PHILL Wells, owner of Swindon business Pet Shed, is stocking Pawsecco, an alcohol-free still wine for cats and dogs.

Available in both white and rosé, the herbal infusions made by Woof and Brew were created with the advice of veterinary experts.

The idea is apparently to help people include their pets in special occasions without being tempted to slip them a sip of wine or beer.

Quite right, too. Apart from alcohol not being good for cats and dogs, giving it to them is pointless because they already behave like drunks.

Take the dog, for example. Loves just about everybody and regards them as its best mates? Check. Sings out of tune to its favourite songs? Check.

Attracted to trees and phone boxes when caught short? Check.

Prone to attacks of wind that can clear a room? Check. Cheerfully eats anything from a jar of pickled eggs to Pot Noodle and pineapple chunk sandwich? Check.

Extremely sick afterwards? Check.

Cats are a bit different. They’re the sort of drunk who focuses on you with one eye and can’t decide whether to hug you or batter you.

They’re also prone to going missing for days on end and then turning up with no explanation, and to being found asleep in cupboards and sheds.

And to falling off things and pretending they didn’t.

They must look for a convenient solution

WORKERS leaving their vehicles at the car park in The Parade are disgruntled that homeless people are apparently using the place as a great big lavvy.

The powers that be have promised, among other things, advice for the homeless people involved, together with extra cleaning.

Now don’t get me wrong here. I may be a bit of a Mister Cynical Chops at times, but I’m the first to acknowledge that there’s nothing wrong with extra cleaning and sound advice, especially when the sound advice is being given by compassionate front line staff to some of our most vulnerable people.

I still wonder whether I’m missing something, though.

Let’s consider four pertinent facts.

One is that homeless people are people. They therefore generally have the same instincts as other people. One of those instincts is to seek, wherever possible, places of privacy and comfort in which to relieve the body’s needs.

When I feel one of those needs coming on in the town centre, I think to myself: “I’d better head for my home, or else a pub, café or shop where I can purchase something and then use the facilities.”

I do not think to myself: “Well, time to head for the car park and do what’s necessary while leaning on the rear bumper of some poor devil’s Mondeo, and in full view of any man, woman or child who happens to be passing.”

The reason why I do not head for a car park is because I have a home to go to and can also generally afford to visit a pub, café or shop.

That and the fact that using the car park would be degrading, squalid and humiliating beyond my powers of description. Another pertinent fact is that not having a home is part and parcel of being homeless, as is lacking the funds to visits pubs, cafés and shops for no other reason than to use the toilet. Still another pertinent fact is that public conveniences aren’t exactly common anymore.

The fourth pertinent fact is that portable toilets are readily obtainable, cheap and easy to place and service, and can be monitored for vandalism by CCTV.

Putting them in a car park might not be aesthetically ideal, but is surely a better option than making workers, shoppers and visitors to the town negotiate a stinking, insanitary minefield – and obliging vulnerable fellow human beings to live like wild animals.

  • LAST week a group of seven crooks who stole and smashed open ATMs across the country were rightly jailed for a total of 92 years.

Their targets included a machine in Westlea which was blown up.

When the gang was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court, the terms started at 10 years and went up to life.

A six-figure sum was stolen but there were no injuries – although that seems to have been more a matter of good fortune than anything else.

Some other cases from our court system last week included that of a drink-driver who killed an innocent Swindon-born man and shattered his family. He was jailed for four years and eight months.

Then there were the two men who attacked a blameless reveller in Swindon one night, breaking his jaw and three of his teeth.

One of the thugs was jailed for two years and eight months and the other for two years and four months.

Maybe I’m naïve, or maybe it really is true that the offences society punishes most severely are an indication of who and what it regards as most important.