I was watching a TV magazine show recently - just a day or two ago - which featured a young, Moscovite lady who had settled in London and had published a book on her observations of Londoners.
Two of her observations which related to matters of personal hygiene and, therefore, disgusted her were:
Englishmen scratch their backsides in public;
English people did not have bidets in their homes and, naturally, must have smelly bottoms.
Well, personally, I never scratch my backside in public - I merely allow my buttocks to squirm a little (how does she know that they are all Englishmen???).
I do possess a bidet, and I wash my feet in it every evening when I arrive home from work before taking my shower.
Finally, if she is so appalled by the English, she can always buzz-off back to Moscow.
I don’t scratch my backside in public public where it might offend the public public, but when my piles start itching and I need to get a vigorous finger up there for relief I go somewhere out of sight and give my itchy ring a good old scratch where my conduct won’t stand out, like in a lesbian bar, although I usually get thrown out sooner or later for being too slim and not wearing overalls.
I’ve worked with a few Russians. They don’t go out of sight to scratch or adjust or relieve anything. Still, compared with Greek and Lebanese blokes I’ve worked with who are always tugging at their crutches to circulate air around their curing salamis, the Russian blokes are reasonably refined.
I don’t know what a bidet is, but if it’s good for washing feet it’d be handy for doing the potatoes and other vegies, wouldn’t it? I expect the Irish have them in their peat huts, and are so impressed that they have something connected to a reticulated water supply that they name their first born female children after a bidet, being Biddie?
I have to confess that I didn’t realise Russians even had running water in their homes, except in Spring when the melting snow comes through the roof, but I expect that Egorka or Chevan will correct me.
Chevan has asked me to inform you all that he scratches his arse constantly regardless of who is watching – fat, overalls, or not – with the exception of Kato whom he suspects as being a homicidal bandit and, therefore, doesn’t want to draw his attention to the said area.
He also adds that it is one of the few pleasures that life under Putin allows, and that the woman who wrote such nonsense is very obviously Syrian Army.
