… A Nice, Sensible Blog, without rude bits.

“We like your blogs, but we don’t think it needs the naughty talk.” Warns my father.

My father doesn’t like “naughty talk”.

We’ll be watching TV and he’ll tut to himself.

“It’s not big and it’s not clever.”

“Father, that’s Stephen Fry.  He’s both exceptionally big and enormously clever!”

But, OK then.

A wholesome, harmless blog without any naughty talk.

Nice, safe territory.

No rude words.

Easy.

So. I found myself suddenly needing a public toilet yesterday.

Now, decision number one (technically decision “Number Two: Number One”) is which cubicle to use.

I want to use the one less commonly used to maximise my chance of a dry seat and a stocked loo roll.

So which one would most people use? The cubicle closer to the door? Easiest access? The first one we come to?

Or do people assume that’s what everyone else does: most folks will use the first one, so I’ll take the one further in?

Or should I employ a subtle double or even triple bluff? Most people believe that the first cubicle is the busiest so go for the second door; I will therefore allow you losers to go on ahead, and I shall pick door number one for my number two.

Fortunately in this case the doors were guarded by two sentries, one of which always tells the truth and the other always lies, so I was able to identify by logic the cubicle with the toilet paper so soft it’s like wiping your bottom with a Labrador puppy, and a seat so clean you could eat your dinner off it (though if you do, I cannot recommend you choose the soup).

But a word on hand washing.

Time was when a shake of the hands at the wrists to get rid of the worst of the excess wee was all boys needed to do.

Then with covid we improved to a thorough wash with soap and hot water for long enough to sing “Happy Birthday” to Professor Sir Chris Whitty twice through.  (Note- do this in your head not out loud. Presumably that was the reason why all those ladies asked me to leave or they’d call security).

Clearly as the masks have been dropped and the social distancing spaces have closed in, so our hand hygiene worries have slackened.

At the gents’ urinals I encourage you to look out for people using the following system, and once observed, choose never to do it (? again) yourself.  Women – perhaps hide somewhere and see for yourself.  I assure you it’s an education!

What you will see is gentlemen checking their phones in their left hands whilst having a wee with their right hands. Not literally, obviously.  That would be socially and urologically improbable.  Neither figuratively, nor in my case literally, is the right hand doing much of the heavy lifting here.  

On completion of the wee, the willy is tucked away with the right hand.  The hitherto clean phone is then transferred to the now soiled right hand before being placed in the right trouser pocket, thus freeing both hands for the business of zipping, belting and handwashing, before leaving the bathroom and recommencing scrolling the messages on the now wee-spattered mobile.

But even if things have been straightforward up to here, handwashing is now a hazard in itself. 

What if there’s a warning sticker that the hot water can be dangerously hot? 

Do you cut your losses and go straight for the cold tap or do you risk the hot tap, jabbing your fingers in and out as briefly as possible to test the stream for scald potential, like dipping your toe in a shower to test if the hot is coming through?

I know it seems a bit ”nanny state”, but if there’s a warning on your takeaway coffee that “Danger – Contents may be hot” you don’t test it by plunging your fingers in up to the knuckles to see if it’s a bluff.

All these decisions.

It makes me miss the simpler times when the only choice to be made was reading matter (perhaps a Garfield book, for when you didn’t fancy my father’s choices of “What Car?” or Bill Robertson’s “From Tee to Green” golf instructional.  Right, Dad?), and whether or not it is acceptable to rest a couple of McVitie’s custard creams on the pant hammock while enjoying a nice, civilised poo.

Right.  I think that’ll have done it.  Now my dad will definitely have stopped reading. 

In the DrBrownIsGettingBetter spirit of education as well as entertainment, and of me making the mistakes so you don’t have to:

Gentlemen. 

Never dry your willy in a Dyson Airblade.

You’re welcome.