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rich
30-Nov-07, 17:14
Recent historical investigations support the idea that being too clean can sap your strength and undermine your immune system.
So how often do my fellow orgers bathe????

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/11/30/dirt_on_clean/?source=newsletter

Thumper
30-Nov-07, 17:17
OOps well thats me done for then...I shower twice a day and wash my hands the whole time!My Mum is always telling me that I have OCD but I just like to be clean and fresh ;) x

karia
30-Nov-07, 17:19
I couldn't function without my daily bath, it eases me gently into the day!:)

However, I am far from super mad hygienic around the house.:roll:

karia

karia
30-Nov-07, 17:22
OOps well thats me done for then...I shower twice a day and wash my hands the whole time!My Mum is always telling me that I have OCD but I just like to be clean and fresh ;) x

I'm guessing you won't be coming to mine for Christmas dinner Thumper ..
welcome though you would surely be!:)

NickInTheNorth
30-Nov-07, 17:24
I last bathed on 19th November 2007. Prior to that the last bath was sometime in 1999. I try to make sure I have one in every millennium, whether I need one or not :D

Thumper
30-Nov-07, 17:28
Aww bless you Karia!What a lovely thing to say!I would love to "pop" down for dinner sometime....messy or not ;) x

emszxr
30-Nov-07, 17:33
i am sae as thumper. 2 showers a day, in fact yesterday i had 3. and my hubby thinks i clean too much and i do have ocd.

NickInTheNorth
30-Nov-07, 17:41
showers however are fairly frequent, but definitely not every day.

karia
30-Nov-07, 17:59
Aww bless you Karia!What a lovely thing to say!I would love to "pop" down for dinner sometime....messy or not ;) x


For you thumper..I'll get the marigolds on!:lol:


kariax

bekisman
30-Nov-07, 18:16
Seems this is a favourite with forums;

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=663312

Me? not had a bath since 1988 (but have a shower daily if possible)

rich
30-Nov-07, 20:11
It must be wonderful to be a historian and research stuff like this.
I am not too sure about the latest findings about underpants throughout the ages. But a historian friend told me that until the advent of cheap cotton people just itched and stank.
Unless, of course you were rich and could afford linen.
Interestingly the great bulk of linen seems to have come from Ulster. Maybe the need for unscratchy briefs was behind the English invasions.
The Highlanders in their plaids may have been slightly more comfortable than their trousered confreres south of the Highland line.
And what about the Kiess corpse from the 17th century - he was wearing leather trousers! Leather might seem to be an answer. But if that is the case why was the Kiess man left with his leather pants? I would have expected them to have been nicked!

northener
30-Nov-07, 20:17
And what about the Kiess corpse from the 17th century - he was wearing leather trousers! Leather might seem to be an answer. But if that is the case why was the Kiess man left with his leather pants? I would have expected them to have been nicked!

Everybody in Keiss wears leather trousers;)

karia
30-Nov-07, 20:24
Everybody in Keiss wears leather trousers;)

That's why it is the home of Scottish 'mince'!:D

karia

Cattach
30-Nov-07, 20:56
That's why it is the home of Scottish 'mince'!:D

karia

I am not sure if you are referring to the Mackay clan from Keiss who were almost all butchers or just insulting the intelligence of the Keissers. Or maybe you are doing both at the same time!!

thebigman
30-Nov-07, 21:03
That's why it is the home of Scottish 'mince'!:D

karia

Nice one, made me laugh.

gem1982
30-Nov-07, 21:05
I have a shower every morning and then a bath at night. I wash my hair every morning in the shower cant go 2 days without washing my hair! I do worry about germs and I am conscious about always washing my hands the whole time but I would not say I was OCD or anything just if I touch certain things I am like eugh must wash my hands. My house I try to keep clean I have laminate floors throughtout my downstairs and some upstairs and I mop my bottom floors twice a day with antibacterial flash wipes but I have small children and animals so like to make sure the kids cant catch anything.

