Author’s personal observation:
I’ve never been enamoured with, or am I ever likely to be, by the bathtub or whoever it was that was responsible for creating it in the first place; so you’ll doubtlessly detect from that statement that I utterly detest bathing in a bathtub and accordingly resolutely eschew having anything whatsoever to do with such contraptions however ornate or seemingly appealing they might appear to be. That’s my personal opinion, I know, and I fair-mindedly recognize that there’re others who emphatically take a diametrically opposed point of view to my own; and I both accept and respect their right to do so. In marked contrast, however, I’m ecstatically in love with the shower and have been ever since my earliest childhood.
Hygienic reasons aside, aspects both foremost and logically in my mind, I’ve never been partial to nor even remotely disposed to first submerging and then proceeding to wash my entire body, head to toe, in the same container of easily contaminated water even with the sparing, as is customarily the case in the UK, availability of a bidet before I did so – and for perfectly obvious reasons to anyone who is even minimally hygienic by disposition.
The overwhelming majority of homes in the United Kingdom, even in 2015, are instinctively constructed without the prospect let alone the reality of having bidets installed in them, and where such bidets do occur they’re either speciality features unilaterally introduced by progressive house builders or else the personal requests to them by potential house buyers; or failing either of these two things the result of individual bathroom conversions by the respective home purchasers or owners of specific local residences.
Which says a lot, if you want my honest opinion, of the lax and widespread approach of a vast number of Britons across the board – as it’s not just a class orientated thing – to the issue of personal hygiene not only at home but also in public conveniences and the like, as I’ve previously articulated and condemnatorily and meticulously reported.
So all hail to the illustrious shower – domestic and public– and the serious promotion and execution of personal hygiene in Britain, unabashedly and unrepentantly say I!