Kackejaegerstaffel

Sometimes we are woken up, around 5.30 - 6.00am, by the sound of high pressure hoses. La ville d'Antibes has a fleet of small tankers, about the size of a campervan, which clean the streets and the gutters with high pressure hoses. The spray is incredibly effective, removing most of the signs of the evening before's (possibly Anglophone) debauchery: drink cans, plastic beer glasses, coke stains, chips still in their cardboard basket (with ketchup), spray-painted vomit.

But this Sarkosyan karcherisation has almost no effect on the ubiquitous dog turds, which seem to contain their own adhesive, both for sticking to the street and for clinging to your shoes. This is where the municipal motocrottes come into their element. They are standard scooters, emblazoned with the city's coat of arms, but with a powerful vacuum-cleaner riding pillion. Two nozzles, on extensible hose-pipes, run down each side, towards the rear wheel.

When the motocrottiste spots a turd at three o'clock, he scatters pedestrians in a full power frontal attack, performs a balletic swerve, aims one of the nozzles towards the pavé and bags, vrooom, tatatatatat, another kill. Some of these chaps deserve the Blue Max, but their survival time, against all the canine odds, must be measured in weeks, if not days.