A tissue of sighs

I can't imagine life without toilet paper. A few weeks ago, I went to a bar where the ladies' lavs ran out of toilet paper half way through the evening (the cubicles were coming loose and two of the toilets were flooded, so all in all, it wasn't a good situation). But knowing that the toilets didn't have any paper made for a couple of very anxious hours.

When I was a young child - between the ages of about 4 and 10 - school was a very cruel place where they added to your general hopelessness at bum-wiping by providing that toilet paper that was that shiny tracing paper stuff. So, not only were you totally uncoordinated in the activity of wiping your pooey bum, but you also smeared it all over the shop on the most unabsorbent material on earth. They might as well have given us a plastic carrier bag to wipe our arses on. It's no wonder kids get ill all the time. I don't remember hand washing being particularly high on the teacher's agenda, that's for sure.

At home we may never had had a great amount of money, but we always had proper toilet paper. No compromises, it was always Andrex. Then in the late 1980s there was a push to use recycled paper, which I had no choice but to use because I was a student living with a bunch of leftie vegetarians. The stuff wasn't that bad and it opened my eyes to "green" issues and stuff - it opened my eyes to the issues, but I'm still crap on the eco-friendly front.

Now I work for the NHS. Oh joy of joys. Here, the toilets have those huge drums that contain rolls of about 5 rolls-worth of paper... the thinnest, shittiest, most useless fucking toilet paper on the planet. This stuff is up there with the shiny paper of my childhood as being the most annoying example of false economy in the world of arse wiping ever! The problem is this: the paper is very thin and when the roll is full, it's not strong enough to pull the roll around and get a sufficient handful off without breaking off in little bits. So you end up with lots of little bits of toilet paper on the cubicle floor where people have been trying in vain to get the stuff off the roll. Why? Why don't they just buy normal paper for a bit more money, but without the waste? Tossers. I wouldn't mind, but if you go into certain patient areas, they have the really good stuff.

Not to worry, at least we have proper drains here that can take toilet paper. Over in Greece, you have to put it into a bin next to the lav. Imagine that? Just imagine somebody with my bowels, having to put used toilet paper into a bin next to the toilet. Well, that's exactly what I'll be doing in a few weeks' time because I'm off on my jollies again to Skiathos for a week. Should be OK I reckon, although I think I'll be buying an air freshener... or saving my poos for the public toilets so I don't have to live with them.


Terror and panic
Of course, at this rate, I won't even be getting there! Who'd have thought that a simple increase in airport security could lead to the shutdown of entire airline network? Fucking idiots. Don't they realise that this sort of thing is exactly what terrorism thrives on? All they had to do was say "Take your essential documents and medicines out of your hand baggage, all baggage goes in the hold. Anybody who argues is being ejected from the airport". Instead, you get a load panic and all flights cancelled. It's beyond me.

You see, in the present climate of panic that has been introduced by our wonderful leaders, these terrorists don't even need to plot anything destructive at all. All they have to do is spend a few months going to internet cafes and e-mailing their mates with messages about proposed attacks. Keep it going long enough and the security service will intercept and track them, put 2 and 2 together to make 48 and then send out all these alarmist messages that grind the country to a halt. No bombs, no chemicals, no intention, just a few e-mails.

I don't know what's going on in this crazy world. I know that people who travel by air have been villified for ruining the environment, but blowing up planes to discourage people from flying is going a bit too far.