On Foaming Toilet Blocks

No one likes to find skid marks in the toilet. Even worse is the discovery of something floating (or sunk), and worse still of something that was floating (or sunk) but is now thoroughly disintegrated.

Everyone likes to find a toilet devoid of any evidence of prior use and in a sanitised condition. To this end, mankind has developed a number of means to render our WC bowls acceptable in both appearance and odour.

There are various devices for hanging disinfecting blocks from the rim. There are disinfecting blocks that can be dropped into the cistern, where they slowly dissolve rendering the water in your pan after flushing a pleasing blue. Then there is, of course, the all-important bog-brush.

The humble bog-brush is the single most important artifact for preserving WC etiquette. Its usefulness in removing offensive marks from the bowl is inestimable. It is also invaluable for persuading stubbornly bouyant or excessively dense objects to venture into the zone beyond the bend from whence they can be carried away by the ensuing flush—essential to guarantee no reappearances.

Of all the inventions of man, the worst, on a par with income tax and thermonuclear war, is the foaming toilet block. Its dual purposes are, of course, to disinfect your bowl and to leave it with a pleasant appearance ready for the next visitor. It may well achieve the former of these functions better than other long-acting devices. The latter however it most certainly fails abysmally and entirely to do.

After the flush, all you can see is foam. True, skid-marks, floaters and sinkers are obscured from view but this fact holds no comfort for the seasoned user, who is only too aware of what may lurk unseen beneath all those shiny bubbles. This creates a dilemma for those about to vacate the smallest room ...

One could be tempted to deploy the bog-brush just to make sure that nothing comes to light once the bubbles have burst but it is difficult to clean away what cannot be seen. And, if something more than mere evidence of transit is present, the wielder of the brush could be overcome with deep pangs of regret on withdrawing it from the suds...

The foaming toilet block is a dastardly device that should be removed from the shelves of shops throughout the universe.

What is to be done if you find yourself confronted with the dilemma of the satanic suds? To brush or not to brush? That is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outraged loved ones or to take up brush against a sea of bubbles and, by opposing, end them ... or make them worse.

My strategy has been to suffer the slings and arrows, and to point out the short-comings of the foaming toilet block, especially when the offence was not caused by me...

I suspect that, once the current foaming toilet block has expired, alternative sanitisation devices may appear.