Paper wins hands down over a blast of hot air in the loo
News Limited
By Bill Leak
July 03, 2006
THERE have been some silly inventions but the silliest of all has to be the one that offers to blow dry your hands in the toilet when you'd really rather use a piece of paper.
I had a mate - let's call him Brenton - who got off to a rocket start in advertising by convincing people that these gadgets were the way of the future. Germ-free, hygienic, and user-friendly, the blow-drier was the way to go. And go we did. No other country embraced the hand blow-drier with quite the same enthusiasm as Australia did. And, as far as I can tell, Australia's the only place where people are still stupid enough to use them.
All other civilised places have given them away and returned to the paper towel. When was the last time you were subjected to the indignity of a blow-drier in New York? Have you ever been assaulted by one in Paris? I don't think so.
There's a good one in the Evening Star pub in Surry Hills in Sydney. It was obviously bolted to the wall by a bloke who knew what he was doing. When it goes, it bloody goes. If it wasn't held fast it would blow straight up through the roof and into outer space.
Stick your hands under this one and you know you're in for an experience. It not only dries your hands, it almost tears your fingernails off. Within seconds your hands are so dry you could chalk a billiard cue with one of your knuckles.
But it's a rarity.
Most of these machines are useless objects that consume time and space for no good reason. In most cases you walk out disgusted, drying your hands by rubbing them through your hair (if you've got any) or your trousers (if you're wearing a pair). Returning to your table, there's no way of avoiding looking like a goose.
Now spare a thought for my mate Debra. Debra's only 125cm tall. Every time she gets within coo-ee of one of these confounded machines it goes off whether she's in need of a blow job or not. There is an assumption on the part of the makers of these contraptions that the likes of Debra are up for blow jobs 24 hours a day. And it's simply not true. Sometimes all she wants to do is walk past on her way out of the toilet, hands washed or otherwise. I talked her into walking under the one in the mens' bathroom in the Evening Star and she came out 105cm and deeply traumatised. I mean, I've seen people legless at the Evening Star before but this was beyond a joke. Every centimetre counts for Debra.
Mind you, Debra has confided to me that the blow-drier can come in very handy for a woman feeling discomfort on a humid day.
But I digress.
There are still those, such as Brenton, who will argue that on environmental grounds your hand blow-drier is a damn good thing.
What rubbish!
After the environmental felony you've just committed in the cubicle, do you really have to dry your hands under a blast of hot air to give yourself that warm inner glow? Think about what you've just dispatched to the local deep sea outfall, think about the reception it's getting from the dolphins and then try putting the whole procedure into perspective.
If you think that, by saving a minuscule fragment of a tree by eschewing the use of a scrap of absorbent paper, think again. That's what trees are for! Do you have any idea how much coal goes up in flames to power one of those things for a minute or two - or 10 if you want to emerge really dry? Well, I've done my research for this edition of the Dry Side and I can assure you that, regardless of what you left behind in terms of methane or toxic waste, if you opt for the blow-drier, you're an environmental vandal. Bob Brown wouldn't dream of using one and neither would I.
I know anti-environmentalists who click them on out of spite. They walk out of the toilet, drying their hands on their strides and laughing their heads off at the thought of how much dirty coal they're sending into the atmosphere. All right, they're terrible bastards, but they've got a point.
If you were given the choice to wipe your bum with a piece of paper or a blast of hot air, what would you choose? And we're not talking bidets here. Environmentalists would object to bidets on the grounds that you're wasting water. And, while you might be saving on paper, you've still got to dry off somehow.
For me, there's simply no substitute for a nice absorbent piece of paper.
And you can always salve your conscience by making sure that it's biodegradable. I've never heard of a dolphin choking on a piece of that. From what I've heard, and although he won't admit it, even Brenton dries his hands on paper towels these days.
This article has been reproduced with express permission from News Limited.
