How stupid have we become?
On Saturday evening we were out with friends supping the brown stuff (or wine for the women), now after a few glasses I had to go and make room for some more of the brown stuff.
Having done my duty and putting my apparatus away I turned to the sink to wash my hands to be greeted by a new tap. One of these automatic single taps, so no touchy to pick up bugs. Above the tap is a sign saying “Warning the water is very hot” actually it wasn’t it was bloody scalding. As I like my skin to be in one piece I did not wash my hands fully. Now next to this damn sign is another sign saying “Now wash your hands”. I tried to but the water is too hot.
On mentioning this back at the table my wife produced a handy wipe so all is well.
My friend who is an Facilities manager in charge of many buildings around the country told me that the water has to be a minimum temperature of 60C in order to kill germs and his buildings keep the temperature at 65C to be on the safe side; in order to keep it at this heat and be able to deliver it at this heat the tank is above 100c.
Now what is the point of water this hot if no one can wash their hands, surely cooler water and anti bacterial soap is better than not washing?
Then as you leave a toilet, having washed your hands the next problem arises, the person in front has not washed their hands and they have touched the same door handle you now have to touch in order to exit the loo.
Obviously the people that thought up this rule did not think it through.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Swing doors would be helpful!
Hmm, very odd and counter-productive. I carry a small dispenser of something called “hand sanitiser” or something similar, although I rarely use it. Probably because I don’t drink beer!
I haven’t come across this particular problem, it’s normally lack of soap and cold water, and then the aforementioned hand sanitiser is very useful.
The door handles are definitely the biggest problem because the water temperature can be sorted. How’s about wearing gloves to enter and leave?
You could always ask someone to hold it for you, I always do this and tell them the doctor has told me to avoid lifting heavy weights.
I have to confess that I do find that people are becoming increasingly irrational about the state of personal and public sanitation. I am all for people washing their hands after a trip to the loo, but now we have supermarkets distributing hand wipes for customers to clean the handles of shopping baskets, in case they get infected by the germs of others. I have seen mothers wiping their children’s hands after entering and leaving public buildings and lifts. Don’t they realise it is all a con by consumer-good companies like Unilever and P&G etc to sell their products. You should see the number of commercials on local television advertising the benefits of antiseptic soaps and hygienic products. If they are to believed the key to eternal happiness is to wash your hands with Lifebuoy Soap or bathe in Dettol.
As for the kitchen, I am stunned by the way people chuck out food because it has passed its sell by date or has fallen on the floor or has somehow touched an ‘unclean’ surface. I am a firm believer in the ‘2 second rule’ though in my case it can go way beyond 2 seconds. I am equally laissez-faire about washing food purchased in the markets, unless I can actually see dirt, and then it is just to avoid grit in my teeth. I never seem to get ill and, apart from lifelong acid-reflux caused by eating certain wheat products, I do not appear to have any allergies. We ate all sorts of crap as kids, much of it decidedly unclean. It does not surprise me that with the modern paranoia attached to hygiene so many people these days are allergic to huge ranges of food and are constantly going off sick with the mildest of ailments. They simply have not had an opportunity to build up any form of resistance.
If one tenth of the scare stories issued by the commercial organizations and the health and safety brigade were true, there would not be a single soul alive today in any third world country. The lack of hygiene there is many times worse than what Western cultures face and yet depressingly large numbers manage to survive. As I say, I am all for a reasonable level of hygiene, but lets not go overboard.
Ye Gods and little fishes!! I agree with Sipu! 🙄
As my old Grannie used to say, “we all eat a peck of dirt before we die.” We always let our kids roll in the mud and get dirty and in doing so they probably built up an immunity to whatever was floating about. A lot of todays kids are wrapped in cotton wool to such a degree that they fall victim to every bug going, even those that have been around for decades.
My only concession to hygiene is never to touch the bowls of nibbles at the bar. According to research, you’d be safer eating them out of the urinal.
OZ
Yee gots – so do I!! 😀
I had a colleague wipe a keyboard with anti-bacterial wipes as he sat down at the desk I had been using for the previous 11 hours. He didn’t understand why I gave him a volley of very personal abuse – I eventually got a half hearted apology saying he didn’t really mean to imply that I was a filthy germ maker. He sits elsewhere now. Wuss.
Plus – isn’t uric acid a damn fine germ killer anyway?
I agree with Sipu as well. We are not over fussy about all this hand washing bit, yet our family are rarely ill. we have no allergies, no asthma or any other problem, wife has hay fever from time to time but that’s it.
As for out of date food when we were young you cut off the mould and ate the rest.
Uric acid is a germ killer, also I read it’s good for curing athletes foot, so if you have athletes foot just pee on your feet.
Bearsy and Cuprum, a couple of deep breaths each will see you both through this traumatic moment. It may be something less of a shock to Rick that he also agrees with me.
Rick, re athletes foot, I can testify that it cured me. Had AF through much of my boarding school years. Cured it in the army by peeing in my boots.
Sipu didn’t that rot the boots? 🙂