As we in the past had already threads commenting the toilet event, I was struck some days ago by the BBC article
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20191004-the-peculiar-bathroom-habits-of-westerners

I started my childhood first on the "pot" and later on the grown-up toilet. But in that time there were other customs than nowadays. In the "toilet" there was a small wall in front of the pit and on that wall lay a thick wooden plank with a hole in it to sit on when having to do the "event". Many times there was a circular plank to cover the hole to try to prevent the stinking of the cesspool. I think to recall that it were my parents, who prepared the socalled "shit paper" from old newspapers dividing them in pieces, again if I recall it well, of rectangles of six by five inch (15 by 12 centimeter) and the whole pack was perforated with a needle on one angle, put a thin rope through that hole and hung with that rope on a nail in the toilet wall. I still remember that it was in my case at the left side.
The fear of cancer by the ink of the paper didn't exist yet in that time.

Now you can perhaps understand why I am used to the modern toilet rolls. And although I made an apart toilet room for my father later, who had "difficulties" at the arse (which later led to his death) and needed a whole set of precautions after doing the "big message", which included a "bidet". I think he just washed "it" in the bidet with a washcloth and dried "it" with a toilet paper (I guess), I am still sceptical about that "bidet".

And as I am always sceptical to propaganda too, I try to let me not lure into the trap of modern bidets.
https://www.brondell.com/healthy-living-blog/clearing-up-the-top-10-misconceptions-about-bidets/
3. Toilet paper is cheaper than using a bidet. The multitude of toilet paper options available for purchase are staggering. On average, one roll of toilet paper costs $3 and Americans use approximately 34,000,000 rolls of toilet paper a day, which means that we spend a shocking $102,000,000 a day just on toilet paper! Purchasing a bidet seat  or bidet attachment can easily cut your toilet paper spending by 75% or more. In addition, toilet paper and flushable wipes are becoming a detriment to the sewer systems by frequently clogging the pipes, filling septic systems, and causing messy problems that cost money to fix. Single-use paper products like toilet paper are very bad for the environment. 

My best price-value ratio toilet paper that I use is about 0.4 Euro, lets say some 0.36 $. That's nearly one tenth of the price they use in their advertisement (propaganda?) that makes only a mere 10 million $. That is nothing in an economy which reckons only with tenths and hundreds of milliards (billions) of $...
And our cesspool is only to be emptied about each five years, while the paper and the excrements work on each other and make a kind of a hard layer on the surface by biological "working" and each time this layer sinks till the cesspool is full.

But as I see now on the above site that you can have already  an "advanced bidet seat complete with a warm air dryer and nightlight for 300 $ I will give it a go. But certainly I will first test it in the shop on a model before buying. But yes if it  performs it can perhaps have a rate of return of one to two years. But one has to reckon with the surplus of water and water in our country is also expensive. But yes all that paper making in the industry is also a cost for the environment...hmm one will perhaps to make the choice on the basis of a "belief"?...

And perhaps a clever advertisement film can seduce one (if it is all like they say and show?)
But nevertheless look once at the film:
https://www.geberit-aquaclean.be/nl_be/produkte/geberit_aquaclean_mera/geberit_aquaclean_mera.html
But from my past and even present work I know that Geberit is expensive (but I found already one for 400 €)
with all "erop en eraan" (with all the trimmings?)
https://www.bidet.nl/universeel-bidet-past-op-ieder-toilet-lady-douche-blooming-NB1120

And now I have still to seek what a "soft lady douche" is...

Kind regards from Paul.

You ought to write a sequel to this, Paul.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3217321-the-specialist

When I was about 16 some of us went on a school vacation to France and we thought the bidets were foot baths.

As so often Paul, I'm never exactly sure what your post is about nor what sort of response you're expecting. Nevertheless why limit yourself to the choice of just "paper or bidet"? Why not consider the ancient Roman method of a reusable sponge-on-a-stick rinsed and cleansed in vineger? Or the eminently practical method of simply using your left hand; wash it after use; and then always use your right hand to eat and greet?

Or, if you want some really imaginative tips on what alternatives to use when the toilet paper has run out, you could always consult Rabelais' "The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel".  

There's no paper in the bogs in Mobile.
There's no paper in the bogs in Mobile.
There's no paper in the bogs.
They just sit there 'til it clogs,
Then they saw it off in logs in Mobile.

