Life is Healthy

A month in to Bathmatwatch, and I think that this is a good time to recap, and also to let new readers catch up with an FAQ.

What is Bathmatwatch?

Bathmatwatch is a series of daily photographs of an abandoned bath mat in north-west London. It began on November 1st 2006, and is still ongoing.

UPDATE: Bathmatwatch finished 35 days later when the bath mat disappeared on December 5th 2006. A moving tribute is posted here.

UPDATE: The bath mat made a transubstantiated reappearance on February 9th 2007.

UPDATE: The bath mat sent another message from the afterlife on August 5th 2007.

Is it a bath mat? It looks a bit like a carpet sample to me.

It is a bath mat.

Has the bath mat ever moved?

It made some small movements on Day 2, Day 4, Day 7, Day 10 and Day 14, then a giant leap into the road on Day 22, then an equally giant leap along the road on Day 26. In fact, go back to Day 2 anyway. Doesn’t it look young?

Is the bath mat trying to spell something out with these movements?

So far it has spelt ‘L’. We can only speculate as to what it is trying to say and hope that it uses some abbreviations. At this rate it is like Stephen Hawking using a Ouija board. I would like to think that it will say “Love everybody”, but it might say “Leave me alone”, “Leyton Orient rule OK” or “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch". Though if the latter it will end up in Essex and it will cost me a fortune to see it every day.

Why did the bath mat cross the road?

Because the chicken wanted a bath?

Whose was the best picture drawn in the gallery on Day 11?

The joint winners were Ellie and Doris. Well done, Ellie and Doris. John Plato’s entry was, to be honest, a bit scary. Is that a green cat?

What did you see in the bath mat and then draw on Day 11, Salvadore Vincent? Was it a dog or a mouse?

It was a dog.

Has Bathmatwatch inspired any spin-offs?

There has been one rather poor quality spin-off: Suitcasewatch. Please note that this is not officially endorsed by Smaller Than Life.

How many people in the world have bath mats? If only somebody would do some kind of poll that also expressed that figure as a percentage.

The results of such a poll are here. You can vote in the poll here.

What is Bath Mats of the World?

Bath Mats of the World is a project to collect a picture of every bath mat in the world and plot their positions on a map. So far I have collected over five pictures from more than one continent.

Of the pictures sent in so far to Bath Mats of the World, which is your favourite?

They are all great. Interestingly, it has only been women who have sent in pictures of their bath mats. It is a good job that I am not someone who gets sexual thrills from seeing pictures of women’s bath mats who has set up a blog with the sole purpose of getting people to send in pictures of their bath mats, and just deleting any from men. I am not such a person, and anyone who says that I am is lying.

Where is the bath mat exactly?

The exact location is a strict secret. There are some weird people on the internet.

Who is the hero of Bathmatwatch?

That would have to be Martyn Colbeck, who spent 15 years filming elephants in Kenya. Will I still be doing this when I am 51?

Who is the villain of Bathmatwatch?

That would have to be the street sweeper. Boo!

What was this blog like before Bathmatwatch?

I can’t remember. I think that I wrote stuff like this, this and this. And this.

Is the bath from Day 21 still there?

No, it was gone the next day.

What happened to Things Abandoned on the Pavement Within 100 Yards of My Home That I Have Taken a Photograph of #3?

That will have to wait. The picture has been taken and is being stored safely, though the item itself is now long gone. If you thought Bathmatwatch was good, this will blow your minds.

Do you have a bath mat?

No. I just dry myself over the bath. In fact, if somebody gave me a bath mat, I would probably just leave it out on the pavement for someone else to take.

How did you do the CGI for Scrappy-Loo on Day 24? That was amazing!

I used a sophisticated imaging processing program that is only available to professionals within the animation industry. It is called MS Paint.

Is Bathmatwatch all true?

Every single word of it is true. It is not something that I am making up to make myself look more interesting.

Even the suitcase on Day 28? That is one amazing coincidence that it was abandoned there.

Even the suitcase. That scared me a bit.

Is there any Bathmatwatch merchandising available? eg a mug or a T-shirt.

Not yet. Would you like some?

Does your girlfriend know about Bathmatwatch?

No, and I am beginning to worry how I will break the news to her that I will have to arrange Christmas around it.

Why is the bath mat there?

Why are any of us here?

UPDATE: What is Bath Mats in Need?

Click here to find out.

Like The Truman Show, this is only going to end one way. Items born of the John Lewis bathroom department have but a short time to live. (I am not saying that John Lewis sell things of unmerchantable quality, by the way. They are an excellent chain, and never knowingly undersold (except by every shop on the internet, but that's an unfair comparison because they have much better customer service – eg I bought a pair of gloves for my mum's birthday today from a very nice woman. (It is OK – my mum does not, as far as I know, read this blog, and if she does, she does not know it is her son's, so I have not ruined the surprise.)). No, I am subtly using a metaphor for life.)

I don't know what I will do when it goes. It would be wrong to replace it with an identical stained, bedraggled and run over bath mat to spare your feelings. It is important that you all learn about death and grieve properly. It would also be wrong to immediately start another abandoned item watch – that would just be a rebound relationship, forever tainted with the unspoken question: “You're thinking about the bath mat, aren't you?”

We just have to take one day at a time.

Just wait. Your water will one day be supplied by Coke or Pepsi, and you will pay through the nose for it. Water is now becoming a commodity to be traded with no value given to its intrinsic value as a human right... and that WILL affect human life.

Infrastructure in North America is in DESPERATE need of fixing, and politicians KNOW THIS but still do not plan for it. Instead, they allow it to crumble as our tax dollars are diverted to other projects of less importance so that privitization of resources can occur to make them money and give them more political clout.

They are exploiting this precious resource for their own gain at our expense... And it is being done subtly and quietly without many people in municipalities even in this country knowing what is going on regarding their own water supply. The price of water even in my own community has gone up FORTY PERCENT, but the money is not going to infrastructure or to provide better service, but to pay off BOND DEBT... Bonds that were issued to build a golf course... How ironic.

People, you need to do a little research as to what is going on regarding water in your own community. Predators in the private sector are just licking their chops to get in and take over your supply because there is now big business in water... and I predict that like in other countries around the world where the people are poor and vulnerable, the same tactics will be employed right here in the U.S., and the people have to stand up against it.

WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT, not a commodity to be sold by Coke for a profit that only the rich will be able to afford!
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Water Is The New Oil CIBC
ROMA LUCIW

Globe and Mail Update

The colossal cost of fixing crumbling water infrastructure in the developed world has opened the door to government privatization.

Water delivery systems in the industrial world are in “dire need” of repair, says a report released Monday by CIBC World Markets Inc. At least one-fifth of America's municipal wastewater treatment facilities do not comply with federal regulations and in some U.S. cities, more than half of the water headed to consumers is lost along the way.

