h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I found this apparently anonymous gem on a recommendation, and how right it is. If you wish to find particularly good examples, always look, in a strange town, for the 'Station Hotel' or a near equivalent (Sometimes called 'The Crown Hotel').

I see that the coughing Bath Tap is not mentioned. These are the special taps (Often encrusted with grey limescale) that stay silent when you first turn them on, and then cough water (sometimes a delightful brown colour) of varying temperature into the bath. The best ones stay quiet for ages, until you approach them, and start coughing just as you go to adjust them, and stop as you draw away. A supreme example would have some low hanging shelf, cupboard, towel rail etc. placed precisely so that when you jump back startled at the coughing, your head hits the corner of the impediment.

Another wonderful surprise is after a long trip you arrive home, grimy and sweaty, just waiting to jump into the shower. Then you turn on the tap and have the ice-cold blood-red rusty water hit you.

I learned the hard way not to get in the shower before turning the water on. Can you tell?

How could one not agree, it is as though the collective British psyche is in denial of the Roman invasion of 55 B.C.and the excellent plumbing that they brought with them. As an Australian friend of mine observed whilst sharing a 4 star en suite kennel with me:"Aren't the poms good at turning cupboards into bathrooms?"

How could one not agree, it is as though the collective British psyche is in denial of the Roman invasion of 55 B.C.and the excellent plumbing that they brought with them. As an Australian friend of mine observed whilst sharing a 4 star en suite kennel with me:"Aren't the poms good at turning cupboards into bathrooms?"

And don't you just love those rubber mats with suckers on the bottom. I really don't like to think of what you are supposed to do with them. No doubt some very strange sexual perversion that only the Brits know about. And those rubber hose shower things that you are supposed to attach somehow to taps that are the wrong shape and are too short so that when you have finally, triumphantly, fixed them on the taps, you stand up to shower your head, and pull the wretched thing off the taps again.

It must all be part of a fiendish plot.

The rubber mats are there to lull you into a false sense of security, making you think that you won't slip up and fall over when you've stuck it to the shower floor or bottom of the bath. In fact it just means that *when* you slip, after banging your head, you'll have the undignified experience of regaining consciousness with the distinct impression that a number of octopuses are trying to get amorous with you.