I first became acquainted with these as the most road-centric of the SPD offerings for my Boardman, having chosen the 2-bolt SPD format over the 3-bolt road-specific SPD-SLs on account of their greater practicality off-bike. Our destination is a huge cave, where we eat the picnic lunch so lovingly carried by the porter. Amazingly, the food is still warm.

But they also found that if there were a large concentration of hairdressers there was a higher chance that pigeons had lost their toes. The scientists concluded that the high movement of traffic and people would transport hair strands around the city and as the pigeons walked about their legs were getting tangled in human hair as well as other materials such as plastic rubbish bag ties or bits of thread. I have this! I try to keep on top of it by taking off the hard skin myself with a scraper, and moisturising, but it happens so frequently I can't keep up with it.If you live in a town or city with a large feral pigeon population then you’ve probably noticed that a relatively high proportion of them have deformed or missing legs and feet. We've been staying in bamboo huts floating on Rajjaprabha Lake - a flooded dam created to generate electricity, provide irrigation, flood control, and fishing - and today we are off on a jungle hike with a guide, a couple of porters, a translator and a single Dutch guy.

Unfortunately we have lost a lot of our childhood friends through Drug and Drink Addictions, Cancer, Mental Health Issues and Suicide.

Word History

Another idea also blamed pigeon poo. As well as their corrosive effects, pigeon droppings are full of bacteria which can cause disease. Standing in their own poo means pigeons are susceptible to catching these diseases and if an infected foot or leg develops gangrene, then part of it may fall off. But most diseases of the feet such as bumblefoot or avian pox cause deformities or tumours rather than amputation. So even if pigeons do catch diseases from standing in their own poo then it’s probably not the cause of their missing limbs. What horrifies me is that everything under the sun is being labelled and medicalised. To whose benefit? At one stage the path runs through grasses taller than us, and the excitement mounts as we can hear what sounds like the roar of a tiger in the distance. I turn to ask the guide about it. Where is he? And the porter carrying our lunch? The armed ranger is missing too. If the area is infected, you may also have other signs related to the underlying infection, such as: