Dialogue: Breeding beats the wardrobe

No matter how bleak the weather in deepest winter, drama still abounds in London's stately parks, writes WILLY TROLOVE*.

The New Zealand accent is so common in London that I almost believe the hoary old myth that if you counted all the Kiwis in town, London would be New Zealand's second-largest city (after Sydney).

The most difficult thing for New Zealanders to cope with on this side of the Big Blue Wobbly Thing is not the endless queuing or the number of people that you have to wrestle to get on the Tube, but the kind of weather that they have at Christmas. It's all wrong.

This doesn't stop us from trying to appreciate the outdoors, which is usually a mistake.

Last Saturday I went for a run around Regent's Park. Even in the middle of the day, the sun makes only a brief appearance before clearing off to those parts of the world where it can stare at topless women on beaches. Its presence is too short to make any difference to the air temperature, but is just long enough to con the energetic into believing that it's warm enough to go for a run.

On the weekends, Regent's Park is alive with the well-heeled Primrose Hill crowd - families of diplomats, daughters of sheikhs, models and their photographer husbands, divorcees, wealthy homosexuals exercising their dogs under the watchful eye of the Royal Parks Police and Muslims training for the jihad.

I jog through them all in a rough old T-shirt, some rough old shorts and a rough old pair of shoes that were bought in Palmerston North and have never quite gotten over that fact.

Everyone else looks as if they have just stepped out of the Arctic-wear department of Harvey Nicholls. Even the dogs are wearing more clothes than me.

Halfway around the park, skirting the edge of a pond, I wheeze my way up behind a well-furred divorcee. At her side waddles a labrador, black, fat and having long since had his reproductive capacity sacrificed to the interests of neighbourhood harmony. He is dressed in a handmade collar from Harrods, a green-checked jacket and a red bandana.

As I draw level with the pair, we round a corner. There, 100 metres ahead of us, an old lady is feeding bread to the waterfowl. Like all old ladies, she looks familiar, and for a moment or two I think she is the poor dear who I saw the other day in Selfridges, elbowed by Christmas shoppers into a pile of Harry Potter merchandise.

Today she is joined at the pond-edge by a small child, who is pointing at the considerable number of birds that have gathered and laughing at how stupid they all are. The birds ignore the ridicule and eat the bread.

There are ducks, geese, the Queen's own swans, a variety of shag, funny plump black things with red beaks and stumpy legs, and enough pigeons to whitewash Trafalgar Square.

This perfect scene continues undisturbed until the labrador spies the gathering. Then, in the most primitive abyss of his brain, where canine instincts have slept since he was a puppy, the synapses fire.

His eyes clear. Focused now on the middle distance, they feed his brain the only information it needs to know. He is a dog, predator, hunter of waterfowl, and retriever of game. There, ahead of him, is prey, a flock of fowl, distracted, greedily feeding and oblivious to his presence.

For the first time in a life filled with porterhouse steak and throw rugs, adrenalin courses through his veins. His heart pounds. Tendons tighten. Muscles that have never done more than wag a tail stretch to inconceivable extents. His mouth, a slave to Pavlov, salivates with the dream of duck breast.

In an instant he is away, his lungs gulping air, his legs pounding, his tongue shooting glorious gloops of slobber in every direction.

And so the tragedy unfolds.

The birds do not notice the drooling behemoth. The child does not spy the wolf in dog's clothing. As the murderer bears down upon the happy scene, the old lady scatters her bread.

Only the divorcee, watching the labrador race away from her, has the benefit of perspective. Too late a dry cry escapes her hi-glossed lips.

The labrador runs on, trailing his bandana. Suddenly the world takes on that slow-motion effect reserved for impending calamity and bat-pad catches. The only sound is the joyful clucking of feeding birds overlain by the staccato of paws consuming asphalt.

If Francis Ford Coppola were directing, Wagner would be blaring from loudspeakers.

In seconds the labrador has covered the distance. He barrels through the outer ring of pigeons like Patton through the Africa Korps. Too slowly heads come up. Too late the birds realise that death is upon them. Too gradually, wings extend.

There is a rapid flurry of movement. The geese squawk, the Queen's own swans hiss. The labrador's jaws are open now, seeking prey. His teeth are bared, simple sharp instruments of carnage. He chomps left, right, left again, gorging on the unfamiliar delicacies. Feathers fly. The flock erupts. The old lady gasps. The child screams.

The birds disperse, leaving the labrador to finish his dirty work.

In just a few short seconds he has consumed ... all the bread.

Happy New Year from New Zealand's second-largest city.

* Willy Trolove is a London-based New Zealand writer.