Ira at bath time. Correct water temperature is vital.

Dear reader. At last something more interesting than politics, a melting planet and Corey Bernardii. This comes to us from our esteemed anthropologist Ira Maine, esq, who graces us with a startling discovery from what’s left, (paddock sized now) of the Amazonian rainforests. We are reliably told the remaining fragment of rainforest is watered regularly and had a nice fence made from real wire to protect it from further development.

The amazonian rainforest protected behind a purpose built fence. It’s custodians, Bill and Trish Leefeater pose for the camera.

Deep in the Venezuelan Amazon a group of scientists groped their way (how dare you, you filthy swine! mind where you’re groping!) amongst the Yanomami (named after a Dutch guy who had no  Mammy) tribe, collecting samples of skin flora and fauna from this vastly remote-from-civilisation mob who’d never heard of soap. The outcome of all this was the discovery that the Yanomami tribe carried umpteen times more bacteria on their bodies than  the rest of us. This, it was concluded, was because us sophisticated, squeaky clean Westerners wash away vast quantities of useful bacteria every time we bathe. Science reckons that we probably need every one of those old microbes we have just washed down the sink and scientists are beginning to think that that the loss of these microscopic fauna may be directly contributing to all sorts of modern ailments.
Well, as they say, ‘I’ll go to the foot of our stairs…’
And the prescient Poms,triumph again. Ahead of the rest with the Industrial Revolution, now leading the world once more in their avoidance of soap!

One way or the other, you can now buy, in the States, a body spray which contains every bug known to man, and even James Hamblin, senior editor at the Atlantic, has given up showering altogether! His missus says he now smells like a bloke rather than a walking ad for Brut!

Why Australia didnt end up buying the Invinciple, Conversion to showers and soap requirement considered by RAN to be too expensive. Cheaper to buy the f 35 Stealth Fighter. ( Hansard)

God help us all.  I can see it all now…Palmolive penniless, Bath salts bankrupt and bubble baths bust. Where will it all end, I bleakly ask? This news will most decidedly cause a great stink and the vapours will quickly reestablish their place in society as ladies of delicate sensibilities encounter evidence of the resurgence of that long neglected, personally perfumed manly essence, Body Odour. . I feel it is the first whiff of the beginning of the end.. I have, purely as a precautionary measure, divested myself this morning of my shares in Madame Frou-Frou’s Personal Bath-Time Playthings (modelled entirely from the finest French Soaps) God, I’ll miss them…

And finally they say that the meek shall inherit the earth…
A modern twist on this is that the meek shall inherit the inside lane…

I am re- investing my few shillings in heavily perfumed handkerchiefs in order to help the discerning lessen the stench of the mob.

Ira

So, I was right after all!

And this fragment from Sir Atney, shows how they “do it” up North.

I wait until there is a heavy downpour after midnight, strip off and go for a naked run around the block. That’s enough to keep me squeaky clean!

Sir Atney

oh, I forgot to mention… While I’m running around I balance a bar of Mr Pears most excellent Coal Tar Soap on my head.

Sir Atney