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

Friends are on vacation in London, and they posted a question regarding the toilet paper holder in their rent house. What purpose does the metal cover plate serve?

http://st.houzz.com/simgs/0aa16dd700c9001e_4-0050/traditional-toilet-paper-holders.jpg

Wild guesses from some of their other Texas friends and me include splatter guard, cat frustrator, and maybe it assists in tearing sheets.

Does anyone here actually know what it's there for?

I'd say to help tear the sheets. Some of them have small teeth.

Tearing the sheets.

Possibly also keeping the dust off ?

keep the dist off! They don't last that long

Yeah... I have to agree that I don't believe it's to keep the dust off.

I cannot imagine anyone "dusting" the bog roll, but I can foresee someone needing to dust that shiny cover.


It's like an anti-dust cover.

I think it's cosmetic. Some people find that the toilet paper itself being visible is a bit vulgar, crude, or doesn't fit in with the decor.

Modesty, okay.

I just use three seashells instead, it saves you all the hassle with toilet paper.

I think so; I think it's purely aesthetic. I can think of a practical function they have which doesn't have an equal and opposite downside.

Modesty!!! its not a roman style communal bog is it;

Anyway they used a vinegar soaked sponge on a stick for that job, like a bog brush for the bum, no arty party extra soft bog paper.

Civilization has really gone down hill

So other people don't use a nail, a loop of string and the News of the World?

A bit of history...

http://mentalfloss.com/article/23210/toilet-paper-history-how-america-convinced-world-wipe

It's a puppy guard

The best puppy guard in the world is a large bad tempered ginger farm cat

>>Some people find that the toilet paper itself being visible is a bit vulgar

Yes, up until a few decades ago it was common for even loose loo rolls to be covered up, often with a doll featuring a preposterously outsized knitted dress which enveloped the roll.

But I'm sure everyone over 40 remembers them here in the UK.

Yea remember that in my Aunt's house, (she was posher than us).
I think the wooley doll was over the spare bog rolls, the one in use was in a holder like you describe so most of the roll was hidden except the end.

Other parts of the family still had the Daily Mirror cut up on a nail in the outside thunder box.

Yes but it was only the pretentious middle classes that tended to be that way the proper upper class (not some herbert with money but old money, the fox chacing classes) had no such hang ups about the "bum fodder" being on display

It may not be to protect from dust, but to keep it dry. To protect it from "splashes"??

The holder in the picture is the simplest and commonest sort, - I wouldn't have thought it odd at all, but from experience that kind are not very practical.

Until I looked at the picture, from the description I was imagining a closed cylinder with a slot for the paper with huge teeth to cut the paper on - possibly with a padlock.

If your friends want to examine the culture of loo roll holders more closely, you could recommend that they spend a nice afternoon in B&Q or Homebase whille they're there.

*mind quietly boggling at using three seashells instead of toilet paper*

Mol

http://youtu.be/gdnuOa7tDco