Monday 26 May 2008

Waste Not, Want Definitely Not

No entry today--it's May Blog Holiday here in the UK--but I offer a commentary I have in the Guardian today on, well, dog crap.

12 comments:

Jo said...

I loved this article, thanks very much! I have many, MANY pet peeves but this is one of the biggest!

مارية said...

"What's a few strangled sea turtles" hahaha...

Anonymous said...

Yeah, man, i hate dogs shitting all over the place. If i had my way i'd kill em with my death ray gun. Stab da bastards!

Anonymous said...

I lived in Belgium for a bit, which is worse then Britain for canine street deposits. We came up with the solution in a bar one night:

1. Compulsory DNA sampling and ID chip for every dog.
2. First 1000 dogs caught earn their owners 0.1% of the bill to set up and manage the scheme.

Then you can finesse that with official government collar tags to show registration, whatever. Dog police with scanners, checking the mutt is registered. Etc. Wouldn't work in Belgium because of the land borders. Britain, yes.

And if you're running out of bags, ask on Freecycle. You'll get a load, I'm sure.

David

Anonymous said...

Funny article, had me creasing. I'm going to send it to the "Most Wanted" offenders around my estate now.

Bee said...

Very funny rant. I'm usually the first to shout about plastic bags, but (not being a dog owner) I hadn't considered this important function.

BTW, we were living in Den Haag for awhile . . . such a lovely little city . . . but it was a constant shock to see dog turds everywhere!! Apparently the Dutch have take a laissez-faire approach to scooping poop.

Anonymous said...

I got rid of all my pet peeves. Got tired of cleaning up after them.

DLD

Anonymous said...

I took my cat to the vet today. In the garage were two enormous dog turds, notwithstanding the poop-bag dispenser located not 4 yards away. I suspected the woman standing there talking on her cell phone, but her dog seemed too small to have produced these horse apples.

I picked up the poop, no longer warm, thankfully, before going inside.

I am currently dogless, but back in the day, plastic grocery bags were never secure enough for me; I like the plastic sleeves the Washington Post comes in. Another reason to keep the dead-tree subscription, eh John?

Anonymous said...

I bet you can't get the word "Mollusc" into your paper.

R

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much indeed for saying "irritate me no end" instead of the "to no end" one hears and sees so often these days.

Anonymous said...

As one of your DC readers, I have a question. When writing for a British audience, do you automatically fall into using British spellings (faeces, organise, etc.) or does an editor make those changes for you?

I think I'd find it incredibly difficult to remember all of the differences in spelling.

Anonymous said...

For anonymous: There aren't really that many differences in spelling, and most of them are pretty logical. The differences in meaning, though, are Legion and quite a trap for the unwary. Example: to "table" something means not just different, but opposite things in U.S. & UK English.