Monday 1 September 2008

Not in hot water

I've had two months of glamorous second storey living in Preston Heights and now the hot water system has kicked the bucket. Fortunately, I have another bucket, and a kettle, and a washer, and this morning I was able to arrange a human cleansing apparatus in the kitchen. Bathing out of a bucket is good water conservation practice. Indeed, I'm about to draft an official recommendation to the Brumby government: bucket-based bathing, the optimal solution to Victoria's water shortage. I'm not convinced that I have obtained the levels of personal enscrubbedness which polite society requires, but if rancid body odour was good enough for Rasputin, it's good enough for me.

6 comments:

DS said...

Russia's greatest love machine!

Anonymous said...

How horrible! Not least because the hot water people take such a long time to come (I speak from two recent experiences, which left me alternating between the gym and a friend's house. Of course my kettle was also broken at the time). You must have the same old-fashioned system.

lucy tartan said...

Funnily enough many longstanding Victorians are well familiar with the bucket-and-kettle pits and bits bath, from when we had no gas for weeks on end in the 90s after an Esso production plant blew up (fatal for some workers). It wasn't a happy time.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Gosh! Esso production plant blew up! That puts my own personal hotwaterlessness into perspective. A bloke called Bill is coming round tonight to assess the situation, and meanwhile I have remembered that there are publicly accessible showers in one of the colleges at Il Trobo. I've brought a towel and some soap and am biding my grime til lunch hour.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Though there's something to be said for impersonating Russia's greatest love machine, it's true. (The suitors are lining up at my door as we speak.)

Anonymous said...

"Rasputin, he's so dignified..."