Nothing like a mental holiday to inspire thoughts of lavatory paper, and while I work on my terminally long and boring review of the current pendulum swing it makes an almost pleasant diversion. I know it sounds unsavoury, but let’s face it; only half the population is concerned with female sanitary products, but we are all obliged to reach for the bog roll on a daily basis. If there is one there to reach for…
Forget about seat up or down argument; that pales in the face of the lack of paper at appropriate moments. And despite living my formative years with telephone book pages spiked on a nail I am enamoured of the pristine roll.
Truth is, and the grumble is, my skin has become rather sensitive to those quaint additives that are supposed to make dunny paper consumer acceptable. Call me old fashioned, but I like a nice white, two ply paper, chlorine bleach and all. Recycled toilet paper conjures images I don’t deal well with.
I don’t really need to see political slogans, pretty representations of shells, or other printed material on my arse wipe. If I want to entertain myself in the lav I’ll take a book.
Equally I don’t see the point of loading the pretty paper with perfumes. Personally I don’t have much of a sense of smell, so I can’t judge how effective a cover the scent really is. But my skin reacts badly to all of these additives. A rash on the bum is not a pretty sight.
I tend to buy a product labelled Hypo-Allergenic. The labelling goes through all the things that have not been forced into or onto the paper. It proclaims proudly that it has been tested for allergic responses. Bugger me, the thought of pre-tested paper is my latest worry.
What it is, in reality, is what I used to buy as just plain toilet rolls. They didn’t have to proclaim it as special back then, it was just the way the product came. The good news is that they don’t charge extra, here at least, to not put all that crap in the paper before I get to it.
I could now go on with washing detergents, but the argument is much the same except they do charge extra for leaving out the additives. Screw Madison Avenue and its progeny. Just give me unadulterated products, I’ll add my own poisons.
Now back to the pre new year’s opus…
14 comments:
you have been busy blogging here...I need to get caught up...Have a happy christmas...and merry holidays...I hope the new year has much good tidings and peace....namaste.
Thanks enigma. I thought I had gone fairly quiet, but quite for me might be busy for others.
I'm looking forward to wonderful things. and I sincerely hope the same for you.
cartledge: I see your latest rant as positive; as a sign the end of "advanced" civilization is near collapse. When we don't have time to stop and smell the roses, yet we can apply that essence to our backsides; when in a world of 6 and 1/2 billion people, a tiger killing one of them/us is big news, but the killing of a tiger (numbering only in the thousands) by a person/people goes unreported, there is, indeed, room for optimism. The end is near!
Dada it is the trivial things tend to give us the shits, if I might extend the metaphor. This being the real start of summer for us downunder, I’ve been enjoying our two great post Christmas sporting events; The Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and the Melbourne cricket test match (against India this year).
Now you would expect sports to just be mindless entertainment, but both events have featured PINK, in the form of some very visible breast cancer awareness initiatives. I adore women, and I no first hand the difficulties around this issue.
In the yacht race it was incredible to see a yacht powering down Sydney Harbour sporting twin hot pink spinnakers looking like a stylish bikini top. Each had hands on them and the legend, ‘feel em or lose em’.
Then in the cricket our wicket keeper with hot pink gloves. His management has guaranteed $18,000 to breast cancer research for every dismissal those gloves are involved in.
Contrast that with the tigers, and worse – “George Bush and Hillary Clinton, America's most admired man and woman.” Sharing headline space and we can at least see there is a vital battle going on.
On the popular man and woman I would be voting Michèle Colenso skipper of Capriccio of Rhu and Adam Gilchrest, Australian wicket keeper. Let’s get real…
"pre-tested toilet paper" -- yikes! Isn't that what Larry Craig was attempting to pick up from the bottom of his Minneapolis bathroom stall?
You might be interested in knowing there is a TP being promoted here now as "moisturized". I don't even want to think what that entails.
I'm not offended by the "Feel 'em or lose 'em" breast awareness campaign. We ARE talking about professionally detached feeling, aren't we? And don't forget, men are not immune to this very serious scourge.
Not to confine your worries to zoo tigers, dada: I just saw a teaser on CNN that tomorrow they will have more in-depth coverage on other zoo animals we need to be wary of. The background was a tantilizing pic of a very sad gorilla. This reminds me of why I cheer when the bulls gore a runner at Pamploma. SCORE!!!
“I'm not offended by the "Feel 'em or lose 'em" breast awareness campaign.” So what’s to be offended, professionally detached or otherwise? Am I missing something here?