CIBC economist Benjamin Tal, author of the “Tapping into Water” report, estimates it will take “hundreds of billions of dollars” to fix dated water infrastructure in North America and Europe. Federal governments are not rushing to fix the infrastructure and municipalities lack the means to do so. “As a result, governments are now much more open to the notion of privatizing their water infrastructure which, in turn, is providing a substantial boost to the private water industry,” Mr. Tal said.

“What we are witnessing here is a trend that is profoundly modifying water as an investment theme throughout the world.”

Canada has one of the world's largest supplies of fresh water, but has its own water woes. Nearly a million British Columbia residents were placed on a boil-water advisory eleven days ago after heavy rainfall triggered mudslides and caused runoff into the Vancouver region's reservoirs, raising concerns about high levels of turbidity. The boil advisory was lifted on Monday.

Water contaminated with E. coli killed seven people and made thousands sick in Walkerton, Ont., six years ago. The bacteria entered the town's water supply from farm runoff, and residents had to boil or buy their water for seven months after their supply was tainted.
Meanwhile, the business of water is booming.

Mr. Tal sees parallels between today's water industry and the oil industry in its golden era, before and after the Second World War. “The market is paying attention,” he said. “Capital investment, deregulation, consolidation, and privatization of global water assets and services are advancing at a pace not seen before.”

In the last three years, U.S.-based water companies — as measured by the Bloomberg U.S. water index — have surged 150 per cent, three times the rise seen by companies on the S&P 500, while paying twice as much in dividends. International water players are doing even better, Mr. Tal said, with their stock values rising twice as fast as their American counterparts in the past year alone.

Water is an attractive investment because it is much less volatile than industries driven by economic cycles, Mr. Tal said. Companies that specialize in “water solutions” can range from pumps, pipes and valves, wastewater treatment, to quality testing. European companies account for half of the global water players, while American companies make up 36 per cent. In Canada, there are few ways for investors to directly invest in H2O. However, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board recently launched a bid for a British water utility. “Water prices in many industrialized countries are now rising much faster than inflation, and this trend will only accelerate in the coming years,” Mr. Tal said.

World Bank estimates suggest that outsourcing and privatization in the water sector are set to double in the coming five years to reach a near 40 per cent share of the market. “If crumbling water infrastructures in North America and Europe provide the private water industry with great opportunities, the potential in the developing world is even greater,” Mr. Tal said.
More at the link.
~~~~~~~~~~
Also see:

Water Must Go To Those Who Deserve It Most, The Rich

If you live in the U.S. and your water is supplied by a private company, then say hello to your new owner as of 2002:

RWE

Which bought out:

American Water
Now in 16 states.

Remember, it's all about PROFIT.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE: 11.30.06

New Report Questions The Future Of American Water

The suitcase is gone. Gone, but not forgotten, as it seems that I have a tribute site: Suitcasewatch.

But fear not – the bath mat's secret location has not been compromised. The site is just a poor spin-off – the Joey of abandoned item blogs. In so many ways.

I am not sure that I should be giving it the oxygen of publicity, particularly when the site owner has a baby and carpenters that he should be spending his time worrying about.

Smaller Than Life is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

I used to watch Brady Bunch when I was a kid. Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick) was the beautiful oldest daughter on the show. And now it's been announced she's joining the Celebrity Fit Club because she wants to lose weight. McCormick is 5'3" tall.

How old is Maureen McCormick now? I was amazed to find out she turned 50 this year.

She says she has put on about 25 or 30 pounds since her mother died. She has one daughter who thought it would be a good idea for her to sign up for the Celebrity Fit Club show.

She is joined in the fifth season of VH1's weight-loss series by Tiffany, Kimberly Locke, Da Brat, Dustin Diamond, Warren G, Cledu T. Judd and Ross Matthews.

A Kurdish boy in front of the bridge in Hasankeyf, Turkey, which will be drowned if the Ilisu Dam is built. The base of the bridge dates back to the 7th century

©International Rivers Network Kurdish Human Rights Project
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The Iraqi people haven't been through enough. Now they have to worry about their water being taken away...what little they have. Isn't it also so coincidental that where ever we start a war, water is an issue as well as oil? Isn't it also so outrageous how history can simply be washed away without a thought when greed takes over that process?
~~~~~
Iraq Worried About Turkish Dam

SHARING THE TIGRIS RIVER

Iraq Worried about Turkish Dam

The Ilisu Dam will, when it's finished, provide hydroelectric power in south-eastern Turkey. Iraq, though, is worried it may also cut flows of the vital Tigris River.

Officials in Iraq are angered by Turkish plans to construct a gigantic dam on the river Tigris in southeast Turkey, near the Iraqi border. The so-called Ilisu Dam's 300 square kilometer reservoir would be a significant source of hydroelectric power, and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at an opening ceremony on Aug. 5 that it "will bring big gains to the local people." But in Iraq, health officials are concerned that these gains will come at the expense of their own people.

Photo Gallery: The Treasure Turkey Will Lose
Click on a picture to launch the image gallery (6 Photos)

"There is no doubt that this will lead to a significant deterioration of the water quality" in Iraq, said Latif Rashid, Baghdad's Minister of Water Resources, in a letter to the Germany-based NGO World Economy, Ecology and Development (WEED). Iraq is also concerned that the new dam project could hamper the flow of water into the country via the 1,900 kilometer long Tigris River. The river begins in Turkey and flows into Iraq through the south-eastern Turkish town of Cizre.

The Ilisu Dam is part of the larger Southeast Anatolia Project, a 21-dam plan to expand hydro-electric energy production in the under-developed and largely Kurdish southeast. But it's a project that is no stranger to international criticism with the Ilisu Dam attracting particular attention. In 1999, the Kurdish Human Rights Project (KHRP) revealed that its completion would result in the flooding of Hasankeyf, an ancient city of particular cultural import to the Kurdish minority. Criticism has only grown since construction started in August.

Now, though, even the German government is worried about the construction's potentially negative effects on Turkey's troubled neighbor, Iraq. The project is being realized by an international consortium of construction firms, including the German firm Züblin. Officials in Berlin now face the delicate decision of granting export credits to a controversial project.

Government officials on Friday said that Ankara would need to guarantee the minimum water levels for neighboring Iraq before it would approve export credits. But WEED spokeswoman Heike Drillisch urged the government not to support the initiative. "The complaints from Baghdad show that international standards and human rights are being ignored," she said.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Foreign Ministry reacted with indignation to the accusations. It played down the Iraqi complaints, asserting that Iraqi delegates have not even mentioned the issue in direct talks with Turkey. A spokesperson for the Turkish government gave assurances that minimum water levels would be maintained for Iraq, and that the government is open for talks.

amb/spiegel
~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a very comprehensive site regarding the entire Ilisu Dam project and the socio-economic, political, and environmental impacts of this project that in my view is only being done for political blackmail.

