Bog Blog

New research reveals that 23 million of us take our phone into the bathroom with us.

According to the doctors the bacteria that lands on our mobiles is horrendous.

I was invited onto GMB, this morning, as the spokesperson for lavatorial etiquette.
I am not a toilet tweeter
I don’t surf the net in the loo
And I never play games. The old git admitted he sometimes plays patience whilst sitting patiently, quite honestly it does make me feel sick, however, the plus side is he said he always takes his phone into the bathroom so he can receive calls, and since they were always from me he does it for my sake.

I don’t do that BUT I am one of the 40% that natters in the oval office when I’m on a call and the call of nature is urgent.

I do think it’s a disgusting habit, the idea of intimacy near a lavatory pan, but I am a victim of instant gratification which means I have to do things NOW. We’ve all become victims of convenience and instantaneous responses, so the idea of having a phonological appendage attached to us at all times isn’t so far removed. Take the tv handset, the remote, the CD emote, the car remote, the curtains opening remote, the oven remote. FFS you get the picture But if I’m really honest I don’t like it when somebody calls me from their closet, my imagination runs riot, the idea that my doctor, or dentist or electrician is sitting legs akimbo on a porcelain throne makes me nauseous. And, you ask, how do I know whether they are talking to me from their thunder box or their bedroom, WELL as a trained musician I can tell from the acoustics, it’s either far too echoey or far too flat and dead.

The dawter says she likes it in the bathroom to get away from everybody so she can listen to podcasts. My bathroom is carpeted and constantly at a temperature of 21%, so the ambience is safe and warm. The only programme I would watch whilst being otherwise engaged would be ‘Schitts Creek’ but only for the purpose of this discussion!!!!
And if you don’t know ‘Schists Creek’ its a multi award winning Canadian sit-com, but I digress.

WILLIAM HANSON an expert on bathroom etiquette emphatically thinks its rude to do your business while conducting your business – which includes flushing, he maintains ‘The bathroom isn’t the place to hold a conversation and people should especially not be tempted to pick up the phone when they’re at home, If you’re mid-way through a conversation with a colleague at work, put the conversation on pause until you’ve finished your business.’ And I whole heartedly agree.

Interesting that we have arrived at experts in bathroom etiquette, not to mention ‘Manners For the Digital Age’. More of them later.

So I’ll tell you what my telephonical routine is. If I am at the end of a conversation and I am ‘caught short’ – as my dead mother would say – I will hurry up those stairs, walk through the hall and finish the chat in the bathroom.

So acknowledging that I rarely take calls about work and that I mostly do talk with friends, when I have completed the necessary motions I’ll take the caller off the speaker, close the lid of the toilette and then flush, holding my hand as far away from the waterfalling as possible – after all what the ear cannot hear the heart doesn’t grieve over. My dawter and the old git reliably inform me that turning off the speaker doesn’t make a blind bit of difference and anyway there is a mute button on the mobile – only I don’t know where it is and don’t know how to find it and the dawter says she’s sick and tired of trying to show me how a fucking arsehole mobile works.

I do think though, talking to somebody whilst spending a penny is disgusting – it’s like eating spaghetti in the latrine – as it conjures up a whole host of unwanted images, BUT were I to get a call from say from the Queen or anyone of the Duchesses – Cambridge, Cornwall or Sussex – I might think twice about taking them into the bathroom at all, although given my feelings on the Monarchy I may just take them in just to prove that the Queen really does pooh like the rest of us.

IN the website ‘MANNERS FOR THE DIGITAL AGE’ (told ya) they point out that whenever you go to a hotel there is always a phone in the bathroom. Apparently Lyndon Johnson was famous for calling people from the Throne, but I bet you a propound to a penny if we had mobiles around in the 40’s Churchill would have thought nothing of calling up Herr Heimlich Manoeuvre to have a wee chat. Pun intended. After all it’s common knowledge that Winnie-the-Pooh held meetings whilst he was in the bath, his advisors standing around as he played with his rubber dinghy. And what about George 111? He had health crisis meetings over his chamber pot.

Having travelled from Lagos to Loch Lomond and stayed in hotels various from 2* to beyond repair, I have noticed that most of them do have a telephone right next to the proprietal khazi.

Before lock down I was using the facilities at Kings Cross Station, somebody in the next cubicle made a call .“How are you?” they asked and because I am a woman of manners at heart, I politely replied ‘Very well thank you’ and left the stall.

Look we’re all grown ups, if the person on the other end of the line gets a whiff of bad bathroom etiquette apologise, hang up and resume the conversation somewhere less controversial.

I guess in this new age of everybody knowing everything about everybody should we not remember the past when newspapers were added to the bathroom accessories. P’raps I should patent a loo holder which is cleverly designed to hold a plug, a USB and a mobile, thus enabling us to talk, charge and evacuate at the same time.

But we are left with the burning issue do we TALK OR GET OFF THE POT.