Bohemia Village Voice

By Dave Kent (Cloudesley Road)

Those of you who have an uncanny knack of finding dog mess with your shoes can take heart as there is a new invention in development that will enable you to take evasive action. Dr Caleb Haufen heads a group of boffins who specialise in what is known as "parallel science". Basically, they meet in a bar once a week and exchange ideas that seem fairly wacky but might just translate into fruitful research. At the end of the evening, the best suggestions are written down on pieces of paper and put into a hat, then one piece of paper is drawn out and whichever idea is written on it gets tested for practical application.

DUNG BEETLE

One of these curious notions that appears to have potential is a dog mess detector. A hollow metal toe cap is fitted on to each shoe and inside each cap is a dung beetle. When you are walking towards a pile of dog excrement, the beetles become excited by the odour and attempt to run towards the dung. As the beetles "run", their legs scrape against the metal and make a scratching sound which is transmitted to ear plugs via a thin metal wire. Whichever beetle is nearest the potential hazard will be the most excited and will therefore be the faster runner, producing the higher frequency scratching sound. Thus, the user will be informed as to which shoe is nearer to the mess and will know in which direction to step to avoid contact with the mess. Of course, the wearer will take time to become attuned to the relative frequencies transmitted to his or her ears; this process takes about one week although musicians appear to "tune in". slightly quicker

PLOPSCOTCH

It is not known if or when this device will come on to the market in this country as there are issues surrounding the importing of live beetles and the possible cruelty involved in enclosing them in metal toe caps. Also, it has yet to be ascertained which species of

dung beetle is the most reliable for this particular purpose. It has been suggested that the importation problem could be circumvented by breeding the beetles in this country, and that the concerns of animal rights people could be mollified by ensuring that all owners of the device keep their beetles in an approved vivarium and be subject to regular inspection. Naturally, the inspections would be funded by making it necessary for all owners to purchase a licence.

Meanwhile, the R&D people have been testing the device after dark in areas where the concentration of dog mess  is very high and have found that they can become so sensitive to the relative frequencies that they can not only maintain clean shoes, but also derive much pleasure from a game which they have named "Plopscotch". I have consulted a "marketing guru" on the subject of this device. He feels that having to keep beetles in a tank and having to buy a licence would put a lot of people off buying one if it were just for preventing stepping in dog mess. However, he reckons that the game of "Plopscotch" could become a national craze and make the Playstation a thing of the past.