White Poo Theory (2002)

(Jones et al, 2002)

The mystery

For the last few years, everyone wondered where the white poo had gone that used to foul the streets of the 80's. This had everyone stumped, and only vague and unconvincing suggestions about a change in diet could be put forward.



The revelation

Then, last year, upon mentioning this mystery to a friend of mine, he claimed to have an answer. His granny used to have "white poo spray", spray that you bought in the shops to spray on dog poo to stop it from smelling and smearing all over your shoes.

The theory

This led to the current theory on white poo, which is that when the generation of grannies who bought white poo spray died out, the poo was no longer sprayed. This explains why you no longer see white poo. Also the shops would stop selling the spray due to a massive drop in demand.

This theory put a lot of people's minds to rest, and has held up nicely to the test of time, with no noted contradictions.

New evidence

UNTIL LAST WEEK.

Last week I stopped to camp at a tiny unexplored, uninhabited island in the Okavango delta in Botswana. Accessable only by a slim, wooden dug-out canoe known as a 'mokoro', and navigated by a native guide. No other human life on there at all apart from me, a couple of others with me, and the guide. As sunset approached we decided to go on a walk to find some wildlife, and pretty soon we saw some antelope, and also some elephant and lion tracks. But I had found something far more sinister to occupy my attention. WHITE POO. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE???

Re-evaluation

The only plausible explanation is this.

At the end of the 80's, the government realised that white poo was unfashionable and had to go. Instead of the near impossible task of paying for hundreds more street cleaners to remove the white poo, they opted for a more brutal and direct alternative, remove the grannies. All of the grannies were gathered one night and, with all of the stocks of white poo spray, were shipped out to Botswana to remote and uninhabited islands around the delta. Here they remain to this day, still spraying any fresh animal poo they can find.