Arrived home feeling rather queasy last night, after sharing my seat with a gay dog.

Have nothing against either dogs or homosexuals, but the combination of canine and camp was a little hard to stomach.

Dog was travelling in company of old college friend of mine,Tim (in those days he was straight, but no longer) and his partner, David.

Tim and David make the journey down to Brighton every Friday night to spend the weekend relaxing in Tim's, antiques stuffed, seafront flat and searching for more antiques to stuff in it.

They go back up to London on Monday morning where they stay in David's, stuffed with contemporary paintings flat, in Islington. They are part of a growing number of THH's (two home homosexuals) who commute for weekends only - in fact am surprised the rail companies haven't laid on extra pink carriages to accommodate them - and their dogs.

Tim and David have long considered getting a dog and I wasn't really expecting them to have anything big and butch, like a Great Dane, but, bearing in mind their antique/contemporary art obsession, I did expect them to have something with a little bit of style; a streamlined muscular greyhound for example. What they turned up with looked like an overgrown rat, and what they had done to it was almost worth reporting them to the RSPCA for.

The rat (or Cha wa wa (?) which is what it apparently was) had been shaved all over, except for the top of its head, where it had a tiny spiky cock's comb of hair. The result of all over shave, apart from keeping it cool during the hot weather, was to expose a rather violently pink skin and a very large pair of testicles. No matter what position the poor dog adopted, there was not getting away from them and when it walked (or rather minced) they swung from side to side, in a somewhat grotesque fashion.

"Isn't he lovely," Tim cooed. "We got him from a Russian art dealer friend of David's. So he has excellent credentials."

"Does he have a name?" I wondered.

"Kiev," said David, every inch the proud father. "We wanted to maintain some sort of connection with Ivan (who they'd bought him from) and he comes from there so Kiev it was."

At this point a small child of indeterminate sex (unlike the dog), sitting in the seats across the aisle from ours, began pointing to the dog and shouting "Woof, woof." Child was apparently not trying to engage in conversation with dog, but using the accepted method of describing a dog's bark to refer to the animal itself.

"Look at the lovely woof," child said to its mother. "I love woofies. There's lots of woofs in Brighton aren't there mummy?"

To divert attention from mothers embarrassment, I asked David and Tim what they were planning to do with Kiev this weekend. Their answer was not very satisfactory. I'd expected something along the lines of take him for a walk on the prom or scour the lanes for an Islamic pouf that he can sleep on, but they had other ideas.

"Do you know?" said Tim excitedly. "We're going to take him to a canine body piercer tomorrow."

I couldn't bear to ask them what exactly poor Kiev was going to have pierced but no doubt it will be visible for all the world to see, like the rest of the poor dogs anatomy...