We live with the real @frankie_wah. The Twitter version, I told a friend, is a cartoon and he isn’t the same thing.

Behind us my Best Beloved growled, But not far off.

Frankie, the Chihuahua occupying the house with us, is a vocal, forceful little personality. And he is a willful marker of territory. Which is cocky and mad and also, yeuch.

Friends judged us. The consensus view seemed to be, ‘You, and your strange little dog too.’ No one had a good word to say for the creature. No one saw the great truths that surfaced during Cuddling. Revenge of the internet-bought, muttered certain screen-faced teenagers within the household, sloping around the place.

Joking about Frankie began as self-defense (defence), and also because he is an animal in Tad Williams’ household, where animals being altogether too cute, makes them valid targets. Therefore, here’s waht @frankie_wah is; a lot of jolly bullshit. I thankyew.