The Ilisu Dam Project

Make no mistake about it: with drought in this area already causing water tables in the Tigris to be at only 50% capacity or lower, this dam will only make matters worse for those who rely on the Tigris for sustinence, and that could lead to conflict for this most precious resource of the Middle East.

The Water Wars

And again, what side does the U.S. fall on in this? The Bush regime occupies Iraq, brings about a civil war that is killing thousands of people including our own, and then dares to say we bring Democracy in the face of destroying their infrastructure (including water) in the face of all of this?

Despicable.

Also see my other entries on this topic:

The Ilisu Dam Controversy

Iraq's Marshes, Corporate Control, and Water Scarcity

Bathmatwatch took a disturbing and sinister turn today. As I turned left into the road, I immediately saw that it would be difficult to take today’s photo. The owners of the Honda Civic were clearly loading up their car, as there was a suitcase in the road just behind it. But as I got closer, no one came out of a house and put the suitcase into the boot – it just sat there in the rain.

As I got closer still I saw that it was an old suitcase that had been abandoned on the very same spot that the bath mat moved to on Day 22.



Look! It is the same diagonal white splatter on the kerb in the lower right-hand corner! Of all the gutters in all the towns in all the world, it is abandoned here.

Is somebody trying to tell me something? Am I being threatened? Are they telling me to get packing? Am I getting too close to the truth about the bath mat? Can I handle the truth about the bath mat? Could this suitcase be full of polonium-210? What is going on?

I know that the police are busy, but I am sure that once I have explained the whole of Bathmatwatch to them they will investigate.

Designing Spaces decorator Veryn Yip has some great (and inexpensive) ideas to get your home ready for the Christmas season. One is the red apple (and low-calorie) trick;

Put a large bowl in the entry way or on the dining room table and fill it with bright red apples (yes, real ones). It costs less than $10 and will last about a month. Best of all, it instantly adds a mass of red to your room.

The apple photo above is by Bialy-Fox.

A day of rest for the bath mat (and me), after a busy week.

Sour Girl, 28, has just started a site about her new weight loss journey. She says she's now fatter than Oprah was at her heaviest. She wants to lose 85 pounds. She is starting today and wants to reach her goal weight of 150 pounds by the end of September. She's just joined L A Weight Loss. Her mom has given her the membership as an early Christmas present.

The above photos are examples of the before and after success stories at L A Weight Loss. One of their clients, Michele pictured here, lost 125 pounds in 41 weeks.

See Sour Girl's story from the beginning and help encourage her here.

Afghanistan's Neglected Drought

Afghanistan's neglected drought

Increasing violence in Afghanistan has overshadowed hardship caused by drought. Christian Aid's Anjali Kwatra writes about the problem in the western province of Herat.

In pictures: Afghan drought

In a graveyard on a hill overlooking the village of Sya Kamarak in western Afghanistan, villagers gathered last week for the funerals of three young children who died of hunger.

They died on the same day from malnutrition caused by a devastating drought that has hit western, northern and southern Afghanistan.

There were no doctors' reports to confirm the cause of death - the parents were too poor to take them to the clinic which is one day's walk away.

Jan Bibi, 40, said she had been feeding her three-month-old daughter Nazia with just boiled water and sugar because she had nothing else.

"My baby died because of inadequate food. I wanted to breastfeed her but I was not producing enough milk."

Jan Bibi's surviving twin daughter Merzia is the size of a newborn rather than a three-month old and cries continually for food.

Dry spell

"I am worried about my baby," said Jan Bibi. "The future is dark because we don't have food or water or fuel for heating. We have to walk for four hours to get to the nearest fresh water - we don't know how we will survive."

Failed crops turn to stocks for burning (Photos: Christian Aid)

The villagers say 50 children have died so far this year - a far higher number than usual - because of the drought.

Almost all the 300 families in remote Sya Kamarak, which is a day's drive along bumpy tracks from the capital of the province, Herat city, live off the land.. Most lost all their wheat harvest when the rains failed in April and May.

A Christian Aid assessment of the drought in five northern and western provinces showed that farmers lost 80-100% of their crops in the worst affected areas and water sources in many villages had dried up.

More at the link above.
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In pictures: Afghan Drought

Afghanistan's Drought

War has ravaged this country for almost thrity years, and now lack of rainfall is also killing its children. Where is the U.S? Since we too are still in their country after almost five years, what is our responsibility regarding this crisis? Are we going to stand and just watch their children die?

According to the most recent estimates I could find, approximately 12% of the land is arable, but now with drought and extreme soil evaporation that may be less. Permanent pastures average about 46% of the land with about 4% as forests and woodlands which may now also be much less due to deforestation because of remaining forests being cut down to use them for fuel and building materials. Desertification due to dry conditions is also a current environmental issue for Afghanistan as it is for the entire region.



Photo courtesy of NASA.











Dust Storm/Afghanistan/Pakistan

Also see:



















Water Management In Central Asia

Would the people of Afghanistan stand up to fight for water? Wouldn't you? I am sure to many Americans and others in this world, the suffering these people in Afghanistan and in this area of the world in general are going through regarding lack of water is incomprehensible.

That needs to change because if we don't change our ways, within the next 45 years more of this world will be a desert, and the water that is left will be the property of those who can afford it and have the power to make it theirs alone.

Australia, China, Afghanistan, Africa...and that is only the beginning. How much of our world will we turn into a wasteland before we realize what we have lost? And if you think the constant dropping of bombs on the land has no effect on the atmosphere nor the conditions in Afghanistan, think again. It isn't only our behavior regarding what we put up in the atmosphere that needs to change, it is also what we rain down.

Once more I found myself pointing my camera at an empty space (this time under the Honda Civic), mentally preparing the obituary when I saw that the bath mat had moved two or three yards further down the road (the wet tarmac made it difficult to spot it immediately). It has cleared the speed bump's white line, and is now neatly up against the pavement.

It may be that the bath mat is trying to spell something important to me in its movements, like in Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. So far it has managed "L". We can only watch and wait, and hope that it uses some abbreviations.

Hubcapwatch: What sort of car does this hubcap belong to?

Please continue to send in photos for Bath Mats of the World.

Lon Calhoun is an artist with a studio. He's lost about 50 pounds by joining a fitness center that opened up next door to his workplace. He's also tried sticking to Weight Watchers principles in his daily eating habits.

Two years ago he was up to about 250 pounds. He says he was pudgy as a kid and never did any kind of exercise and started to gain a lot of weight in his thirties.

