Horny about Handdryers

I’ve always been disappointed I don’t have a bizarre sex fetish.

The closest I ever got was during a brief dalliance with a schoolfriend who was taking Spanish GCSE. At the time having Spanish whispered in my ear during intimate moments was incredibly arousing; it's proven a lot less sexy now I realise she was actually saying “I have 2 brothers and a cat. Where is the train station?”

That's my only potential peccadillo shot down and no giantess, felt or badger fetish to replace it. I’m just a regular vanilla guy , turned on by doing regular sexy things. Like having sex.

The more specific a fetish is the more it intrigues me. I love the mundane so if some bored housewife is getting frisky in the garden with a rainwater-filled rusty bucket or a busy exec gets a sturdy todge whenever he hears the way Neil Nunes pronounces “radio fooor,” or a surly teenager can enjoy le petit mort spurred on by lint & scrumpled up receipts, I am totally into that.
But still not in a sexy way.

All this talk of kinkiness brings me to the sex museum in Barcelona. The first thing you see when you walk in is an uncanny likeness of Marilyn Monroe atop the stairs. You know, doing the whole standing over an air vent thang. This monstrosity basically tells you everything you need to know about the museum.


After walking round for a bit watching 1920s silent porn from an actual king’s private collection, smelling perfumes worn by sex workers, various Mesopotamian and ancient Greek figurines of willies and orgies, I still wasn’t feeling anything. But hang on a minute! A lightbulb appeared above my head just like in a cartoon but shaped like a testicle. Could my apparent fascination with hand dryers be a suppressed fetish? I ran to the toilet, hands shaking with anticipation.

Did I experience a joyous arousal at the dryer I encountered there? No. I’m not horny about hand dryers. I do this blog as a sort of parody of the mundanity of the internet which I should really get round to making into a shit 90s website done with html tags, block colour backgrounds & comic sans (apparently it would look a bit like this). It goes back to my love of the ordinary and unremarkable. Years ago I was in a band that rebelled against the pretentiousness of art by attempting to elevate everyday objects & experiences into the realm of the sacred. We called this shankism, less because it tied in with the concept, more because of an in-joke about wanking while taking a dump. So yeah I love it when people have blogs about their favourite wallpaper patterns or their collection of 18^th century mahogany furniture.But no. I am not turned on by hand dryers. In fact I usually find they are turned on by me…



Now you’ve finished groaning I can tell you what I did encounter was the only dryer I have ever seen with a coiled power cable. How utterly delightful that the sex museum should have a kinky power cable? I mean that ties together everything I’ve been talking about so perfectly I don’t even have to come up with an en 

I Talk to the Spirits

Thanks to a newly acquired ability to communicate with the dead I am able to expand the parameters of this blog to include interviews with many notable deceased persons. I hope to seek their wisdom and get a flavour of what hand dryers are trending in the afterlife.

Hello spirit, I hear you. What is your name?

William Shakespeare.

Haha brilliant. Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it infamy! I loved that...

Actually that wasn't...

I'm a writer too

Wonderful! Because I've written hundreds more plays I want to share with the living. So if I dictate them to you...

No no, nevermind that. What do you think of the airblade V?

What's that?

Well obviously it's...hang on, hang on. Will? You're breaking up...are you there?

I'm here.

You're not Shakespeare.

No, I'm Marie. Marie Curie.

Oh sweet. You know about radiation and stuff.

Even more since I came here. I've actually devised a cure for canc...

Do you prefer the Air Fury or the Xlerator?

What?

Oh for God's sake. You dead people don't know anything. I'm gonna go talk to some alive people. I'm really not getting anywhere here.

Hello?

Yes?

It's John here. John Lennon. Are you there?

Wow John Lennon! How's it going man?

Great. I'm just writing some new songs with Paul.

McCARTNEY?

No Paul Robeson. Who do you bloody think? Of course it's McCartney.

I KNEW IT! He did die! It's all true, that abbey road cover, the

Haha got you!

What? He didn't die?

Are you telling me people still believe that shit? I was just pulling your leg.

Hahaha, oh Lennon you are a card. Any wisdom you want to share with the living?

Yeah. Don't imagine there's no heaven or you're in for a shock. Ta ra.

See ya. Oh I forgot to ask: what do you think of the world dryer? John? John? Oh. He's gone. Nevermind. What a card, winding me up like that. Of course Paul died! Why else would he be barefoot on the abbey road cover?

The Funniest Hand Dryer questions EVER. #2 Made me laugh like a high ena!

I had 2 problems with this dryer.

1) What the flipper have Dolphins got to do with hand drying? They spend their entire lives in the water! You can't get wetter than that. FFS if you're going to put an animal on there make it a camel or a snake or something else that lives in the desert.

2) Was it really necessary to give the little dolphin an armpit fetish?

