I like to think that I am as keen on hygiene as the next person, in fact perhaps more so: I tend to always carry around with me a small bottle of hand gel. While travelling abroad I always try and carry an antiseptic wipe. Abit obsessive I know. But it means I like to think I take cleanliness and hygiene seriously, but recently I have noticed a new phenomenon, as Miranda Hart would say ‘is it just me?’ but have jet powered hand dryers appeared on the scene. Gone are the old slow hand dryers in washrooms up and down the country which never actually ever dried our hands, and lets be honest they could hardly be called hand dryers, more ‘hands probably just as wet as when you started, but as the machine is here I feel I must use it.’ In their place are the new super powerful, jet engine like hand dryers which promise to dry our hands in a matter of seconds.
At first sight this is great- leaving the toilets with wet hands seems to be a thing of the past, but so does leaving with any sense of hearing intact! Like a plane heading down the runway for take off the sound of the dryers is deafening. Yes, I want clean dry hands, but is lack of hearing a price worth paying? Now, we may be a way from no win no fee claims from people popping to the toilets at motorway services, but surely we should not need ear defenders on while making use of the facilities.
I will be the first to admit this is not the most pressing issue facing modern civilization, according to most of our press that role is reserved for Jeremy Corbyn, but surely it must be possible to tread some middle ground between leaving with wet hands from a dryer, that well, does not dry, and leaving with hands so dry you think you have been in a desert, but that you will never hear the sound of running water again.
revdnicholas 