De Do Do Do

Further to the note about the Puerto Pollensa "platform" in yesterday's piece, I should add that Garry tells me that this coming-together kicked off with a discussion of the very fine mess that is the front line and the pedestrianisation, but expanded its scope, as he puts it, to "nothing less than the regeneration of the dirty, neglected port". Mess, dirty: note these words. One is tempted to believe that Puerto Pollensa is the only place that suffers from filth. I can assure you that it isn't, but there is certainly a level of disquiet - no, wrong word - disgust at the state of the pavements and so on, which brings me, of course, to dogs, and what dogs do. Doggy-doo.

The other day, there was this what, had it had a sugary coating, a layer of marzipan and a sprig of holly, might have passed for something that would find itself among the Christmas fare alongside the turkey and the Brussels sprouts. There it was, slap bang outside the front of the house. What sort of giant of a hound had left that there? Some dog of war; it must have been extremely frightened. So, I think, well, am I going to get rid of this, or do I just leave it and wait for a natural degradable process to take its course? It would have taken months. A handy shovel and a copy of a local publication were put to decent, or indecent, effect, and the canine Christmas log found its way to the general rubbish container. Shame that Muro town hall seem to have cut back on what used to be daily collections, but have upped the rubbish tax not insubstantially. Still, it has now gone. Until the next one.

Dogs out on their own for a bit of a trot, a bark and a visit to the on-street throne are one thing, even if no dog is meant to be out without a chaperon and, moreover, without being tethered to one, but dogs with their human best friends that evacuate their bowels without tidying up after themselves are another. And so it was that yesterday Hayley, as in Hayley of Hayley and No-Frills Seamus and their dogs that have taken cute lessons, was lamenting the absence of doggy-doo bagettes in the local supermarkets. If you can't get them, then how are dogs' best friends meant to flush and brush or poop and scoop the streets of not just Puerto Pollensa but the entire north of the island? Is there an island- or world-wide shortage of doggy bags? Maybe the recent rise in oil prices blew a hole in the mutt mopping-up sector of the plastics industry. And holes can be a problem. I point out, well, just use an Eroski bag. They are so generous with giving away bags - that are, of course, pretty useless when it comes to recycling - that you often get a bag per item; keep you going, and the dogs, for months. Apparently though, they are prone to holes or leakage. Despite doggy bags being even thinner, they must have hidden powers of complex polymer chemistry to retain elements of Rover's bodily functions. Frankly, they would need to be made with reinforced concrete to have accommodated, minus breakage, the tonnage that was left outside the house: either that or newsprint.

So, when next expressing your indignation at the apparent indifference of dog owners to the result of the internal and ultimately external processing of a dog's dinner, berate not those owners but the plastics industry and the retail trade. For it is they who are responsible, or not.

And as a footnote to this. Had a thought. Ferreterias - the hardware shops. They sell everything. Bet they've got doggy bags. Llomgar in Alcúdia, for example. There you can also get filters for coffee machines, because - and can anyone explain this - Eroski don't sell filters in winter. Why not? Must be all that paper being diverted into the doggy business, as it were.


ANOTHER FINE MESS - REAL MALLORCA
Yes, the story goes from bad to worse. Like Subbuteo players having the odd arm snapped off or becoming dislodged from their plastic bases, the club and team are falling to pieces, losing to Huelva, a side even worse than Mallorca, and inspiring the waving of hankies in the direction of president Grande. And he has caught a cold; in fact a nigh terminal virus without a cure, unless the latest reports are to be believed, in which case cheery nurse Freddy Shepherd will arrive with some medication. It could probably be as little as a crate of Newcy Brown and some fog from the Tyne to take the club off Grande's hands. In fact, it will be a bit more and a bit stronger - an injection of between 12 and 16 million euros stronger, according to "The Diario". There is meant to be a consultation in a Newcastle surgery tomorrow. And coming back to dogs. And Freddy Shepherd. No, let's not go there, shall we. Yet.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Boney M, and if you really must - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgevV4tpXVE . Today's title - they did some very good singles; this wasn't one of them.

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