Professional Hand Dryer Reviewers Don't Want You to Know This Amazing Trick

As a child I was puzzled by the Little Chef adverts. “Little Chef. Just turn left.” How? How were they always on the left? What witchcraft or strange magick allowed this mystical feat? Did they sacrifice kitchen staff to an evil spoon god? Were they in league with Satan himself? (As an adult I now know this is absurd. Satan works for McDonalds, obviously).

Of course as a young boy I was myself developing extraordinary powers. I watched two groups of children in the playground throwing a ball to each other. As it was in the air I would call either “catch,” or “drop” and for a whole break time I never got a call wrong. Also every time I put my hand in my pocket I would get lint stuck to my fingers – yes, it’s true. I had that most amazing of superpowers - fluff magnetism*. I excitedly related this to my father who was kind enough to indulge me instead of explaining about 50/50 odds & half broken fingernails. I went to school the next day standing tall. Today I would finally learn to fly.

I smile now, reflecting on this sense of childhood wonder. It seems inbuilt with youth -just like making “magic potions” from mud, rainwater & flowers or losing your teeth and not freaking out because a fairy puts money under your pillow.

9 years pass. I finally see the inside of a little chef. 20 years pass. I'm in a Little Chef again except this time I understand how important capital letters are and I don't get thrown out for sexual assault. Did I feel a sense of childish wonder? Nope. All they had to offer was greasy eggs, greasy walls and the smell of bacon & fatigue.

Is there anything sadder than innocence lost?

How about a brand new hand dryer that doesn’t work? 

It was a world dryer – not usually a decent brand but this one was a cool black which always stands out from the usual bland white of other dryers. It also had on it my favourite dryer aphorism “no touch” - although in this case “no work” would have been more appropriate. Most people would shrug & use the dryer next to it without a second thought. I  had a second thought - about the sadness of obsolescence.

I recently saw a wonderful art exhibition including a piece called “tech junk” which was built from obsolete phones & TVs. It was a comment on disposable culture. If you know about planned & perceived obsolescence I'm sure this would have chimed with you. The broken dryer was a perfect metaphor for the same concepts. The words “not built to last” got stuck in my head like an earworm (and here I pay off the Facebook mystery - the song so annoying it could conceivably be weaponised is this... apparently it’s been a viral video with hamsters so you probably know it already. I managed to miss this meme entirely. I’ve also never seen Gangnam style).

We often lament our disposable culture but is it such a bad thing? Maybe we cannot have progress without decay. In a spiritual sense death is more about transformation & change than about endings.  If nothing changed nothing would improve. I suppose what bothers me is the cynicism behind deliberately building something to last 3 years and then go kaput so they can sell you a new model.

I believe when people die they leave a spark. Perhaps not the Gnostic spark of divinity but a small grain of their essence which we carry with us. And that spark helps us to carry on their legacy through our deeds & words. Most people wouldn’t think of doing this for a dead hand dryer – but then I've always tended to anthropomorphize objects.

Returning again to my childhood I used to have conversations with my socks. If I put the left sock on first the right sock would get upset at being second best so I would have to reassure it. I did the same with sandwiches - the half I ate second would complain about favouritism. I usually resolved this by saying something like "right sock I'm putting you on first because I just can't wait to wear you and left sock I'm putting you on second because I'm saving the best till last." With that sort of childhood it isn't surprising that I can grieve for an object. Or that I review hand dryers.  

I don't know if it’s my history of depression but I find myself feeling melancholy far more frequently than feeling joy or happiness (yeah I'm emo so what). It's not just when I’m drying my hands - I feel this everywhere. And anywhere things live I feel them bleeding life. I was going to finish with a point but this maudlin self-analyzing leads me back down rabbit holes labyrinthine, to childhood, to death and the pain & loss in between.

All things must end. Life. Love. UK garage.

Even this review.

How to end but with the truth? I lament you dryer. Thank you for provoking these existential thoughts. I will remember you the best way I know how - with a stupid, self-indulgent blog post.

*fluff magnetism is a legit superpower. It's why Magneto works in a launderette when he's not battling the X-Men. I was going to make a joke about him working in porn but I'm better than that. You’re probably not. 

Barcelona: Instructions

You may have gathered by now that I know a thing or two about hand dryers. Even so I approached the hand dryers in Barcelona with some trepidation. Would they work the same way? And if they did would I understand the instructions in a tongue other than my mother's?

Thank goodness then for pictorial instructions.

I followed the steps, as outlined:

1) Put all plectrums down

2) Applaud the monochrome rainbow

3) Support cheese with cocktail stick legs. Use hands for extra stability

Worked like a dream!

Please. Just run.

I am not a credulous man. 

Yes, I believe in spirits & ghosts. OK so I believe in gods too. And I won’t do anything 13 times, opting instead for 12 or 14. I believe that hallucinations & dreams are actually real. I believe Stevie Wonder is or isn’t blind. I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky. But I have never believed the universe would give me a game show to present if I asked it to. 

