Filthy France

Boulevard du Professeur Leopold Escande, Toulouse

Rue Marcelin Bertelot, Toulouse

More filth

More filth, originally uploaded by filthyfrance.

Just figuring out this mobolg biznizz and once that's done the docushittery will recommence.

More from Brighton?

Bobbie in the UK blogged this. I seem to recall he lives in Brighton. I'm fairly certain this is also in Brighton. Does this indicate part of a wider vigilante campaign to clean up the pavements, paths and streets of the southern British seaside town? My shit senses are telling me further investigation is required. And, just to keep you up to date, the streets of Toulouse are still totally plastered in shite and with the onset of summer it's starting to pong. The deluge doesn't look set to stop anytime soon.

Paris plop down under

Ask a dog owner why they don't pick up after their pet and the answer is usually a defiant: "I pay high taxes, it's up to the state to deal with that." The Age.

Unfortunately this does indeed seem to be the prevailing attitude. Although, I'm not sure whether reducing taxes would change the attitude any. The column in The Age has a few other interesting factoids. Referring to Toulouse,

"[The city] spends an average of €700,000 ($1.17 million) a year cleaning up dog mess from its streets, have introduced ad campaigns announcing higher fines ranging from €38 to €450 depending on the severity of the offence."

Further south in Nice, the cops and the fines are as soft as the turds,

"Nice invites its citizens to pick up after their pets using disposable paper bags from a specially designed dispenser featuring the word "toutounez" (toutou is the common endearment for a small dog) but the €11 fines for not doing so are too low to be an effective deterrent. Moreover, the police consider it beneath them to collect these fines; it is believed that only four were collected last year in all of France."

And here's the perennial TV news report figures I've been trying to find - dunno the source just yet...,

"It's estimated that more than 600 people a year break a limb after slipping in dog poo in France."

The direct approach

I need to get this - from Iain Tate's very good crackunit blog, translated. Could work wonders in Toulouse. As Iain says,

I was shocked mainly because of the use of very strong language. But you know what, I noticed it. I really noticed it.

And maybe it helped, he didn't step in it. Call it user generated crapdodging or summingk.

 

Idle shit

Been a bit slack on the old shit blogging front. Couple of updates ahead. Firstly, Louise very observantly notes,

If you want dirty streets covered in dog shit, go to Toulouse...

I can't think why you'd want them, but the feeling emptied into her prose is emotionally and factualy correct. Secondly, a wee spat I had in the photostream that entertained me pasted below verbatim,

benjamin volant says:

7 photos only in your group!!!
Must be pretty clean in France then, by the looks of it!

I can send you plenty more dog's turds on pavements, if you want, but they are from the UK.
If you re-tag them "Filthy France" without telling anybody, no one'll be none the wiser... (Just a thought)
Posted 2 months ago. ( permalink | delete )

noodlepie says:

Well...the thing is there are more. A LOT more, I just hate sticking them on Flickr in among all the food etc. I'm thinking of opening a separate account. TBH, I find it a bit disturbing photographing dogshit. My intentions are good, but it's not fun and social media is supposed to be fun last time I checked.

As for your snaps of Cornwall. Gorgeous.
Posted 2 months ago. ( permalink | delete | edit )

benjamin volant says:

Yes, noodlepie,
When you happen to be living in a foreign country the least thing one can do -I think- is to show respect to that nation and its people.
I personally could go on for ages moaning at what I find oddly different or even disturbing living in the UK.
I decided to show what is good about living in Cornwall instead.
I've just got that kind of mentality.
(Your present group pool tells me a lot more about you than about France, if you want to know)
Posted 6 weeks ago. ( permalink | delete )

noodlepie says:

Hilarious - well Benjamin  I'm terribly sorry to have to inform you that life isn't always pretty flowers and blue skies.

Every day I walk the pavements of Toulouse and I see shit, loads of it. It disgusts me and it disgusts my French friends and my French family. Can you please tell me why you think uploading photos of shit on French streets is disresepectful? Is letting your dog shit on the street a respectful thing to do?

Are you honestly saying I should not even mention the problem with dogdirt? Should my Flickr account and blogs be reserved for the purposes of promotion of the French travel industry with lots of soft focus pictures of lovely chateaus and berets?

Or do you mean only French people should be allowed to complain about this problem? And only French people should be allowed to take photos of dog shit on French streets?

I suppose you quite like the fact that the Marie de Toulouse is spending a stack of French taxpayers money on a completely ineffective publicity campaign aimed at cleaning up the streets. I don't suppose you really care what French people think and tell me about this problem. Or maybe you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about because you don't live here and you don't talk to people who live here and you have no awareness of what the govt. is or is not doing to tackle what is a huge social and cultural problem for France.

Before you happily jump onto your shiny white hobby horse in utopian Cornwall, I suggest you do what I do and go out and talk to French people and hear what they think. I've had nothing but positive feedback and even offers to write a French language version of the blog.

technorati tags:france, toulouse, dogshit

Spot the difference

Same place. Different day. Same problem. Probably same dog owner.

Happy new year

Inevitable in Toulouse

I like walking along the Garonne in Toulouse, France. However, there is a certain inevitability of doing what I did at lunchtime today i.e. stepping in one. Alors, shit-tip of the week - avoid grooves, buy flat soles. You see, with your flat soles, you find a damp patch of grass and your size 9's will be shiny, new and shitfree in a jiffy. Go groovy and you'll not only have people looking at you with clenched noses as you wait in line at La Poste, but you'll be scraping and scrubbing, effing and blinding until the cows, or should that be dogs, come home as you try to pick the shit from your shoes. Not pleasant.