Or

There's no paper in the bogs in Mobile.
There's no paper in the bogs in Mobile.
There's no paper in the bogs.
So they wait until it's vapour
Then they light it with a taper in Mobile.

See also the book I suggested - he discusses the choice of paper, and the use of a corn cob (scrapers have been fundamental in this matter for millennia)

Green George wrote:

You ought to write a sequel to this, Paul.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3217321-the-specialist

 
Gil, now I see:
https://www.amazon.com/specialist-Charles-Sale/dp/B0006FFN1U

interesting and concerning my subject. Our outdoor "cabinet" in the time, was a little room in the "achterkeuken" (they translate with back-kitchen) of the house, but that little room had only a door to the outside...so we had to go a bit outdoors to go indoors into the "cabinet"...do you think that was then an outdoor "cabinet" according to Chic Sale?
I tried to read the book or a large excerpt of it on the internet...but I only found the two first pages on Amazon...
I never subscribe or pay on internet (and btw I have to ask the grandchildren to pay on internet)
But as I can buy it for one $ I will try to include it in a future sale on internet.

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

As so often Paul, I'm never exactly sure what your post is about nor what sort of response you're expecting. Nevertheless why limit yourself to the choice of just "paper or bidet"? Why not consider the ancient Roman method of a reusable sponge-on-a-stick rinsed and cleansed in vineger? Or the eminently practical method of simply using your left hand; wash it after use; and then always use your right hand to eat and greet?

Or, if you want some really imaginative tips on what alternatives to use when the toilet paper has run out, you could always consult Rabelais' "The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel".  

MM,

and now I wanted to have a clear cut title, as I promised to nordmann ... a not ambiguous question...between the two items of the title, toilet paper or bidet, what is the choice? 

As I have a "delicate" arse (een teer aars), having been operated of "bloedspeen"...(I still learned yet the Dutch term and so didn't find the translation...and so I became redirected by the mighty google to my own search: see my message of 3 Feb 2018 22h40
https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1166p400-the-tumbleweed-suite
And now start the difficulty to find the English word, while we say: de naad (the seam), but it seems not to exist in Dutch and after some painstaking research I found that they in Dutch say: "litteken" (mark, scar, cicatrice (but in my opinion is cicatrice the French of scar?)
Further in my conversation I wanted to use "speen and bloedspeen" but that too seems to not exist in Dutch, after another research I found out that in Dutch it is "aambeien" in English haemorrhoids...
http://www.vlaamswoordenboek.be/definities/term/bloedspeen
...
As I said with my "delicate" arse, the Roman method with the vinegar would be perhaps too much aggresive? And, as I seem to recall from a story from nordmann, that reusable sponge-on-a-stick was used by everyone visiting the "latrine" Hmm, and I with my delicate...

"Or the eminently practical method of simply using your left hand; wash it after use; and then always use your right hand to eat and greet?"

Yes that was the Muslim?, Islam? Koran? or just the custom in North-Africa? as our guide for the Italian tourists to whom we belonged, explained to me when we had a rest stop to do, what each one has to do after drinking and eating. It was a small building in red bricks in the South of Tunesia near the desert. As I found out, the men first on this occasion, there was a French toilet in it

and it was full with "shit", but that was not the worst as the excrements were on every place of the inside of the building even on the ceiling. I guess they had done it as you said with the left hand and then while the stuff was sticking had tried to become free of it with a heavy shaking of the hand. And then the cleaning? Perhaps with a rag or sand or the tea from a bottle they had with them?
After our warning, the women of our bus made a circle and in the middle it was used as a toilet, one after each other...

Kind regards from Paul.

This is all getting a bit gross, Paul! I did want to add that the first time I saw a bidet was on our honeymoon in 1973, and I had no idea what it was for. We still don't have bidets in NZ. And we were rather surprised on our last trip to France a few years ago to see men peeing into a hole in the wall in full view of everyone.

Caro wrote:

This is all getting a bit gross, Paul! I did want to add that the first time I saw a bidet was on our honeymoon in 1973, and I had no idea what it was for. We still don't have bidets in NZ. And we were rather surprised on our last trip to France a few years ago to see men peeing into a hole in the wall in full view of everyone.

