Friday 5 September 2008

A right good kettling

This week's award for Stoicism & Service in Time of Need goes to – da da da daaaaa! – my kettle!


That's right, you, kettle, have won this week's award, and in recognition of your excellence in boiling beyond the call of duty, you and an electrical appliance of your choice will be flying on an all-expenses paid trip to [no, sorry, can't remember where exactly, we'll get back to you].

Meanwhile, back in the bathroomy bit of Harlot Heights, we are now nearing the end of the Sixth Daye of Yon Waters That Be Notte Heated, and I am fast developing a resistance to personal epidermal scum, malodorousness and typhus. Bill and Mitch popped by this morning to offer their professional opinion on my water heater, and it turns out that their professional opinion is that it is a perilous and illegally installed pile of poo that should be cast into the wilderness while they plug in something much schmankier for $2500. That's just a rough estimate, mind you. They said they'd send me a proper quote soon. Perhaps this one, by G. K. Chesterton: "I believe in getting in hot water; it keeps you clean".

That said, I would like to put on record my solemn refutation of that old adage, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness". This is simply propaganda put about by the people who sell bath towels. Max Weber wrote about it in Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, which I deem an irrefutable authority on the subject. The alleged proximity of the clean and the godly is a lie (John the Baptist and his foot-washing an exception, of course, though I'd be very surprised if the water he used was completely free of camel dung).

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