Susan Morrison: I'm detecting a job as the latest Hercule Poo-rot

EVERYONE else is going on about it so I thought I would, too. Dog mess. It's right up there with Donald Trump as the subject of the hour, and its appearance is just as baffling.

File picture: Andrew O'Brien

As part of a non-scientific experiment, I decided to monitor the life-cycle of a fairly neat little pile o’ poo on a pavement near me.

With the expertise of a Comanche tracker, I can tell you that the dog in question passed this way many moons ago. Well, one to be precise. It was December 28, 2015 at about 2.30 in the afternoon. Dang, I tell you what, with these tracking skills I could have run the Hole In The Wall gang down for the Pinkerton men in no time. As long as they made their getaway through Leith, that is.

There is still the faintest trace of our doggie spoor on the ground, nearly one month later.

In the intervening weeks, the little pile has spread and flattened. This will come as a shock to some dog owners, but there is no Doggypoo Fairy who magically tidies up.

At some point, someone with narrow wheels failed to take evasive action. My guess is these are the tracks of a buggy being pushed by a young and inexperienced mother, who has not yet developed the radar required to avoid the land mines left by our canine population.

Ditch the Native American tracker, I am Sherlock, me.

For a few days you could make out the tread of a small shoe. I witnessed this one. It was a toddler. Messy and required a shoe scrape on the kerb.

Until recently there was evidence of the wheelchair user who was completely unable to swerve, on account of the dog-poo-and-truck-parked-on-pavement combination.

Slowly the little pile has been ground down and into the treads of shoes and wheels and has been carried out and about and into homes all over the area.

The freakishly warm weather dried our offering on the pavement. The freakishly windy weather then wafted powdered poo in the breeze.

Ever wondered why you get that gritty feeling between your teeth on a windy day? Well, that’s Fido’s little parcel, air dried and air borne. Right into your mouth. I’m very sorry, were you enjoying that Digestive

biscuit?

It’s all but vanished now, but there’s no need to panic, since another little pile has just appeared. I don’t know if it’s the same dog, or even the same breed. Not even a Comanche could tell you that.

But basically, it’s the same owner, or at least the same breed. Thoughtless, stupid and nasty.

Why don’t we do a oui swap

SO let me get this straight. We’re having another referendum? It’s about Europe, right? We’re still arguing about this?

It only seems to be very, very red-faced Englishmen in blazers who get their knickers in a twist over this.

The deeper you get into England – thus the nearer you get to France – the angrier they seem to get, despite the fact that they are the very ones who benefit by being able to hop into their cars, drive through the Chunnel and fill up the motor with cut-price Prosecco, Bordeaux and Baron Phillippe de Rothschild Mouton Cadet . . . whatever that is.

Seriously, you turn this landmass upside down and you watch the Scots joyously embrace their continental cousins whilst looking for the booze bargains of France.

Referendum over. Auld Alliance rules.

This silence is golden for my happy family

A kind of hush has fallen over the household. The children are going about their business without the constant caroom of a mother’s voice telling them to pick up laundry, inquiring after dinner choices or shouting random information at them, such as the fact that the getting up time has arrived.

The husband has begun to worry that the continuing silence means he has become deaf.

The cats have taken to sleeping for undisturbed hours at a stretch.

I have lost my voice. The great thundering roar that I have trained to boom across three aisles of a medium to large supermarket has temporarily left town. It’s horrible. I feel like I’m stuck inside a lift with only myself for company.

Give PJs parents a dressing down

A headteacher in Darlington has asked that parents dropping their kids off at school in the morning should take the time to get dressed and not show up in their jammies.

She is right, of course, because it does give a truly bad example to the children at school, particularly if mummy likes to sleep in nightwear which can only be described as revealing.

Sheer see-through chiffon is a questionable fashion choice for the school run, particularly in the winter.

Mind you, it wasn’t the fact that the adults turned up to drop their kids off in the mornings wearing their pyjamas that baffled me.