I have a friend who rather grossly insists that picking your nose and eating it is not a bad thing cos it puts germs in your body to help keep your immune system boosted!!!

karia
30-Nov-07, 21:07
I am not sure if you are referring to the Mackay clan from Keiss who were almost all butchers or just insulting the intelligence of the Keissers. Or maybe you are doing both at the same time!!

I am not referring to anyone!:confused

Was just sharing a joke with northener about the inferences' drawn by the wearing of leather trousers to small minded people!

You would have to ask northener about that as he was the one who mentioned Keiss..I am sure that he was making historical reference and will be able and happy to enlighten.

Karia

rich
30-Nov-07, 21:08
Have any Orgers lived in places WITHOUT a bathroom of any description?
I did for years.

karia
30-Nov-07, 21:16
Have any Orgers lived in places WITHOUT a bathroom of any description?
I did for years.

Lived in a 'room and kitchen' as it is called for 9 horrible months when first married...you had to open the outside loo with a mangled fork..and sometimes there was someone in there!

Must have been a market for mangled forks in those days..but they weren't even Polish!:eek:;)

karia

Ricco
30-Nov-07, 21:23
My last bath was.... oooo, hmmmm, gosh - several years ago! However, I do shower every day. ;)

northener
30-Nov-07, 21:29
I do not bathe.

However, I do like to climb to the top of Warth Hill, strip naked and rub peat into my finely honed torso. I then remove the peat (after it has been wind dried) by thrashing myself with heather twigs.

It doesn't exfoliate me at all, I just enjoy it.

.

rich
30-Nov-07, 21:31
Karia, was your house without a bathroomb by any chance in Dundee?

karia
30-Nov-07, 22:03
Karia, was your house without a bathroomb by any chance in Dundee?

Hi rich,

Nope, Falkirk in the 80's I am afraid..though my in-laws hail from Dundee and tell a similar..but worse tale!

I think it is the cleanest I have ever been though as you become very scrupulous and are always 'cadging' a bath off someone!

Probably only feel deprived in hindsight!:(

Karia

rich
30-Nov-07, 22:09
I lived in the Hawkhill in Dundee in the late 1960s while I toiled away at the journalism factory of D.C. Thomson.

The Hawkhill or the Hacky as it was called - in contrast to Blackness Road which was the Blacky. (Why a street would be called Blackness is beyond me.)

I earned six pounds, three shillings and four pence every week, the first year I worked there. (The money sucked but from atop my editorial stool I had a fine view of the city's oldest cemetry. It had a certain majestic, brooding quality especially in winter. )

Finding a place to live for three quid a week was quite the feat. But it could be done up Hawkhill.

The houses in the Hawkhill were 19th century tenements originally flung up for workers in the jute mills. Two rooms, and a toilet that could be accessed from each landing.

The local corner stores sold tiny lamps called SHUNKY lamps. These were necessary because frequently there were no working lights in the lavatory or shunky.

(I believe the word for a drain in Dundonese is a CLUDGEY)

You didn't need much of an imagination to envisage what these places must have looked like in the heyday of the Industrial Revolution - gas, light, a communal water pump, earth privies - a real breeding ground for cholera and typhus and let's not forget the great incurables like syphilis and tuberculosis.

And yet I had some of the best baths in my life in the Hawkhill.

At some stage in the late 19th century running water was put in. (After all it was the age of steam!)

Just where the University of Dundee now has offices - stood the Dundee Municipal Baths (Hawkhill division). It was a factory for the manufacture of steam.

Local women would take their laundry in prams to the steamie, as it was called, and they would wash it in large sinks.

Or, to be exact, the work was more likely to be performed by one of the municipal hags who charged two shillings and sixpence per pram load.

The Municipal Hags (as we cruelly called them) were ancient women in white overalls and welly boots and they were the priestesses of steam.

Now I am running over length here so I will quit but first I must tell you about the class system that operated there. There was a second class bath and a first class bath.