He's happy he's been successful in losing the weight because he was starting to suffer from painful back problems.

Five years ago, I started having back problems. For about three years, my back would go out about every six weeks. I would be flat on my back for a few days. In the past two years, my back has gone out once and I was only down a day with it, so I've obviously strengthened my back. That is one of the greatest reasons to do all this - to not be in that kind of pain.

There are a lot of other benefits than just looking better, such as back pain. Your energy level is much higher when you exercise. This is coming from a person who did everything I could to get out of gym when I was in high school. I was never an active, physical person, but there are so many benefits. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you're just getting older.

Another great thing is that if you build up the muscles, the muscles really do burn calories [more than fat], even when you're just sitting around. You can get away with a little more with your diet.

This Thanksgiving, be thankful for POTABLE WATER.













A Resident Collects Water from a Water Storage Tank on the Outskirts of Suining
Mail this picture to a friend

CHINA: November 24, 2006
A resident collects water from a water storage tank on the outskirts of Suining, southwest China's Sichuan province, November 19, 2006.

Officials with southwest China's Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality made pledges at an ongoing conference about drought relief that they will strengthen the water conservancy construction "at all costs" to avoid the recurrence of the droughts affecting the two places this summer, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Photo by STRINGER
REUTERS NEWS PICTURE SERVICE

It is sad to see the bath mat in this state. Out of its natural environment and away from the safety of the pavement, I fear that there is not much time left. But we must remember the happy times had by it and all other bath mats.

To this end, today I bring you Bath Mats of the World. Please submit a photo of your bath mat, along with its location (it will be plotted quite precisely, so you might want to change this slightly (or a lot)), and any brief comment and URL to the email address on the right.

The bath mat here demonstrates the perfect angle at which to parallel park, using, if I am not mistaken, Dunlop tyres.

Despite the recent giant leap for bathmatkind, I am concerned that Bathmatwatch is getting a bit boring. The bath mat hasn’t moved for two days, and now that you have had a taste of excitement you will only want more. Audiences are very sophisticated these days, capable of following multiple non-linear narratives, and expecting plot twists that challenge the very nature of the programme’s reality every week.

I have thus used all my scriptwriting talents to address this problem, and have decided to introduce an irritating comedy sidekick for the bath mat. He is called Scrappy-Loo, and is the horseshoe-shaped piece of mat that goes around a toilet. He is also the bath mat’s never-before-mentioned nephew, though I can’t be bothered to work out a back-story for that. He just is, OK?

Though you may not be able to tell, Scrappy-Loo is not a real horseshoe-shaped mat – he is the latest in ‘CGI’ (computer-generated imagery, like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park), and is just ‘superimposed’ seamlessly into the scene.

With those of us in the U.S. about to celebrate Thanksgiving, it's a good time for us to express a bit of appreciation. In that spirit, I'd like to second Jordan's shout-out to some of our enthusiastic Blogger Help Group members:

We have a nice little community of Bloggers here and I'm happy to see our membership continue to grow each day. This group is here for you, Bloggers, to get help and trade tips, and I believe we have a few individuals who go above and beyond the call of duty to help folks out. That's right, we've got a few Blog*Stars (the official term) amongst us, and each of them deserve recognition. Chuck (Nitecruzr), Ron (Rat), Peter (Enviroman) and Rose (Swtrose), I'd like to thank you for the help and dedication you've shown in this group. You, my friends, are officially dubbed Blog*Stars.

NOOOOoooooooo!!!!!!

Though the bath mat is now safe from the street sweeper. Unless he is particularly diligent and supernaturally strong.

From Michael Bolin’s post on the GData APIs blog:

For those of you who have been trying to build client-side GData mashups but have been thwarted by the same-origin policy, we have some good news for you: you can now get public Base, Blogger, and Calendar feeds as JSON! This means that you can start displaying GData in your web page with a little JavaScript.

Karen Wright, 46, weighed 342 pounds and lost an astounding 164 pounds in 50 weeks.

She got her start by joining a local TOPS program ('Taking off Pounds Sensibly') and wasn't very optimistic about succeeding. She didn't like the idea of writing down everything she ate. She gave herself one week to try out the program. In the first week she lost 17 pounds and was hooked.

After she lost a bit more weight she started walking. Initially she couldn't do even a quarter of a mile, but she gradually increased the distances.

She says the key to her continued weight loss was having the support of people around her who were struggling with the same problems. These days she walks three to five miles a day.

See her story and a more recent photo here.

The Darling River in Australia as it looks today.

Unbelievable.






Outback Spirit Dries Up In Face Of Record Drought

By Nick Squires in Bourke
Last Updated: 3:54am GMT 20/11/2006

One of the most celebrated Outback towns has been pushed to the brink of social and economic collapse as a result of the worst drought in Australia's history.

Bourke, in the parched west of New South Wales, was enshrined in frontier mythology by 19th-century bush poets such as Henry Lawson, who declared: "If you know Bourke, you know Australia."

The expression "back o'Bourke" is understood by all Australians to mean in the middle of nowhere.

But the town's resilience has been pushed to breaking point by six years of drought, the worst "big dry" since the British settled in Australia in 1788.

Unless the drought breaks soon, Bourke will become "an economic and social disaster" according to a recent report by economists at Charles Sturt University in New South Wales.

The drought is taking its toll on towns across the Outback, but its effect on Bourke, 485 miles north west of Sydney, is particularly acute.

Unlike other towns in the bush, Bourke has no mining to fall back on. Its reliance on irrigation for vast cotton fields and citrus plantations also makes it vulnerable to the lack of rain.

The town's lifeblood, the Darling River, is dwindling by the day beneath a blazing blue sky, its sluggish waters an unhealthy pea green.

"This used to be a good fishing spot, but look at it now," said publican Lachlan Ford, surveying a section of the river, reduced to a patchwork of sandbanks, gravel shoals and fetid black pools. "We're coming into summer, when the temperature won't dip much below 40C for three months," he added.

There has been no cotton crop for three years because of the lack of water and the orange orchards are dying.

Kangaroos lie panting on a lawn in front of an office building on the outskirts of town and a pair of emus barely manage to break into a run when startled by the side of the road.

Without sufficient grazing, farmers have had to either sell all their sheep and cattle or buy in fodder at great expense. Sixty pastoral stations in the Shire of Bourke – an area about the size of Denmark – have no animals left at all.

Desperate graziers have taken to rounding up the flocks of feral goats that inhabit the scrub. Until recently dismissed as pests, they are now the only thing left to sell.

"Our dams [reservoirs] are depleted and we're running out of water," said Graham Brown, 58, who owns a 430,000-acre farm 190 miles west of Bourke.

"We're holding on by the skin of our teeth, but if we don't get any rain this summer, we'll be hitting the panic button."

