What Sort of Toilet Roll Hanger are You?

After last week’s serious rant about English Newspaper reporting, I thought that the readers of Grumpy’s blog, having recovered from last week’s headache, needed something a bit lighter. So here we go.

K-Tipps is a Swiss consumer magazine, something like “Which”, except that it is in German. Recently, they did a four page survey on various brands of toilet rolls. As you might expect, the criteria were determined and prioritised; data immaculately collected and the results laid out. You have all the information that you need. “You pays your money and takes your choice.”

The blog on this worthy topic took its form as Andy Bowen Ashwin and I were walking across the North Downs in October. We were discussing the meaning of life, how good the carrot cake was that we had just devoured and the optimal way to hang a toilet roll. We felt that there were important questions to be answered. I am sure that you would all agree with me when I say that the Leveson Inquiry will just have to wait.

For example, when you get your (optimally purchased) toilet roll home, what do you do with it? Are you a “Drop down the front” person or “Push it down the back” person? Does your toilet roll hang limply above the toilet floor or lie snugly against the wall?

So what sort of Toilet Roll hanger are you? Do you have a favoured way? What determines this? Are these patterns learned and set in early childhood or are they caused genetically? Do you consider the effects on the other “clients” of this facility? Should it be a topic on the national curriculum?

Of course, you might not be consistent in this. Perhaps you change the way you hang your toilet roll depending on the weather, or just on how you are feeling on that day. The day of the week might be a factor. It might be different if you were standing up, when doing a changeover, as opposed to be being in a “seated position”.

Does your partner do this the same way? Is it a point of discussion or heated debate within the household? If you were to appear (heaven help us) on one of those “U.S. Family shows” (apologies to my U.S. subscribers, but you know what I mean), in answer to the question “What habits of your partner really annoy you?” would you answer “He / she always hangs the toilet roll the wrong way”. Well after all, domestic murders have been known to happen for less.

Personally, I am a “Hang it down the Front” person. I don’t think that it will do to go into reasons.

While we are on the subject of toilet roll hanging, does anyone know why cleaning staff in hotels and restaurants in Europe (I am not sure about England) are trained to make the end of the toilet roll into a very nice “V”. Actually it is an upside down “V”, but I can’t do that on my computer. It seems such a shame to spoil it. (To those kind people who put us up on our endless English and Scottish travels – please note the standard expected)

I am on a roll now (no pun intended). Motorway stations have those big enclosed holders. I suppose it is to discourage the toilet paper thieves, who have now moved on to stealing any bits of metal that they can find nailed down. (The stuff not nailed down, has already be pinched.) Anyway, the point is that on most occasions, I can never find the end.  There is no industry standard regarding the direction from which the continuous roll should emerge (There needs to be an EU Directive). You end up rolling it round and round and eventually, if you are lucky, your fingers alight on a loose corner, which you then have to gently tease into the outside world. No wonder the thieves moved on to scrap metal.

A Final tip from Andy.  The Mercure Hotel in Beijung has raised the perforation issue for toilet paper to new heights. The game is to take a piece, pull it and see how many strips come out without tearing – The Record here is claimed to be six. The Lesson is to take your own scissors with you.

Happy Christmas from Grumpy to my supporters. I am signing off now until the New Year. However, I promise that next time, Grumpy will write about something a bit less lavatorial.

Feeding Christians to the Lions

I was on one of my many trips to the U.K. recently, as you possibly already know. When I am there, I make a point of buying two or three newspapers each day, to get the latest stories and the different slants that are used.

One aspect that always comes through is the confrontational nature of English News Reporting. I have already commented on the use of the words “controversy” and “crisis”, as ways that newspapers and TV try to spice up a story, without having to put in any content.

The nature of the reporting of the “poppies on football shirts” certainly lived up to the standard. This was all the more important as it involved “Foreigners” and even worse “FIFA”, against whom England now regard themselves as having a permanent casus bellus (“cause of war”).

The “Poppy War” ended when it was agreed that poppies could be worn on the players’ sleeves. According to at least one commentator, FIFA were forced to “capitulate”. Great cheers from the crowds and general self-congratulations and crowing over a defeated enemy.

I know that I have been in Switzerland for too long. There is a 35 point questionnaire that tests for “Swissness” and my kids say that I would have passed this even before I came here. And in my Swissness, I would have described the “Poppies on the Sleeves” as a sensible compromise.

The problem for the newspapers, of course, is that “FIFA and England Football association shake hands on a sensible compromise” does not make for a good headline, or satisfy the English readers need to feel that they are initially victims and ultimately victors over a continental conspiracy.

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On another of “The Topics of the Day”, the “Eurozone” crisis, Angela Merkel is not always popular and was recently criticised for her “intransigence” (on the point of not allowing the European Central Bank to be the lender of last resort).  

Intransigence. What a great word. You are certainly being told what to think on this issue. She is WRONG. Not just wrong, the woman is a fanatic. She is stubborn beyond belief. How dare she stall the general consensus that has been carefully and painstakingly developed? and don’t even think that there could be another opinion.

The trick for the reader, if he wishes to remain sane, is not to believe all this journalistic gumpf. Let’s try out different words for one moment, which describe the same event, but have a different effect.

Perhaps Angela Merkel was “holding a firm line”, “sticking by her convictions”, “Resolute” (Yes – I like resolute” – I like to think of myself as resolute) “resisting the drift down to the lowest common denominator.”

Never let it be said that the English press doesn’t have an opinion on the issues of the day. But these opinions don’t have to be yours.

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Lastly for this week’s blog, I was watching parts of the statements being made at the Leveson Inquiry this week (Press hacking and other practices). I could not help feeling that we were hearing of an ancient ritual practiced throughout the ages. The public loves its ounce of sleaze, the photos secretly taken, the latest gossip about some film star or the relevation of some public figure acting in a way that is politically incorrect, the ritual humiliation of some public figure, all in the interest of “Press Freedom” and “Public Interest”. Of course, this is nothing to do with truth or news, but the bringing down of someone who has “got above themselves”.

Such stuff is not new. Hangings were the traditional public events that the ordinary folk were allowed to enjoy, brought to its pinnacle in the French Revolution, where crowds gathered to watch Madame Guillotine wreak her vengeance.

Let me take you back further, to 2,000 years ago. We learn with (fake) horror of the Roman Games. We can picture the cruelty, the carnage, and the Emperor deciding who would live and who would die, while the lions prowl around the half eaten bodies, usually of Christians. All this happens, while the crowd roars for more.

The News of the World and its peers have done little more than supply a 21^st century Roman Games. Denied public hangings and denied the spectacle of seeing Christians being torn apart by the Lions, the English public have to be satisfied with half-truths and lies about the lives of people whom they will never meet, but who have fame and most likely more money than they do.

If such stories cannot be found easily then they must be created or invented. Go out and find it. After all, it was the job of the Roman Army to bring back the defeated armies, some of whom would find new careers as Lion food. And if you can’t get a job as soldier in the Roman Army, become a journalist with the News of the World. Oh dear – that option, at least, is no longer available.

By the way, you will notice that I have once again avoided taking any sides on the issues / crises / controversies described. Just an innocent observer, that’s me.