Blue Peter seems to have had rather an obsession with Afghanistan in the 1970s - not only did they take some Afghan hounds to see the King of Afghanistan when he came to visit the Queen of England, but in Christmas 1976 they found an Afghan hound that could sing. You have to watch the whole thing through to see its version of Land of Hope and Glory. It's wonderful - especially the growl at the end.
By the way the BBC is now allowing me to show most of the video material on this website internationally. Some will still not be viewable for rights reasons (and I'm afraid the It Felt Like a Kiss film is one of them) but the majority should be available by the end of this week.
And here's another dog, called Bruno, from a BBC News item in the 1970s. I've always wanted to use this somehow but as you can see it's very hard to fit it into any film about how power really works in Britain. It's very odd. I've tried to find out if it's a fake but I don't think it is.