But those bloody tigers, and now just up the road from my sub-tropical haven: "A 50-year-old-man has been killed by a circus elephant. An elephant was being offloaded from a Stardust Circus truck at the Angourie Road Sports Reserve at Yamba when it slipped, crushing the person below."
Said Circus was in town here a couple of weeks back and I felt sorry for those poor bloody elephants.
No, Cartledge, I only meant it was nothing *I* would be offended by. But I do know other women, very uptight repressed types, who might be offended by the public-display of hot pink spinnaker bikini tops with big hands encircling them. These women would probably rather suffer cancer than help promote public awareness. I wanted to distinguish myself from them. You didn't miss anything. I just failed to express myself coherently.
I know what you mean about those circus animals, especially elephants who get treated so roughly due to their size. I hope your elephant wasn't put down due to this accident. Years ago, I read John Irving's "Setting Free the Bears" which helped solidify my thinking on caged zoo prisons. Look up the book title in wikipedia.org for a brief description.
“I only meant it was nothing *I* would be offended by.” Ok, just needed to check. I’m no voyeur, but I do have an appreciation of the female form. I’m particularly delighted that so many Aussie blokes are waking up to the fact it can all be talked about openly. The other issue being pushed by ‘tough’ blokes here is that violence is no longer an acceptable option. Jeeez, next thing we will be approving gay marriage. Suits me, except I already know the woman I want to spend my life with.
I really enjoy John Irving's writing, I’ll look for that one. I stopped and talked to the pair of elephants involved in this near local one. I thought it was the stress of travelling that must be hard on them. I’ve seen other captive elephants and they usually looked in better condition. Carney people do it hard, so I guess they don’t think about the critters. But it has been acknowledged as an accident at this stage.
Setting Free the Bears is just a small novel, one of Irving's early ones. Probably out of print, maybe try your library? The zoo scenes were memorable & it was nice reading the author at an earlier stage of his development.
Were you referring to domestic violence? Sadly, that is a whole sub-culture here, practiced by sub-humans as far as I'm concerned. Tough to wipe out as it gets passed from generation to generation, father to son as they say.
I’ll track it down. Thanks
Just an interesting thing on the elephants. There were two, but the bloke had a heart attack. There is a suggestion that the elephants were actually trying to help him. Don’t think I’d like a pachyderm on my first response team, but it is in their nature to do that sort of thing.
domestic violence certainly, moronic rage as well. It is hard to stop, but seeing boofheads doing community service TV spots saying it is not good enough, extolling others to get help and to report violence seem s a good start.
Now all we need is a public backlash to adulterated dunny rolls.
Hey there..this is way off subject....but the day you posted this Bellingham produced their last roll of TP...And demolition of more buildings should start this year....
( their TP business there is the last thing to "close", the rest of the Chemical Operations etc had already closed....thanks to a certain ahem....nurse's efforts..)
I read the paper, and then saw the roll- and I just thought it was ironic....
okay back to reading...
Not way off subject at all. I tend to the Jungian proposition that there is no coincidence, though why my psyche should key in with this event while I’m sitting raging over tissue labelling beats me.
It actually started out as a light (albeit heartfelt) rant on the increasing complexity of basically simple products. You recall the KISS principle of course. But the embodied metaphors were bought to my attention by kind commenters.
It seems very difficult to just be trivial occasionally. But I am really pleased to see GP on their way out of Bellingham and you must be feeling just a tad satisfied with your ROLL in that.
omg ....and yet another pun...where shall I send you that Charmin ???
I don't know what to think about GP's demise...
on one level...I am relieved because I know they are no longer dumping....BUT...I also know that they dumped 8 million pounds PER Year of toxic waste on that little town and county, and it is ALL still there and won't ever be cleaned up them...and that not everyone went to jail... and that there are Lumps and Hills everywhere with their name on it....and Contaminated Drinking Water for 90,000 and 1500 pounds of Mercury was pumped into the into the Air every year ...and the medical stats and Obits (that were my neighbors)......all of that keeps me awake at night....I can't help it....I don't know if I ever will feel okay about it....
And I sit and wonder about Lee Thomas GP's last President , he was EPA Director in the 80's and then he was good friends with Daddy Bush so he never ever had to worry about Knowing Endangerment or Criminal Charges, now did he ???....How does HE sleep at night.....????
and oh that nurse that wrote hundreds of letters before she realized that MrThomas was friends with the Bushes....
I did what I did...and I would do it again...because there were too many people being hurt...time will tell if it was the right path....
thanks again...
Keep the Charmin, and more importantly keep the passion.
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