The difference was that in a second class bath the taps were on the inside with you. The second class baths had taps outside.

So if you were wallowing in a second class tub, shampooing yourself with the Corporation soap and wondering if you should steal the towels and things were getting a little cool, the drill was to yell at the top of your voice "MORE HOT IN NUMBER THREE!" (Or whatever your bath number was.)

This then would be the cue for the steamie woman to get off her stool and to grumble along until she was outside your bath. At that stage she would wrench the hot tap round, full blast, releasing a flood of boiling water.
The lesson, once learned and never to be forgotten, was to get out of the bath while this was going on....

Better to go first class and enjoy the screams from unwary second class customers.

I've attached a URL for Hawkhill. I hope it works. Notice the kids with bare feet.

http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/photodb/wc0191.htm

canuck
30-Nov-07, 23:14
I cannot imagine a single orger ever again running the tub with a straight face. :D

Julia
30-Nov-07, 23:56
I never take a bath but I have shower every day, could not function properly without one.

I suppose I am a bit of a germ freak, I won't touch the door handle in a public loo once I've washed my paws, I use a bit of paper or if the toilets are busy I wait for the next person in or out and catch the door with my foot. :cool:

Anne x
01-Dec-07, 00:26
I could not live without my bath hate showers i burn a candle and relax ah bliss

Thumper
01-Dec-07, 10:23
I love relaxing in the bath with a glass of wine and some candles burning,but after my bath I have a shower...hate feeling like I have been lying in my own dirt :eek: lord maybe I do have a clean fetish after all![lol} x

helenwyler
01-Dec-07, 10:47
I love relaxing in the bath with a glass of wine and some candles burning,but after my bath I have a shower...hate feeling like I have been lying in my own dirt

Take heart....you're not alone Thumper!

When I was teaching in London in the early 80s, a Japanese student pointed out this 'lying in your own dirt' problem with baths. In those days, showers weren't nearly as common here as now, and this student wasn't able to shower after a bath and felt 'dirty' afterwards:eek:!

It made complete sense to me, and ever since then I've had a quick 'rinse' with the shower after a bath. Just like rinsing the dishes!:)

golach
01-Dec-07, 11:36
Rich, many thanks for awakening fond memories of Dundee a city I have a fondness for and the Dundee people.
Eh first started work at the age of 15 in "Tampson an Shipherds" Dundonian for Thomson and Shepherds Jute Mill in Taylors Lane just off the Perth Rd near the junction of the Hawkie and the Blackie, as a creeler a apprentice carpet weaver.
I have fond memories of the Hawkie, and my courting days aged 15 to a Dundee lass, our usual Saturday meeting were in the cinema up the Hawkie for the love of me I have forgotten the name of. But we loved the "chummy seats" for those not used to that term these were double cinema seats where couple could get very close to each other as there was no seat arm between the couples.
We country lads all attended the dancing at the Old Palais in the Seagate, not the New Palais in South Tay Street. and our Sunday entertainment was a visit to the Variety shows in the Caird Hall, which finished at 8:30 pm then it was the great passageatta up and down the Overgate until it was time to run for our buses back to the country. Ahhh memories Rich, ty Eh'll ha' twa bridies and an inganain an aw :lol:

golach
01-Dec-07, 11:50
Have any Orgers lived in places WITHOUT a bathroom of any description?
I did for years.
Yes Rich , I lived in a farm Cottage from the age of 6 until 10 in a wee place called Pitroddie in Perthshire, with no running water in the house, just a mains tap outside the back door, no electricity, just Tilly Lamps, even at the tender age of 8 I could change a mantle. There was also no toilet, our toilet was a mobile outside wooden contraption, that my father moved round the back garden, and there was niceties such as toilet paper, it was my job to tear up the Radio Times for toilet paper. Our radion was acid battery driven, and thats another story.
I lived next door to a POW Camp that housed German POW's now they had everything, electrcity, showers, cinema, and guess what as the only child for two miles around I was adpoted and vitrually lived in the camp, but never slept there.
My Mother at the time raised me, my sister and brother were born and also raised in those conditions. It was a hard life, but we knew nothing different, so we were happy with our lot.

