The plumbing paradox

Here's the thing - have you ever wondered about your plumbing? I mean, REALLY wondered? No, not your own bodily plumbing with all it's gunkiness, you fools - I mean that stuff about pipes and water that supplies your house. The stuff that is inexplicably complicated.

Now, I'm pretty damn convinced those marvelous Romans (y'know, the pioneers of European indoor plumbing and running loos) had their pipes and ball-cocks down to fine and precise art. It was probably very nicely decorated, too.

And then, during the gloriously wasteful post-Roman period, some bright spark decided it would be a grand idea to burn the plans and return to great big pit latrines. And the aforementioned joys of superb plumbing were then lost, it would seem, forever. In fact, it were not for the great work of people like Thomas Crapper, we would still be in those horrid dark ages, emptying out our excrement into open rivers of sewage. I'm positively sure of it.

I'm not quite sure, however, how the Italians went from Roman excellence and attractive mosaics to squat-and-drop public conveniences decorated with vomit-spatter and empty syringes... an even more backwards turn than ourselves, methinks. Although that could have just been a solitary unfortunate experience of mine.

But that's not what I'm thinking about... it's not the loos that confound me, noooo...It's the hot water.

Now, I'm no expert, but for the life of me I can't fathom how less a millimetre on the shower dial can alter the difference between scalding hot and ice cold. I mean, is it the dial, or the pipes? It's a mystery.

For starters, where the hell is this great big shower dial factory that manufactures such utterly crap goods? I'd like to take all their incompetent employees - who probably have the combined intelligence of a banana sandwich - and introduce them to my showering system at home. First, I'd let them turn the shower on to the middle of the temperature range and experience that glorious sensation of perfectly heated water for the, oooh, fraction of second that exists before it scalds the skin. Then, I'd let the poor idiots fiddle around with the damn dial - alternating, as I have done, between fire-in-hell and igloo - before settling on the slightly more bearable icy fresh water at the lower end of the dial. Then, I'd watch in amusement as they adjusted to the sub-zero, pneumonia-inducing trickle, and chuckle at their screams of horror as it rapidly and inexplicably reverted to the temperature range of eternal damnation. (Evil cackle) Revenge is most definitely served ice cold.

Alternatively, it could be that the source of my pain is entirely due to the maliciousness of an international cartel of evil plumbers. For, it seems that wherever I have chosen to reside, there has always been a grinch in the system. I've been victim to the perils of gas-heated showers running out mid-scrub (and never mid-kettle boil)...I've suffered the frustration of trying to rinse hair in a mere dribble, and of course, I've spent agonizing months experimenting with the temperature range dial. Which is nothing, frankly, compared to the torment I feel whenever I've achieved near-perfection, and someone, somewhere turns on a tap... Bastards.

And so, my only great theory - apart from an invasion of those omni-present naughty pixies - is that plumbers have some kind of international monopoly on showers. All they have do do is fill the system with grinches, and keep coming back to fix them when we finally admit defeat against the countless countermeasures. For now, I've found turning the hot water tap on makes my shower temporarily more bearable, but reduces it to a pathetic dribble. I live with it, albeit grudgingly, because I refuse to fix something I don't technically own, being a mere tenant.

Think about it - have you ever had a crap, dribbly, overly hot shower in the home of a plumber? Me neither. But that's because I don't actually know any plumbers.