Give Us This Day Our Daily Frustration

Every morning I encounter three design faults that, when I’m awake enough to notice, drive me to distraction. The first is the loo, the seat of which won’t stay up by itself. Now for a male bloke of the masculine gender this is sets a challenge, which I confront by standing side on and resting the toilet seat against the outside of my left knee while I ponder this little mystery.

The second is… the loo, again, or more precisely its dual flush, a pair of buttons so cunningly similar that I am hard pressed to tell apart. Compare that with a sensible arrangement and you’ll see what I mean. (Pictures coming.)

Then, after an hour or so going through overnight emails and making a cup of tea, and perhaps walking along the beach with Helen and the dog, I take a shower. Self being a softy of the worst kind, this involves standing starkers while the water gets up to speed. I really, really don’t like a cold shower. A cold sea I can just about take, but for me it’s no way to start the day. (When we do take that walk along the beach, summer or winter, there’s a bunch of folk braving the sea, often in the dark as well as the cold. Are they so very different from me, that this is their idea of  a good start to the day?)

Our hot water system, which we did not choose, heats a whole tank of water and then waits until the moment we choose to use it. On a hot day this can mean that you get hot water out of the cold tap, as it rushes into the sink from where it’s been sitting, heating up. And any day this means you get cold water out of the hot tap, as it rushes into the sink from where it’s been sitting, being cold, before the water in the tank finally arrives.

Helen has put a bowl into the shower that catches this water, which she then uses on the garden. I care far too little about a few gallons of water and a half-dead rose - but I do care about the inadequacy of the design.

Do you ever think about the museum of the future, which people will come to visit from their home on the moon or under the sea, and chortle at our silliness? I see a tableau of a middle-aged bloke supporting a loo seat with a knee, while cold water gushes from a shower in the background. If you look closely (not that you'd want to), you'd see a look of extreme irritation on his face.