The Lakes 2.06

[hmpf]

White dog shit! Bwahahah!

ETA: So... is that a clause in all of John Simm's contracts or what? "Script needs to include reference to white dog shit?"

Granted, I've only seen The Lakes and Life on Mars so far. *g*

Or is it a general British symbol for the past? Why haven't I encountered it before?

Comments

[mikes-grrl.livejournal.com]

Haven't seen The Lakes but that line from LoM really confused me because...well, am I dumb? I don't know what white dog shit is. Old shit? Leached of color? Never seen it. But then I live in the tropics, shit literally tends to melt around here.

OMG I just successfuly grossed myself out. Lawd. So very sorry... *is totally embarrased*

[mjlaw.livejournal.com]

It actually is a kind of British reference for the past.
A lot of people who were children in Britain in the 70s/80s will remember white dog shit as a thing you saw on the street that you just don't see anymore (partly because there is less dog shit on the street,and partly because we notice a lot less in our environments now we're all adult)

Witness:
http://www.asylumnation.com/asylum/_r/showthread/threadid_29178
http://hypercane.vox.com/library/post/where-did-all-the-white-dog-shit-go.html (actually that one's from the USA)
http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2007/01/fortean_friday_2.html

etc

I remember white dog shit myself, actually.

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I've just never encountered it as... well, what would you call it, it's not quite a saying as such - a kind of cliché, maybe? Let's say it seems to have a higher symbolic value in Britain than it has in Germany, for whatever reason. (Which is funny, because linguistically, Germany is often described as somewhat obsessed with the scatological.)

ETA: From what I've gathered on the topic, the reason for the change in colour is mostly the dogs' diet - apparently dogs were fed a diet much higher in calcium up till maybe the early eighties or so. Bones etc. Apparently that caused the white coating on the shit.

[jazzymegster.livejournal.com]

Apparently there was more white dog shit around when I was a kid (true. I saw some the other day, and it's been a while since I last saw it). I did read somewhere once that it's actually fox droppings, not dog, which is why it's actually quite uncommon (I know we have foxes up by us though, I've heard them, but I don't know how true that actually is).