Bourke's population has dropped in the last three years from 3,500 to less than 3,000. Shops on the main street are boarded up and houses are for sale.

"This is the worst drought white men have seen in this country," said mayor Wayne O'Mally. "It's really testing people's resources."

The drought has prompted an intense debate in Australia about the effects of global warming and whether some areas are becoming too dry for farming.

The government, which refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocol, insists there is no proven connection between climate change and the present drought. Scientists disagree. While the debate rages, the people of the Outback can only look to the skies and pray for a change in the hot, dry weather.
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And while this goes on, PM Howard meets with the coal industry to secure his campaign coffers. Disgraceful.

The Darling River which is the longest river in Australia and has six other rivers as tributaries is at dangerously low levels due to overuse of its waters, pollution from toxic runoff, and the most severe and prolonged drought in over a hundred years due in part to anthropogenic climate change.

Right now what Australia needs is not political posturing, but definitive action to mitigate this crisis and bring hope and sustinence back to the people of Bourke and other areas affected by it. And people NEED TO CHANGE THEIR WAYS as well, because as the Darling River crisis shows, mismanagement and misuse of water resources especially in light of the scientific consensus regarding climate change is not only irresponsible, but deadly.

In the words of Henry Lawson:

The skies are brass and the plains are bare,
Death and ruin are everywhere;
And all that is left of the last year's flood
Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud;
The salt-springs bubble and the quagmires quiver,
And this is the dirge of the Darling River.

Is that really the legacy PM Howard wants to be remembered for?

Also see:

Darling Dry As A Bone

Threatened Species Of The Darling River

It is the sight that Britain dreaded, like the top blown off another double-decker bus, or a newspaper vendor’s board proclaiming the recommissioning of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.

Today was another bright morning, the sun low in the sky. I thought that I could see the bath mat, then as I got closer a sense of panic set in. It simply wasn't there. I looked further down the street – had I miscounted the number of houses? No, this was the place that I had stood for 21 days and made my record. All that I could see was the ghostly outline on the damp pavement, a reminder of what was.

Dispassionately, professionally, I took today’s photograph. As I checked it on the screen, I briefly wondered whether yesterday’s photo would become like the fateful image of Diana in the revolving door at the Ritz, or JFK waving to the crowd in Dallas. A last picture of innocence, forever subsumed by the future-narrowing hindsight of retrospective viewers.

Then I turned around...



Joy rose in my heart once more. The bath mat appears to be heading south for the winter. But it has left the comparative safety of the pavement, where street sweepers may think that it is some kind of distant doormat, and is now playing a deadly game of chicken. Its future is uncertain, but today we should simply give thanks that it is still with us.

The bath mat may be in the gutter, but it is looking at the stars.

Bath mat “missing”. More soon.

Here's a couple of photos of Adriana Lima getting outfitted for the Victoria Secret's 2006 Fashion Show. It looks like she's put on a few pounds recently. See her earlier this year on the GQ cover. It's refreshing to see a supermodel who isn't stick-thin.

It is days like today, pouring with rain, that I wonder what I am doing. The tie that links me to the bath mat is like that of caring for an elderly relative. I might resent the regular chores, but I have made a commitment. This is my life now. Making an anonymous tip-off to the council refuse department would be just as wrong as smothering with a pillow.

And I am the kind of person who cannot give up on an idea, no matter how stupid. It is this attitude that once left me stranded in the middle of the Sahara desert, and now means that I have to leave my warm, dry flat every day, take a photograph of an abandoned bath mat, then try to find something to write about it. Will I ever learn? At least it wasn’t raining in the desert.

I sometimes want to put us all out of our miseries and ask who will rid me of this turbulent bath mat. Then, just a few doors down, I saw this, and it all seemed to make sense again.



Please keep sending me pictures of your bath mats.

And I also need a bit of spare web space somewhere where I can either have ftp access, or regularly email an updated version of a small file. For technical reasons I can't use blogger or libsyn. Can anyone help, please? It is for Something Special (not kiddie porn).

Getting enough calcium helps us maintain strong bones and avoid osteoporosis. Over 20 million people in the US have osteoporosis.

Calcium has also been found effective in preventing and treating colon cancer, kidney stones, PMS and inflammatory bowel disease. Aside from deteriorating bones, people who are not getting enough calcium often suffer from muscle pain and spasms as well as tingling or numbness in their hands and feet.

How do you know if you're getting enough calcium? Dairy products are the main source of calcium in the North American diet. Three glasses of milk daily would give the average adult about ninety percent of their recommended daily amount. If the milk is 2%, that would add up to about 370 calories.

I don't drink milk (except in my coffee) and I don't see my friends drinking milk. I eat other dairy products which are high in calcium, especially lots of cheese, but this is probably not the healthiest choice of calories on a serious weight loss regiment (in my case I usually eat it with bread and rich slathers of butter). And I can't be smug about pouring milk into my coffee because coffee is actually one substance that depletes calcium reserves in our bodies.

Fortunately there are some great alternatives to dairy products. Topping the list would be spinach, collard greens, sardines, tofu and soya drinks.

Eating four cups of boiled spinach in a day would provide you with 100% of your calcium requirement for only 165 calories. Spinach is so incredibly rich in other nutrients though that you would be getting mega doses on some of the other key nutrients such as Vitamin K; four cups of spinach provides 4,500 percent of daily requirement(!), Vitamin A; at 1,200 percent; folate; 260 percent, iron; 140 percent, vitamin C; 120 percent; dietary fiber; 70 percent, and the rich list of spinach nutritional benefits keeps on going. (Read more here.)

Calcium is not sensitive to cooking. So boiling or frying your spinach until it is complete mush will not cut down on the calcium count.

No one is going to eat four cups of spinach on a daily basis, but the other foods mentioned here also provide an incredible wealth of other nutrients. Dairy products don't stand much of a chance in this competition. It's worth checking out their health benefits and incorporating them more often in your diet. See more about the benefits of collard greens, sardines, tofu and soybeans here.

The photo above is a tofu-based lunch by Blue Lotus.

The twig is gone!!!

As revealed yesterday, the bath mats are preparing to take over. We must gather intelligence on them and plot their every move. To this end, please send me photos of your bath mat(s), along with their location (country, county, city, full address – whatever you want). I know that at least 47 of you have them (plus two wooden slat ones – they are like the armoured division and very dangerous, especially to toes), so get emailing.

I can then plot their movements on a big map with a long wooden stick. This will be our finest hour.

When taking photos please do not endanger yourself or others, take unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.

Tibet's Lofty Glaciers melt Away
Research by scientists shows that the ice fields on the roof of the world are disappearing faster than anyone thought.

