I'll stop being frivolous long enough to say I quite like dogs, me. I don't particularly want them banned from anywhere - not for the sake of the dogs themselves or their owners (and I do tend to slightly prefer dogs to their owners as a rule) but because I get fed up with this risk averse, nannying society, where every last thing has to be assessed, legislated for and regulated to death. As a mental health practitioner, I can assure you that try as you might, you can't ever make all risk go away. Neither is it necessarily desirable to.

Meanwhile, can I just remind some of the dog lovers out there, particularly Fred, that no matter how much you love your dog, it's not a person? To compare restricting where dogs can go to Second World War nazi atrocities is, frankly, verging on the crass and offensive.

Mrs B, above, has it about right, though wiping the grass with loo roll may be just a little too responsible!