I hope I have convinced you that I’m not some open-minded, gullible madman. Because it is vital you believe that what happens next is true, every word of it.

When I walked down the stairs of that all you can eat Indian Buffet I never expected to see a dead body.

The blow was softened somewhat when I realised it was not a human corpse, merely that of a deceased hand dryer. I breathed a sigh of relief until my eyes adjusted to the eerie gloom and I saw the awful truth:

This airy cadaver was still functioning. By what power I did not know and by God I wish I had turned tail and ran for my life. But that eternal flaw curiosity bit me and wouldn’t let me go.

My gaze fixed on the wall & I shivered. My hands trembled even as I struggled to fully comprehend the awfulness of the vision before me.

A hand dryer.

Powered by trapped human souls.

The walls teemed with ghosts, trapped in perpetual torment. Swirling in a collective anguish, wailing silent screams.

Snared no doubt by some satanic ritual involving mango chutney & lentils.

I tried to look away.

I screamed.

I collapsed.

24 hours later I awoke at home, in my bed. “It’s ok darling,” said my wife, who is also my cousin (relax, I’m in the aristocracy), “You’ve just been having a nightmare.”

“Of course,” I said to myself, smiling, “Just a nightmare. Thank God for that.”

And then I looked at my hands.

Wrinkles & bruises covered them. My skin was translucent & frail. And as I stared in horror what little flesh remained melted away leaving just bone. 

I looked up.

But this was no longer my bedroom.

And I could not move.

And I realised.

I too had been trapped.

Please.

Do not suffer my fate. If you go into the toilets beneath a vegetarian all you can eat buffet and you see a dead dryer which still breathes and still roars. Run.

Run for your life.

It’s too late for me now.

And please.

If you see a bearded TV presenter and he tells you "We don't want to see the £250, 000"

Run.

Run for your life.

FURY

 Fury. An odd word to associate with a hand dryer. Given the choice does anyone really want their hands dried furiously? Made love to furiously, maybe.  Shaken hands with, perhaps. But dried furiously? Give me ‘efficiently,’ ‘thoroughly’ or ‘weekly’ any day of the week. If my dainty hands are ever dried furiously I’m likely to fall on my knees, burst into tears and cry, “I’m so sorry. Please stop! I didn’t mean to make you angry. You *are* more hygienic than paper towels!" On any other day the above would be true. But today there were no tears. Fury made perfect sense to me because I had just seen the budget.

Not the budget of this blog. Then there truly would be tears. I was planning to start crowdfunding it but my previous attempt at crowdfunding – the compilation “Hold On: 24 Hours of Call Centre Favourites” – stalled at 0% of the target reached and no backers whatsoever. The less said about my facepainting business "Designs on Your Kids" the better. For now I continue undergoing medical experiments to spare YOU my loyal readers the misery of having to see adverts. Or installing adblocker.

No I am talking about THE budget. This was originally a lengthy political rant the gist of which was “Be careful of the sort of people you make enemies of,” my argument being that the government was pissing off people who would then learn how to be 10 times more resourceful than them. Take away the Foie gras & corporate backhanders & a Tory wouldn’t last a day on a council estate let alone on a desert island. Poor people of course can handle the challenges of both. Council estate? Easy. Desert Island? Tricky but doable. Just avoid minor celebs with their excess of bibles, mixtapes & complete works of Shakespeare;  minor celebs eating lice & gorilla sputum and…look can we just stop sending minor celebs to all the nice places please?  Or maybe we won’t need to, like I say a starving mass or two can deal with them just fine. Poverty makes you resilient if it doesn’t kill you first.

But angry political rants never change anything on Facebook. Anyway I was concerned my open invitation to fight George O, IBS or Hameron  would be perceived as a threat and I would be arrested. Not that being arrested bothers me, more that they would sooner do that than face me in a dark alley. And I’m a feeble coward who nearly has a panic attack in a well lit alley. I’m not convinced I could even lay a finger on any Tory who squared up to me – labouring the alley thing a bit more you should know I can’t bowl without having the safety buffers on (although I can ride a bike without stabilisers – just) – but I would at least like the chance to find out.

So treat this as a musing rather than a threat. I found myself noticing how stray water had clearly been affected by the power of the Air Fury. It is indeed a powerful beast with a magnificent roar – much like how Aslan would sound if he was a hand dryer and actually real instead of a fictional Jesus lion. You can see the effects in the below photo. So Tories I put it to you that if an Air Fury hand dryer can do that to water what will the roar of fury from the working classes, the oppressed, your victims do to you?

Another musing. If the conservative government was a hand dryer: which would it be? Let me tell you. It would be the Shitstorm 3000 and rather than direct air at your hands it would project hot, liquid faeces at your entire body. There would be wall to wall shitstorms in the bathroom of your despair and the only thing left untainted would be the ATOS form waiting by the door. It says “Are you able to stand or sit long enough to be covered in diarrhoea?”

You tick yes.

Congratulations!

You have been found fit for work!