Kangaroos, and several snakes. I don't have any pictures of them, because I'm normally trying to stop my dog from sniffing them or following them into the undergrowth.

I got my pair of Sailor Moku Denim Pants from Papa Nui a couple of months ago, and the Australian summer has been really hot (over 40°C or 105°F last week), so they haven't had a huge amount of wear.

Continuing the theme of clean and dirty, here is Disco on Sunday afternoon posing after winning Best of Breed at the Royal Sydney show. I should cheapen the victory by pointing out that our rival failed to turn up, after she unfortunately injured her knee. But the advantage of a rare breed dog is that it is likely to win its class by default.

And here he is on Monday morning after he spent an hour chasing a Pitbull and a sheep around a small farm on the outskirts of Sydney. It was probably the highlight of his weekend.

Disco got a lot of attention at the show. I probably had to explain what a Peruvian Hairless was hundreds of times over the two days, because it's a fairly unique breed. Well, except for the Xoloitzcuintli who were further down the aisle...

Disco enjoying his stay in a hotel.

And since everyone is doing before and afters, here he is at three months old.

I've still got the Mountain Parka, and occasionally wear it. Here it is being modelled with Flash, who I was walking at the Greyhound Adoption Programme on Saturday.

@Oaktavia Thanks @Oaktavia. I've still got mine. It's a 3XL, and I'm a 4XL or bigger these days, so it's getting rather snug in the shoulders. Mine hasn't had a lot of fading, and I'm sure yours will look better by the Spring.

Bonus shot: My dog decided it would be a good place to sit.

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned this, but Grand Seiko have shrunk their Ushio 300 Diver to a 40.8 mm diameter and slimmed it down to 12.9 mm, added a micro-adjust to the bracelet, given it 300 metres of water resistance, and fitted their UFA Spring Drive, which is accurate to within twenty seconds per year.

Hodinkee and Monochrome have more details.

Dobby the House Elf.

And my dog Disco.

Three rare breeds that you probably haven't met in one photo. From left-to-right: Disco, a Peruvian Hairless or Peruvian Inca Orchid; Pacino, a Cirneco dell'Etna; Farourk, a Sloughi.

Dante from Pixar's Coco and my dog Disco bear a striking resemblance.

Dante is a Xoloitzcuintli whilst Disco is a Peruvian Hairless or Peruvian Inca Orchid.

I'm planning on signing up with a pair of the Papa Nui X The Rite Stuff Sailor Moku Pants. However, they won't arrive until October, so I'll be a late entrant.

It's Watches and Wonders this week, which is the biggest show in the horological calendar. Naturally, there are new pieces, and here are a few of them.

Rolex haven't done much with their sports line this year, except to slap a black and grey bezel on the GMT.

Tudor have launched a Black Bay 58 GMT, which is a smaller and slimmer package than their existing GMT. It's also Master Chronometer certified, which I think is Rolex's way of saying, "Our cheap product meets Omega's fancy standard."

Patek has launched a very pretty perpetual calendar with a salmon dial.

Zenith has revived the Defy Diver with a very orange bezel.

Grand Seiko has a new Birch Bark with an equally new 5 Hz hand wound movement.

And, lastly, the LUC XPS Qualitie Fleurier is very, very pretty.