Yes, Caro, those French...I can say that as a Belgian...but I am not sure if we are that much better...
Speaking about "bidets" perhaps some French toilets, as we call them, could seemingly serve also as bidet...

as I see that there is a red dot on the valve I guess that it will be hot water...

But as I said the Belgians were in my opinion not better than the French...at least in the Sixties...when I was on a camping in Abbeville France start of the Seventies it were still dirty squad toilets. But at the same time in the Sixties there were also such toilets for the "workers" and even not as on the photo, but in polished ciment and that in a factory of nearly 2,000 men. It quickly changed when it came from family owned to an American concern.
And as I was on the line (on the floor as they call it), I had also to share these toilets, otherwise I had to go some 700 meters (yards?) to have a normal toilet of the colleagues. I am not sure if I, being in the fourth quarter of my life, could do the exercise as shown overhere to make the big "delivery" (we say in our dialect "commissie" from French "faire une commission" synonym de "faire les courses")
https://m.wikihow.com/Use-a-Squat-Toilet


Kind regards from Paul.

I've never missed having a bidet but in the present Covid-19 scare as loo rolls seem to have developed wings and flown off the shelves of stores I've had to order some loo rolls online.  Will they arrive in a timely or 'in time' fashion - that is the question.

I wonder if people are panic-buying bidets?

Temperance wrote:

I wonder if people are panic-buying bidets?

Your guess is as good as mine, Temperance.  (Don't worry I haven't had a complete sense of humour bypass and I realise the above was stated in jest).

I didn't think for one moment you had a "humour-bypass", LiR! didn't mean you had panic-ordered loo-rolls either! That would be pot calling kettle black: I normally only buy a modest two-roll pack, but when I did my last Sainsbury's shop a couple of weeks ago I bought a family-size packet of 24. I'm glad I did now, but I do feel horribly guilty and needed to confess to someone. I can honestly say I would offer one or two rolls from my precious stash to any neighbour in need, so perhaps I'll be spared the Dante circle of hell reserved just for toilet-tissue hoarders. But some people have been far worse - we've seen supermarket trolleys here piled high with a precarious stack of about ten family-sized packs. So much for the famous "Blitz spirit"! They've brought in loo-roll rationing now, thank goodness.

Actually, I wonder how much the famous "Blitz spirit" was all propaganda myth?

Temperance, I didn't explain very well.  I've ordered the loo rolls off Ebay and don't know how long it will take for them to be delivered.

Temperance wrote:

I didn't think for one moment you had a "humour-bypass", LiR! didn't mean you had panic-ordered loo-rolls either! That would be pot calling kettle black: I normally only buy a modest two-roll pack, but when I did my last Sainsbury's shop a couple of weeks ago I bought a family-size packet of 24. I'm glad I did now, but I do feel horribly guilty and needed to confess to someone. I can honestly say I would offer one or two rolls from my precious stash to any neighbour in need, so perhaps I'll be spared the Dante circle of hell reserved just for toilet-tissue hoarders. But some people have been far worse - we've seen supermarket trolleys here piled high with a precarious stack of about ten family-sized packs. So much for the famous "Blitz spirit"! They've brought in loo-roll rationing now, thank goodness.

Actually, I wonder how much the famous "Blitz spirit" was all propaganda myth?

Temperance, glad to see you again. Always delighted when you join the board again.

The ex-daughter-in-law in this Corona times doing the "commissions" (we use in our dialect: commissions as in French. But I see now that the French normally say: faire des courses. MM? But I see here https://context.reverso.net/traduction/francais-neerlandais/faire+des+commissions that the French say also: faire des commissions (as we say overhere) MM?)
In English it seems to be: doing the shopping...

And she says that it is completely the same overhere. Although they continuously say in TV that the stocks are quite big even for the coming months...

Still in "quarantaine" after our sejourn in Tenerife. A normal vacation till last Sunday, the day of our return. There was a kind of a lockdown in Spain starting Sunday., also on Tenerife. And above our normal flight back, all the touroperators wanted to get back too with their customers.
Hence great turmoil on the airfield and we together with all the other passengers were exposed during at least two hours to the mass gathering. I suppose it is one of the dangerous moments in our life for me and my partner.

