Mixer taps, light pulls and rubbish bins

When you go to somewhere you haven’t been before things you take for granted either aren’t there or are so different you have to ponder how to use what is there – or wonder how to manage without whatever it is you were expecting.

A small example… when we moved into our house there was a tiny bath in the tiny bathroom; my husband is 6’6½” (and now sixteen years on my son is similar) and he could just about sit in the bath. The bathroom suite was a rather unpleasant olive colour and so we had it all taken out, replaced by white tiles on the wall, white suite, and a corner shower unit with a curved door to take up less room. All was perfect… except it meant the light pull hung down inside the shower… we couldn’t afford to have the electrician reroute it, so we changed the pull to a metal beaded chain and all was well… except when visitors first come to stay they can never find the light pull, because it is inside the shower! (us, eccentric? us??

Another example – also of a bathroom nature, when I first went to France and was not staying with a family, we were camping… En route to the camp site we stopped at various places, one being a café. I went to visit the bathroom, and returned to my friends saying we would have to find a public toilet because the one in the café was being renovated and there was no actual toilet, only a hole in the ground… Much laughter because the hole in the ground – in a proper porcelain tray with water to ‘flush’, – was the toilet. It was what we called a squatter…

I have written here before about mixer taps and why many homes, and traditionally all homes had separate hot and cold taps. This seems to puzzle many visitors from other countries, in fact there are forums dedicated to this and some of them get very abusive about the lack of mixer taps. I have to say up-front that I do not like mixer taps, I like separate hot and cold taps and apart from the basin in the downstairs bathroom which is tiny, we only have separate taps.

This is what I wrote before:

So why are some people so in favour of mixer taps, and so disparaging of separate ones? One site which sells bathroom equipment gives these five suggestions:

1. style
2. versatility
3. control
4. convenience
5. economy

Style… surely a matter for personal preference… versatility? I don’t get that… so control – I think separate taps give more control! Convenience – in what way? It’s not convenient if you end up with hot orange squash and cold washing-up water! Economy – I am all in favour of economy, but I’m not convinced that a mixer tap does this… I usually use more water fiddling about trying to adjust it to the right temperature.
I read another article in favour of mixers which didn’t seem to realise that most basins and sinks have plugs to fit snugly in the plug-holes – you put in the plug in the plug-hole and then you can mix the water from both taps to the perfect temperature. I read yet another which described single temperature taps as a the primitive British standard of separate taps for hot and cold as a peculiarity “the primitive British standard of separate taps for hot and cold!!!!” I read yet another article which quite sensibly said that historically the cold water supply to homes was perfectly safe to drink, where as the heated water from boilers etc was not potable – therefore having separate taps was safer; this apparently is no longer the case with water being heated as it is required.

I could go on about mixer taps and how I dislike them… but apparently another thing which foxes foreign visitors is light-pulls – they would be doubly foxed by ours in our bathroom! Again, light-pulls are for safety reasons:

Pull cords were introduced because of the “perceived risk” of electric shock:
John O’Neill is technical engineering manager at NICEIC, a registration body for the electrical contracting industry. He said: “In the UK we follow British Standard Requirements for Electrical Installations. These consider the bathroom to be an area of increased risk because the body could become immersed in water in the bath. “The body’s resistance to electricity drops significantly when immersed or partially immersed in water. We judge it more likely that contact with live electrical parts would likely increase the effect of an electrical shock, and under some circumstances shocks could be fatal. It’s not about having wet hands because you can have sockets and switches in the kitchen – it’s about immersion. You should not be able to be in the bath and reach out and switch anything on. Pull cords are allowed because you cannot come into contact with the switch.”

So people who complain about light pulls – they are for your own safety – aren’t you pleased we care?

I was reading an article about mixer taps and light pulls – and a third puzzling puzzle for visitors is why we keep bins outside the front of houses… I think this probably comes from tourists who don’t like their beautiful photos and holidays snaps disfigured by a practical reality.  People who have back yards and gardens keep their bins in them, shut behind doors and gates. If you don’t have a back yard or garden, where do you keep your bin? Inside your house? These days because of cuts, some councils only collect rubbish every two or even three weeks… two or three weeks worth of rubbish inside your house? Probably not!

Here is the article I mentioned – mixer taps, light pulls and dustbins:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42948046