By Clifford Coonan
Published: 17 November 2006

The Qinghai-Tibet plateau is home to tens of thousands of glaciers, fields of ice at the roof of the world where Mount Everest and other Himalayan peaks look down on China and Nepal. But the glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought, fresh research by Chinese scientists shows, as global warming speeds up the shrinkage of more than 80 per cent of the 46,377 glaciers on the lofty plateau.

Rising temperatures on the ice fields of Qinghai-Tibet and surrounding areas in the past 50 years are having a devastating effect on the environment, as receding glaciers translate into water shortages in China and huge swathes of south Asia. China will soon have to add more deserts, droughts and sandstorms to its already lengthy list of pollution woes, while India and Nepal will have to deal with staggering environmental consequences, as the melting lakes of ice threaten essential natural resources for the large population centres at the foot of the mountain ranges.

About 47 per cent of China's glaciers are on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau in the Himalayas, where the Yangtze, Yellow, Brahmaputra, Mekong and Salween rivers all originate. The rate of melting, estimated at some 7 per cent a year, has meant more water run-off from the plateau, which worsens soil erosion and leads to desertification. It is an environmental nightmare for rivers such as the Yangtze, 20 per cent of which is fed by glaciers, while the Taklamakan Desert in north-west China could be flooded before later drying out, researchers say.

Research just released by China's leading scientific body, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, shows global warming is dealing a hammer blow to ice fields at some of the world's truly awesome mountain regions. This week the United Nations warned that Tibet's glaciers could disappear within 100 years due to global warming.

"Almost all glaciers in China have already shown substantial melting," the UN Development Programme said in its 2006 Human Development Report. "This is a major threat to China's over-used and polluted water supplies. The 300 million farmers in China's arid western region are likely to see a decline in the volume of water flowing from the glaciers." The melting glaciers have not led to more water flowing into China's dry north and west because much of the melted glacier water is evaporated before it reaches the country's drought-stricken farmers, again as a result of global warming.

In the past 40 years, glaciers across the Tibetan plateau that spills from China into South Asia have shrunk by 6,600 square kilometres, especially since the 1980s, the conservation group WWF said in a 2005 report. The glaciers now cover about 105,000 square kilometres, it said. It is not just the glaciers of Tibet that are melting - 95 per cent of Alaska's glaciers are thinning, too. Global temperatures rose about 0.6C during the 20th century, and the consensus among scientists is that warming will continue as long as greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, accumulate in the atmosphere.

China is the world's fastest-growing major economy, but it has only a quarter of the world's average water per person, and rampant economic growth has sharpened competition for water resources.The Qinghai-Tibet plateau covers 2.5 million square kilometres - about a quarter of China's land surface - at an average altitude of four kilometres above sea level. The world's highest ice fields are a natural biological museum for the array of geological phenomena they contain. The temperature has risen by 0.2C every 10 years, according to the Cold and Dry Zone Environment and Engineering Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The institute's scientists selected 5,000 glaciers in the region for study, using remote sensors and other methods for gathering geographical information, to monitor changes over the past 50 years, Liu Shiyin, one of the scientists taking part in the programme, told the Xinhua news agency.The results were harrowing. Liu said only a small number of glaciers were expanding And about 82 per cent of the monitored glaciers had receded by 4.5 per cent in the past 50 years.

The rate of shrinkage in glaciers in the central and northwestern parts of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau was slightly slower, but it was noticeably faster in neighbouring areas. Of 170 glaciers on the northwestern slope of the Qilian Mountains, a range of peaks in the northern province of Gansu formerly known as the Richthofen Range, 95 per cent had thinned by 4.9 metres each year on average. Only 10 glaciers had expanded during the period. In the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang province, almost all the glaciers on the northern slopes, and 69 per cent of glaciers on the southern slopes, were dwindling.

In the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia, site of the 72km long Fedchenko Glacier, the world's longest ice field outside the polar region, the glacier acreage shrank by 10 per cent. Glaciers on the northern slopes of the Kunlun Mountains, which stretch for 3,000km to form the border of Northern Tibet, are shrinking, as are the ice fields of the Himalayas, which are home to the world's tallest mountain, Mount Everest.

Global warming is causing China's highland glaciers, including those covering Everest, to shrink by an amount equivalent to all the water in the Yellow River every year. Monitoring results show the flow of water in some rivers in north-west China's dry regions has been increasing, which was possibly a result of melting glaciers, Liu said. Liu warned that if glaciers continued to melt at such a high rate, it "would impose serious impact on local production and the life of local people". In Nepal, where temperatures rise an average of 0.06C per year, snow-fed rivers are declining, and water levels are getting lower on the wetlands of the Qinghai Plateau. Melting icefields are expected to trigger more droughts in an already parched China, expand desertification and increase the frequency of sandstorms.