Lolabelle
01-Dec-07, 21:31
I love relaxing in the bath with a glass of wine and some candles burning,but after my bath I have a shower...hate feeling like I have been lying in my own dirt :eek: lord maybe I do have a clean fetish after all![lol} x

Me too! I like to rinse after a soak. To me the soak is for relaxation, the shower is for getting clean. And I shower at least 2 times a day. Yesterday I showered 4 times :eek:, 1st usual morning shower when I got up, 2nd we had a man coming for a job interview so after madly cleaning the house needed another to freshen up, 3rd after the man didn't bother showing up, I washed the dogs in the bath and needed another before I went out for dinner, 4th was when I got home and before I went to bed, I always shower before bed.

But as for around the house, well that's a different matter, I have 2 dogs inside so I have to vacuum every morning to get rid of the dog hair, but other than that, I am pretty relaxed about house work. So many things I would rather do, like check out what's happening on the org.

paris
02-Dec-07, 11:36
Our daughter does have COD and is for ever bathing and cleaning /hoovering. It drives me up the wall and costs the earth in cleaning products ect. We all bath every day when daughter hasnt used all the hot water . jan x

Angela
02-Dec-07, 13:01
I'm a lot cleaner than I used to be ;)...

Between the ages of 6 and 10 we lived in a very small flat with no bath (showers didn't exist in the late 50s) -there was only the kitchen sink with a little water heater beside it. For a year or two I did fit into the sink for a bath! :eek:

Then again when I was a student in the late 60s/early 70s we had a loo on the landing that we shared with the flat next door, but no washing facilities. You had to go to the Union to have a bath, or visit a pal in halls and sneak into one of their bathrooms.

I love a bath to relax in, with aromatherapy oils and candles, but usually just have one shower a day, unless it's very hot weather. I sometimes wonder if the rise in the number of people who suffer from dry and sensitive skin is explained partly by too much washing....

Ash
02-Dec-07, 13:39
i wash way too much, hate the thought of being dirty, dont get people that dont wash alot, disgusting!

NickInTheNorth
02-Dec-07, 14:26
Not washing frequently is a really liberating experience. And provided your diet and environment are "healthy" then in reality smell ain't a problem. Your skin and hair after a few weeks of no washing will be in fantastic condition. All in all it is a quite surprising experience.

The real killer is the modern over heated housing in which we all exist. It makes everyone too hot much of the time, and therefore we sweat far more than we should.

And yes I speak from experience having gone for nearly 6 months without bath / shower as an experiment several years ago.

ett23
02-Dec-07, 16:14
i wash way too much, hate the thought of being dirty, dont get people that dont wash alot, disgusting!

I know a family who don't believe their children need a shower more than once a week and I personally shower and wash my hair 3 times a week - the same as my kids and hubby! I can assure you we're not dirty!!

Ash
02-Dec-07, 16:23
i have bath everyday(dont have a shower)

i bath my wee one alot aswell not as much as me tho, i know someone who doesnt wash often and she smells!! its horrible

Margaret M.
02-Dec-07, 23:53
Although it is better for your skin and hair to not wash too frequently, if I skip just one day, I feel yucky. Usually a daily shower and now and then I enjoy a nice bath with all the frills.

