This is not just another toilet piece is it Mike?

Mike's Pith & Wind - Phoney baloney
I read recently that 855,000 mobile phones are flushed down toilets annually in the UK. While I can just about believe that 855,000 mobile phones find their way into 855,000 toilet bowls, I find it less comprehensible that they actually end up being flushed into the sewers. Apart from the unlikely synchronicity involved, is it possible that a phone of the specific density of, say, my fairly recent model Nokia, could be persuaded to join its brown brothers in a lemming like rush to oblivion?
I can’t claim that it was in the spirit of scientific investigation, but I recently had the galling experience of seeing my Nokia dive into a crowded toilet bowl and slide into the murky depths. For a split second I prevaricated, before manfully plunging my hand into the bowl, magically avoiding contact with other floating obstacles, and retrieved my recalcitrant instrument.
As I frantically peeled off my phone’s protective leather pouch, I was already claiming wardrobe malfunction. It was weeks ago that the spring that clips the pouch to my belt failed, and while it continued to sit on my belt OK, its feeble grip wouldn’t arrest its mischievous flight when subjected to the most modest of vertical or lateral movements. I’d already had a couple of near misses in public toilets, and let’s face it, public toilets are the last ones you want to lose your phone in, so I should have been more circumspect.
Let’s talk about phone pouches for a moment. Phone pouches are a bit like hands free headsets – some people use them, some people don’t, but you never see them in the movies. Phone pouches are good because they protect your fragile phone from read more

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Dick's Toolbox - Virtual Stuff
Over the past decades we have seen the slow erosion of reality. This has coincided with the rise of political and economic spin and the decline of meaningful language. We have seen the adoption of more expedient commoditised American attitudes towards people and the rise of a new service and servant Dickensian economy. As I have said previously, we are witness the intentional decline of society and the rise of the individual consumer. We are a market and world of one, spinning in our own disconnected credit limited orbits.
Fortunately, if you are unhappy with this life you can get a Second Life - a computer generated separate reality. As at 26th June 7,580,876 had done so, and I imagine that about 480,000 are reasonably immersed there, given that they were logged on in the past seven days. I'm sure they have their reasons. read more