More at the link.
~~~~~~
And those sandstorms are already increasing in intensity and occurence:

Bejing Is Covered In Dust

Sandstorms Effect Air Quality in Bejing

China MUST join the world in curbing its emissions of fossil fuels. 300 million people in these arid lands depend on the rivers that are made up of approximately 20% of the glaciers that are now melting at an alarming rate. And without water, there is no food, and there is no life.

Also see:

Frozen Soil Thawing Faster Endangering Qinghai-Tibet Railway

Rain-sodden. More leaves. Twig still there.

Sherlock Holmes said that “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Since there is no natural possible reason for the bath mat to have remained on the street for 18 days, we must investigate the remaining, improbable theories:

1. The bath mat is covering a hole in the pavement. This hole is a tunnel that leads inside the head of Des O'Connor. After 15 minutes inside Des's head you are ejected on to the side of the North Circular. You will then spend the rest of the day humming The Skye Boat Song and thinking up chat-up lines that might work on Carol Vorderman.

2. It is a magic flying bath mat, that when stood on naked whisks you to a magical land where chocolate grows on trees and nobody has heard of Chantelle. This will be the main line of my defence at my indecent exposure trial. I will be calling you all as character witnesses, so please prepare yourselves with statements of my sanity.

3. Like The Day of the Triffids, this bath mat is a diversion to distract our attention. Then, when the eyes of the world are on this blog, they will rise up against us. According to my own survey, bath mats have already infiltrated 70% of our bathrooms. The bathroom is the most logical place for them to launch their attack, as this is where we are naked and defenceless, often with shampoo in our eyes. You must either (a) never shower or bathe again, or (b) never read this blog again.

I think that it is elementary which you should do.

Rain and a twig in the upper right corner.

Like a cuckoo, or Diana Ross, the bath mat is taking over. The incarnations of this record will undoubtedly be:

Smaller Than Life

Smaller Than Life, featuring Bathmatwatch

Smaller Than Life and Bathmatwatch

Bathmatwatch and Smaller Than Life

Bathmatwatch (ex-Smaller Than Life)

Celebrity Bathmatwatch

I'm a Bath Mat... Get Me Out of Here!

Clean Water Is A Human Right

Clean water is a human right
Kevin Watkins / International Herald Tribune
Published: November 10, 2006

NAIROBI: Vivian Neyamba, aged six months, just became another grim statistic in the world's most lethal and least reported humanitarian disaster. She lost her life not to a drought, a flood or a violent conflict, but to a killer that claims the lives of 500 children across the world each day - diarrhea caused by a global crisis in water and sanitation.

I have been following these issues for years. But standing outside the tiny corrugated iron shack in the sprawling slum of Kibera in Nairobi, where Vivian Neyamba lived her short life, I got a heartbreaking glimpse into what it actually means to live without clean water and basic sanitation.

In a slum of more than half a million people, the largest informal settlement in Africa, almost no one has a tap in their home. At dawn, armies of women and young girls line up with buckets to buy water at roadside standpipes from private vendors. On a bad day, they have to wait more than an hour, or go without.

You can smell the sanitation crisis in the air. Kibera is a toilet-free zone. Lacking any alternative, people defecate into plastic bags which are thrown into ditches. Raw sewage is everywhere. It is in the noxious black liquid that floods through people's homes when it rains, in the refuse heaps that children play in, and in the dusty lanes that pass for streets.

It is also in the water that people drink. Fractured pipes carrying water from the mains to the standpipes suck in raw sewage. "That is why our children get sick," says Margaret Olewoch, a birth attendant who has lived in Kibera for 20 years, pointing to a leaking pipe. "The water here is dangerous."

Not everyone in southern Nairobi faces a daily water crisis. Cross Ngang Road, which marks the northern perimeter of the slum, and you enter a different water world. Here the water sprinklers of the Royal Nairobi Golf Club work overtime to keep the greens in a condition to which the city's business elite and diplomatic corps are accustomed.

Back on the other side of Ngang Road, water kills children. Typhoid and dysentery are rampant, with child death rates running at almost four times the average for Nairobi. The slums of Kibera are a microcosm of one of the greatest development challenges of the 21st century. More than a billion people today lack clean water. About 2.6 billion - half of the developing world's population - lack access to sanitation.

These twin deficits inflict enormous human, social and economic costs. Unclean water is the second biggest killer of children, claiming more than two million lives annually. Diseases caused by water keep countless millions more children out of school, reinforce poverty, and act as a brake on economic growth. They cost African countries about 5 percent of their gross domestic product - equivalent to what the region receives in aid. Under the Millennium Development Goals, governments have pledged to halve by 2015 the proportion of people without access to water and sanitation. But at the rate we are going, this crucial goal will be missed.

The governance of water markets is at the heart of the problem. All too often, the poorer you are, the more you pay. Municipal water utilities provide cheap water, usually heavily subsidized, to industry and high-income suburbs, while people living in slums rely on a complex web of intermediaries such as tanker-truck operators and water vendors.

You can see the results in Nairobi. People living in the slums of Kibera pay five times more for their water than the Royal Nairobi Golf Club. In fact, they pay more per liter than people living in New York or London. From Manila, to Mumbai and Jamaica, the same story applies in slums across the world. So what can be done to tackle the global crisis in water and sanitation?

Continued at the link above.
~~~~~~
The Human Right To Water
Very comprehensive report from seven years ago that is still relevant today.

My comments:

Access to resources that sustain life and maintain health are a human right under international law. Water is a resource that sustains life from the time of being a fetus in the womb. Without water there would be no food to sustain us, nor to provide us with safe and adequate sanitation facilities that guard against diseases that cause illness and death.

I believe for any community or country to deny such a right to its people is a human rights abuse that should be punishable under that law. Of course however, there are groups that do not wish for water to be declared a universal human right. Those governments that use water as a political weapon or as a way to divert it to richer areas are only two groups of people as well as corporations that would be prone to oversight and fines for violating the human rights of indigenous people on the lands they take water from to make a profit.

They will claim water should not be declared a human right as to avert wars, but in essence it is the quality, lack of and scarcity of water resulting from higher prices, lower quality, lack of moral will in bringing sensible water management and education to underdeveloped countries, diversion, privitization, dams, and environmental policies that cause drought and deforestation that actually lead to the wars. People can and have always come to agreements among themselves. It is only when governments and other entities with ulterior motives get in between for their own benefit that you see problems begin.

World Water Forum Did Not Declare Clean Water To Be A Human Right

Look to the WORLD BANK to also see why this declaration will not happen. The World Bank actually pushes for privitization of water behind their compassionate facade.

World Bank And WTO/ Corporate Control Of Water/Dr. Vandana Shiva

There are thousands of Vivian Neyambas in this world, and they all die early senseless deaths that could be prevented if their fellow humans had the slightest bit of morality above the insensitivity and ignorance that prevails in a world gone mad with greed. What price do you place on a human life?

The bath mat's location is, of course, top secret. It is like when a pair of rare eagles nest together – the public is not allowed to know exactly where in case some lunatic steals the eggs. It has been the same ever since school – one person has to spoil it for all the rest. Though I imagine that an omelette made out of eagles' eggs would be very tasty.

I fear that I have already given too much away about the bath mat's location though, and each morning I dread finding a note attached to the bath mat that reads something like “Bathmatwatch Sucks! (What about doing more stuff like your clever satires on government policies and organised religion? They were great and acted as much better calling cards for your writing.)”

I saw Se7en again the other night, and what would be even more chilling is if, like at the scene of the second murder (Greed), one morning I found that the bath mat had simply been rotated by 180°. I might not notice till I got back home and compared the photo with the previous day's and saw that the dog was standing on its head. (It is a dog, not a mouse.) I would then have no choice but to go back and look at the back of the bath mat, where there would be a message written in fingerprints that read “I am in your flat! (And what about doing more stuff about how your obsessive nature causes minor disagreements with your girlfriend? Those were really funny. This bath mat stuff is getting old.)” Admittedly, my stalker would have to have used quite a small finger.

But what if I have two stalkers, working independently of each other? Or, indeed, any even number of stalkers who all rotate the bath mat by 180° between me taking a photograph each day? I would be oblivious to their existence, and could only hope that they would get into an argument about who gets to stab me that culminated in them all stabbing each other to death simultaneously.

This is why I must be careful.

Water Clash Evoked By Climate Talks
Water Clash Warning Evoked by Kenya Climate Talks
KENYA: November 14, 2006

NAIROBI - Global climate change talks in Nairobi this week may be nowhere more relevant than a nearby settlement where water shortages a year ago sparked clashes which saw 25 people speared, clubbed or chopped to death.