bluelady
03-Dec-07, 00:41
I remember as a kid in the 60's going on holiday in North Wales in a rural area. The cottage was a two bed one with an outside loo in a shed and no bath or shower. We had to have a strip wash everyday, or run down to the stream and have a bath in there, it was freezing at times. We only had a bath at home, before that it was a tin bath. Now I have both. I usually shower now than bath as its quicker,and 3 - 4 times a week, depending on what I have been doing, but I strip wash in between

ett23
03-Dec-07, 12:40
As an old friend of mine used to say -
"I wash up as far as possible, then I wash down as far as possible, then I wash possible!!"
[lol][lol]
This same friend said in his younger days (in winter) he would get up, pour water out of the jug into the bowl and if it was frozen over (as it often was) he had to break the ice first then wash with it!! Talk about ice cold water - brrr! I think all of us take hot water far too much for granted. Let's just be thankful we can have a wash in lovely hot water whenever we need to!!

rich
03-Dec-07, 16:30
I am impressed with the regularity with which my fellow Orgers shower.
However there could be long range ecological consequences of an adverse nature.
I refer of course to species extinction.
The species at risk is the yellow rubber duck.
The primary envoronment of the rubber duck, is of course,the bathtub.
As Caithness folk rip out their traditional bathtubs in favour of showering devices what becomes of the rubber duck?
Our yellow bathroom pal is something we take for granted but there must now be a grave risk of future generations never having known a rubber duck - to be sure the occasional fossilized specimen might be unearthed in the process of home renovation but I ask you, is that satisfactory?
Might I suggest that a preserve be established, possibly, somewhere in the flow country? May I propose that we change the name of one of our less used railway stations to ALTNADUCK.
I have also been advised that bathtub submarines are on the danger list....

scotsboy
03-Dec-07, 18:25
Have any Orgers lived in places WITHOUT a bathroom of any description?
I did for years.

Did 6 weeks in the Steppe in Kazakstan, with no toilet or bathroom - we did however have a Banya (russian sauna).......which was basically a large boiler in a trailer, you got to go inthere every 2/3 days steam up and a bucket of cold water over yer head at the end.

karia
03-Dec-07, 18:29
Did 6 weeks in the Steppe in Kazakstan, with no toilet or bathroom - we did however have a Banya (russian sauna).......which was basically a large boiler in a trailer, you got to go inthere every 2/3 days steam up and a bucket of cold water over yer head at the end.


Refreshing!:lol:


Oh and Rich...Rubber rots in water, the rubber ducks are DOOMED!:lol:

rich
03-Dec-07, 20:12
MY Rubber Duck - Rupert - is 25 years old. He is a little scraped on the bottom but otherwise fine. Same as me!

Moira
03-Dec-07, 20:26
Rubber ducks are alive & well at the Apex European Hotel in Edinburgh, even in the rooms with no bath - just a shower cubicle. Here's the proof from a trip I made earlier this year :-

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z159/moirawick/RubberDuckInShower1.jpg

karia
03-Dec-07, 20:29
MY Rubber Duck - Rupert - is 25 years old. He is a little scraped on the bottom but otherwise fine. Same as me!

You speak for us all there!

Have to ask though....Rupert?...

..thats a bit 'Brideshead Revisited' isn't it?:eek:


That duck looks like Betty Boop moira!:roll:

Moira
04-Dec-07, 01:00
You are right Karia. It's maybe not quite what Rich had in mind.

I wasn't sure about it myself, to be honest, so I turned it to face the wall while I was in the shower ;)

rich
04-Dec-07, 16:08
Karia, I have changed the name of my rubber duck. He is now Mohammed!

Errogie
04-Dec-07, 19:15
Rich, I trust that have you decided to celebrate your birthday today with some form of self cleansing ritual.

I was very interested to hear of an invention which was heralded some years ago involving self cleaning underwear. Now if that process could extend inwards by a layer then we could all have more time to do other possibly equally or more enjoyable things with the what is probably a lost 5 or 10 per cent of our lives. Always remember from history lessons that kids used to be stitched into their clothing at the beginning of winter and then presumably cut out again in the spring or when a growth spurt came on them!

karia
04-Dec-07, 20:26
Karia, I have changed the name of my rubber duck. He is now Mohammed!

I wouldn't do that rich...there's no prophet in it!:lol:

Karia