Although I try to confort myself (we are already in our fifth day and I haven't heard anything yet from our Belgian flight to Ostend) with statistics and making guessings about the chance that we of all occasions would have catched the virus in the short time of exposure on the airfield and in the fortnight before on Tenerife...
I nevertheless long for some comfort from others...

I used specially "long for" because the word has the same origin as the Middle Dutch word and that word appears in the first known written Dutch text
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/longen
https://www.dutchsongs.overtuin.net/dutch-medieval-folk-songs.html



PS: As you use the word "myth" I had expected some comments on my latest message on the "power of myths" thread of the Israeli "Hariri" and his "Sapiens" book. 
But perhaps one needs already half a day to get in the picture and perhaps better to wait for the first reactions of "our" nordmann...

Kind regards as ever from Paul.

I hope you emerge perfectly well from your horrid quarantine, Paul. You are nearly a week clear now, so I'm sure you and your partner are fine.

Not much "comfort" about for any of us these days, but posting on Res His is a good way of staying (sort of) sane.

Temperance wrote:

I hope you emerge perfectly well from your horrid quarantine, Paul. You are nearly a week clear now, so I'm sure you and your partner are fine.

Not much "comfort" about for any of us these days, but posting on Res His is a good way of staying (sort of) sane.

 
Thanks a lot for your nevertheless comforting reply, Temperance.

Kind regards from Paul.

For anyone who fancies making a 'portable bidet' in true Blue Peter spirit.  Blue Peter is or was (not sure if it's still  on) a British children's TV show where the hosts sometimes showed viewers how to make things.  "And here's one I made earlier" became something of a catchphrase for the programme, though in honesty I can't remember them ever showing the kiddiwinks how to make a portable bidet.

Not true Blue Peter style. No "sticky backed plastic".

Thanks LiR for the suggestion. 

Although I am still a bit afraid of all those "invading" strong jets on my delicate "aars" (arse?)... Even not sure if that jet will be able to remove in my case the many times "rigid" substance...

Perhaps still preferring my proposed method of using a rag. And washing it some times. As I have certainly for months old spare rags, I can also, as the incontinence material of the partner, throw it each time in the garbagebag outdoors, which is each week collected by the garbagetruck...

Feeling with you LiR, there isolated in your 1930's semi-detached dwelling, kind regards from Paul.

Green George wrote:

Not true Blue Peter style. No "sticky backed plastic".

That's me told then Gilgamesh.  There are also some videos about what to do in the absence of toilet paper.  I won't link to those as anyone could do a search if they wanted to.  Suffice to say the idea about rags was one suggestion mooted.

LiR, had to look for "mooted" ...

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moot

Is that then "debatable"? If so I agree with your sentence .

And what to say about Triceratops'

"from Business Insider website:
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has some advice for Americans facing shortages in bath tissue: use a corn cob (sans corn) instead.

"Those of us from rural south know how to handle toilet paper shortage," Huckabee, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, tweeted. "Eat more corn on the cob! The corn isn't important, but the cobs are free and work great! (Just don't flush them!) You're welcome!"


"the cobs are free"


yes all good and well, when you have "cobs", but at least here in that little Belgium we have plenty of rags
I meant clean! rags  no paint on it or solvents, nor traces of otherones ...sh.. ((sh..) I all learned that overhere on this board. We don't use that (...)). We say it plain and both in Dutch, French and even in German from the Ost Kantons . It is even an alternatif for "damned" as the German "sch....." Even Lady Gaga use it...


Kind regards from PauL

The delivery of 10 rolls came today.  Now I'm not sure if I've been duped but the rolls didn't have a central cardboard tube so I wonder if the supplier had bought some of said item from a supermarket and sold it on.  There seems to be a reasonable amount of paper per roll  - I'm not going to use my tape measure to see how long it is.  It's feasible that if they are a genuine supplier they have run short of cardboard tubes maybe.  I don't think there's much I can do about it as the advert was for 10 rolls and 10 rolls is what I received though I probably won't buy from that supplier again.

LiR, I was in Sainsbury's yesterday and there was no shortage of toilet rolls.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

The delivery of 10 rolls came today.  Now I'm not sure if I've been duped but the rolls didn't have a central cardboard tube so I wonder if the supplier had bought some of said item from a supermarket and sold it on.  There seems to be a reasonable amount of paper per roll  - I'm not going to use my tape measure to see how long it is.  It's feasible that if they are a genuine supplier they have run short of cardboard tubes maybe.  I don't think there's much I can do about it as the advert was for 10 rolls and 10 rolls is what I received though I probably won't buy from that supplier again.

