Not a laughing fecal matter

Speaking as your regular obsessive-compulsive... I am, admittedly, a persistent hand washer. On average, maybe 30 times a day - before/after food, after a pee/poo, right after any bloody time I travel on the train/bus, after someone shakes my hand etc. Anything sticky on any part of my hand (orange juice is the most horrifying) is usually met with a demented squawk and a rush to the bathroom. Yes, yes, I know it's pathetic, but washing hands after coming in contact with others - crucially before scratching your nose/eyes - I find is also a good way of cutting down on colds. Anyway, it still comes as a shock to hear that in a study of people swabbed in public places around the UK, that so many people have - and I cringe even when saying this - 'fecal* matter' on their hands - as high as 53% in Newcastle (you complete mingers!).

However, living in Japan, it doesn't really surprise me as a reluctant observer of many men who exit toilets without washing their hands. It's an astonishingly revolting habit but I have a theory: Japanese men, after having farted, groaned and plopped their way through a noisy dump, have no intention of standing around washing their hands whilst everyone else can get a good look at the guilty groaner. That's the reason why they exit the cubicle and head straight outside to their wife, family, friends, etc to pass on their fecal matter. Another theory is that they're simply dirty fucking pigs is also one I haven't entirely discounted.

To be read with rubber gloves:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7667499.stm

*Fecal can also be spelt faecal, obviously.

Trees, those useless trees

Whilst going to our local Thai place for lunch, we stopped and gasped as we watched council workers hacking down perfectly beautiful trees that were still weeks away from their autumnal shedding of leaves. A few weeks back, on going to a company in downtown Tokyo, I was staggered to find a whole 100 meters of beautiful hedge had been decimated and all that was left was their stumps, and behind them - what had previously, gloriously, been hidden - a grotesque, miserable office block. Presumably a few people had complained that the hedge was encroaching on the pathway - well, millimeters of it perhaps were. On any day around now, if you go out early enough, you'll see elderly Japanese frantically sweeping up the few fallen leaves from outside their homes, as if they are some kind of plague.
Back in London, I read that in the dismal area of Croydon alone, some 7,600 trees have been pulled down in the last 12 months alone. The number one reason? Building subsidence. My number one answer? How about building your fucking house further away from the trees?
I wonder too, perhaps even more importantly, about where humans of the future intend to get their clean air from. Perhaps they imagine it'll come from a bottle.