Masai herdsmen and settled farmers say the rains have changed on the flat plains that spread uninterrupted between distant mountains in Kenya's Rift Valley. And a year ago drought lit the touch paper to old rivalries over who owns what land, triggering a pitched battle between two sides wielding machetes, arrows, spears and clubs.

"It's the first time water was the cause," said Zacharia Igeria, chief administrator in the 50,000-strong community of the Maai Mahiu region some 50 km (30 miles) from Nairobi.
Drought last year shrank the river Ewasu Kidong, which is Masai for "water jug", to exceptionally low levels, Igeria said.

Water and pasture shortages in the past three years have decimated Masai cattle herds by four-fifths, the herdsmen say. The dwindling of the vital local river coupled with farmers' plans to divert its waters to irrigate cash crops sparked the conflict 12 months ago, Igeria said.
Disrupted rain cycles are the type of weather changes many scientists predict will become more frequent as a result of climate change, as mankind releases heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

Deforestation has also been blamed for more frequent droughts in Africa. Elders of the local Masai had never heard of global warming nor the UN climate change conference less than two hour's drive away in Nairobi, but wanted to give a message to the 70-plus environment ministers descending on the capital.

"We're not educated, we're not aware of climate change," local Masai elder William Sayo told Reuters and local journalists. "We need help from you to explain how we can live according to the climate. Come and teach us about what is happening."

More at the link.
~~~~~~~~~~
The bolded sentence above is exactly the crux of this problem worldwide. Ignorance about the real effects of climate change and the inability to or lack of will to get this information to people who need it and to teach them how to mitigate it is simply unacceptable. People should not have to die to get water. We should not be killing each other for it. We have what we need to provide water to EVERYONE IN THIS WORLD. What we need to do is take it upon ourselves to become educators.

I think that like the Peace Corps, we need a Sustainability Corps that travels the world to offer education, tools, and hope to people in areas of the world like Kenya in order to assist them in taking action to protect and conserve their natural resources. And we must also take into account that for many in this world water is a sacred fluid, and not having rain is seen as a sign from God. They cannot understand the scientific facts behind climate change, nor do they have many of the skills and tools necessary to harvest rainwater that they may get. And I ask , why not?

It is unconscienable that people of this world should thirst for knowledge as well as water and not have it given to them, especially regarding a situation that is a matter of life and death.

See:
African Conservation Foundation

Water Scarcity Major Crisis Facing Africa

With all the billions of dollars worth of weight loss products and services being pushed at us it's easy to overlook the growing market for making life more comfortable for obese people.

There are some people who have gotten fed up with being uncomfortable in a world outfitted for average-sized people and have gone out and started businesses which focus on easing the daily lives of those who are overweight.

Business 2.0 had a very interesting article about this a few months back.

As an example of large corporations paying attention, Toyota has recently added three inches to the width of the seats available on their RAV4 car model (shown above). Many other large corporations are also starting to pay heed. But the most interesting stories are about the people who have personally started a business to help overweight people be more comfortable in their daily lives.

Tim Barry is one entrepreneur who took matters in his own hands. He was upset and embarrassed about flying with extra sized seat-belt extensions, especially when the airlines ran out and didn't have enough on board. He started selling seat-belt extensions online and has done extraordinarily well with it. Now he's expanding his products and also sells extra strength coat hangers, high-capacity scales, and extra-large plush bath towels. So far he has only two employees, but his sales will be over $1 million this year. And his only marketing costs are online ads with Google adwords.

He says the demand is there and the market is wide-open.

(You might want to open this in another tab/window.)

And did bare feet in recent times
Walk upon this old bath mat blue?
And has the rain of shower or bath
Now been replaced by morning dew?
And did the naked and the wet
Stand forth on this absorbent weave?
And is where dampened bodies dried
Among the fallen autumn leaves?

Bring me my towel; And now my pants;
Bring me my talc (my feet perspire);
Bring me my Lynx deodorant!
Bring me my dressing gown of fire!
I will not cease my Bathmatwatch,
Nor shall the words of doubters scotch,
Till we have somewhere warm to stand
In every bathroom in the land.

The bath mat has undergone possibly the largest single day's movement – a massive shift to the right and a straightening back against the wall, leaving it clear of the left-hand paving slab for the first time. It is fitting that this seismic shift has happened today as there has been a lot of debate in the comments boxes about whether the bath mat is actually a bath mat or not. I am a rational person with a scientific background, so I am happy to consider the possibilities with an open mind:

1. It is a bath mat. I am the only person here to have seen it “in the flesh” so you’ll have to take my word for it, but it really does look like a bath mat. Er, that’s about all I have, but people have done more with less. Is it too small to be a bath mat? I don’t know – how big are your feet?

2. It is a doormat. No doormat is this colour or made of this material. It’s definitely the colour you’d see in a bathroom. And it’s not next to a door (there is a perfectly adequate doormat several yards up the path, next to the door – the clue’s in the name, guys), and nobody seems to be wiping their feet on it. If it had been used as a doormat in the past it would surely be much dirtier.

3. It is a carpet offcut. Zoom in and you’ll see that it’s not an offcut as it has finished edges and rounded corners. This theory is a non-starter.

4. It is a “carpet square”. Again, zoom in and you’ll see that it’s not any kind of carpet tile or offcut. And as for it being square, yesterday’s photos dispel that myth. But could it be a carpet sample?

To those who still say that it is just a piece of carpet, I say “What is a bath mat, if not a piece of carpet?” Can any of you prove that this “piece of carpet” has not been used as a bath mat?

I’m not going to suggest that the “carpet camp” Doubting Thomases be rounded up and burnt at the stake. That would probably be “politically incorrect”, even though they are heretics and clearly wrong. Instead, I will just challenge their beliefs with humour and satire – perhaps a scatological musical starring a chat show host, or some badly-drawn cartoons. Or maybe a book entitled The Kashan-ic Verses. I don’t think that any of these would cause any problems.

Ultimately, it is like the Turin Shroud. (But with the face of a dog, not Jesus. Or a mouse.) I can’t afford to get it carbon-dated or anything, but I could look on the back to see if there is a label that says something like “bath mat” or “carpet sample – light blue sculptured”.

But wouldn’t you rather have faith?

There has been some discussion recently as to whether the bath mat is actually a bath mat at all. I will write at more length about this tomorrow (so long as it is still there, of course), but I would first like to just dispel the myth (some might say “heresy”) that it is a “carpet square”.

Exhibit ‘A’:


Exhibit ‘B’:


As you can see, the bath mat is clearly rectangular, not square.

And yes, that is the same 30cm (12") ruler in each photograph. Answering the question “What are you doing outside my house?” would have been bad enough, without having to face a supplementary query of “And why do you have two rulers which look superficially identical, but on closer inspection differ in length by the ratio necessary to make this carpet square look like a rectangular bath mat?”