LiR,

when looking during the years for toilet rolls, I have made a study of it. Starting of course from the "price for a roll"   My take after the study: the two layer is well enough, even for the delicate buttocks of mine...But here are that many other requirements as the absorption and some papers are that wrinkled that they have a bigger surface for the same weight of paper...my test is always to put the entire pack above the other to see if one roll is not smaller than the one of the other pack. But the weight for the same diameter is also important. I bought once heavy weight rolls with a slight larger diameterwith an incredible length of meters, but the fine not textured paper had not a good cohesion, so that one had to "use" more of it. And my partner grumbled that it klitted like clumps of lime, before one could put it in the toilet.

Thinking now about it, that "toilet event" is, as I see it now,  quite a complex story...

Kind regards from Paul.

Had to delete that post LiR, it destroyed the page formatting completely - try posting a link using the tools provided please.

Oh but I did use the link with the chain icon, nordmann.  I copied the link from the web address in the field which had the item listing.  I suppose with it being on Ebay the item listing was very long.  It wasn't a weighty post anyway.  It was a cheap and cheerful "bum scraper" on sale on Ebay.  As has been noted by others toilet rolls are now available in most of the supermarkets.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Oh but I did use the link with the chain icon, nordmann.  I copied the link from the web address in the field which had the item listing.  I suppose with it being on Ebay the item listing was very long.  It wasn't a weighty post anyway.  It was a cheap and cheerful "bum scraper" on sale on Ebay.  As has been noted by others toilet rolls are now available in most of the supermarkets.

 
LiR, I learned to use the icon from Temperance, but many times it don't work for me too. I think it has something to do with the source of the link? Even with an https it happens...perhaps our system? I use Chrome for the moment...
Kind regards, PauL

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Oh but I did use the link with the chain icon, nordmann.  I copied the link from the web address in the field which had the item listing.  I suppose with it being on Ebay the item listing was very long.  It wasn't a weighty post anyway.  It was a cheap and cheerful "bum scraper" on sale on Ebay.  As has been noted by others toilet rolls are now available in most of the supermarkets.

Try posting a link using the tools provided properly please

(use both fields and type a friendly version of the link in the appropriate field provided)

It's not that important, nordmann.  I was just trying for a bit of levity.

Nordmann - perhaps we need another simple "how to do it" guide, for posting (and hosting) photos, links, youtubes etc... plus maybe how to toggle to edit mode, and so see what the post will look like before (saving!) and then sending. All this is second nature to you, but as is evident from several recent posts, not everyone is completely au fait with it. That's just a suggestion but it might well save you some work in the long run, as well as making people's posts easier to read..

nordmann wrote:

Try posting a link using the tools provided properly please

(use both fields and type a friendly version of the link in the appropriate field provided)

 
nordmann, I do it as you say, the same as I guess LiR too, but many times even lately , that don't work. I had even lately some small tumbnail? sign instead of my shortening text. Also the double https after each other, once with my short text included.
Can't it have to do with the original URL that you copy and past? All kind of different origins? Some origin in an https already included in another https? For dummies as I am, all original URLs and pictures are the same kind of source...
Kind regards from Paul.

Basically search results are not good to use as links - they are often exceedingly long and do not even have to conform to normal https: protocols. Many, as you say Paul, contain coded links within them to other URLs, so when you paste them here you are effectively linking to a link that links to another one. As we discussed before - if it looks suspiciously long then the best rule of thumb is don't post it. It's long for a reason, and even attaching a friendly alias might not help.

As MM said, if in doubt then one can always click on the "Preview" button below the submission box instead of "Send". This will at least show you how your post will appear so you can always adjust it or abandon it before you ultimately send it.

If you hover the cursor over the various symbols along the top of the message box you will see a small info tab appear that explains the function of each. I can help if you have problems with any one in particular. But basically if you use the correct one, be aware of what you're linking to and preview it first anyway then you will avoid most of the problems you encounter and avoid also potentially disrupting the frame dimensions of the entire web page to accommodate incoherent or excessively long addresses.