What did Europe ever do for you...
Why...
As we waive bye-bye to the EU can we not acknowledge that Europe has made some small beneficial contributions to English life? In the old days before dear old Blighty got friendly with Johnny Foreigner and joined what was then the European Economic Community, life in Britain was a tad dreary. Our European friends gave us modern bathrooms. 40 years ago English bathrooms were a place so opposed to change it would have made North Korea look like Narnia. A blindfolded Victorian would have had no trouble finding his way about. Firstly we had no mixer taps! I would run a separate hot and cold tap in a basin and wave my hands about like a magician to balance out freezing cold and burning hot. In a bath my left foot poached but my right one got chilblains. A shower cubicle was seen a waste of a linen cupboard and anyway, if I wanted a shower I could always attach what looked like a large rubber stethoscope to the bath hot and cold taps and hose myself down.....until one flew off so hot water boiled my feet and the cold froze my head till my hair crackled. A bidet was a rather quaint invention only ever found in foreign hotels. When I asked my mother what it was, she explained they were to wash your feet in or rinse a bathing suit. In my first flat my plumber had never been abroad and I asked him to fit one. He screwed it to the ceiling thinking it was a shower... I know we love our heritage but hanging onto a flushing system invented in Victorian times by Mr. Crapper (strange but true) seemed sticking to tradition in the extreme. In nearly every home in the 1970's there were loos with a chain with Pull written on the handle (as opposed to doing what)? Above a water tank frequently leaked and when activated made a noise like a concrete mixer. Four decades on the Brits still don't like electrical items in the bathroom so UK homes with hairdryers, electronic heated loos, make-up lighting or chargers for cell phones or tablets whilst having that all important post breakfast 'ablution' are rare. Certainly no radio nor TV! But dual taps only exist now in stuffy old clubs and Downton Abbey.
