From the Windsor Star, it was reported today that Canadians are number one in the world, that we are trend setters extraordinaire!
Story: TOP RANKING FOR BOTTOMS
According to the U.S. publication Radar magazine, a predilection for commode comfort has put Canucks giant step ahead of Americans in adopting the latest personal care product: luxury toilet paper.
“At first it sounds like an insultingly obvious joke,” reports Radar’s Dale Hrabi in the September issue. "But then visions of those notorious $900 Gucci dog bowls flit through our mind, and you’re haunted by the possiblility that your cynicism isn’t polished enough to second guess the world’s hunger for tiny, absurd self-indulgences.
Will Miller, a cultural commentator at Indiana’s Purdue University, attributes the trend to a desire for stress relief.
“Time in the bathroom is sometimes, for a harried person, the only relaxation that they get,” he says. It’s almost a spa…you want to treat yourself."
Canucks seem to agree. Euromonitor, a global market information provider, reports toilet paper sales in Canada rose by four percent in 2004 to reach $749 million, a number projected to climb $893 million by 2009. Analysts say heightened interest in premium and super-premium brands is driving growth.
Well, Mark, looks like we have pretty much wiped up here. Muck-raking in style, I call it. (By the way, what is luxury toilet-paper? I’ve never head of it before.)
We will indeed bask in the light of this glorious honor. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go…er… somewhere.
But before I leave here’s a quote from a website. It looks to me like Japan is really in the forefront of this movement.
In Japan… luxury toilet paper is de rigueur. Japanese rolls are routinely scented, extra-thick, aloe-moistened, strictly ?virgin? (unrecycled), patterned, or ? the latest trick ? infused with pineapple enzymes to counteract odor. And in Germany the American brand Charmin Ultra is known as Charmin Deluxe; it comes in urbane black-and-charcoal-gray packaging?designed with the consumer in mind,? according to Procter and Gamble?s European division, ?with a Gucci look and feel.?
Seriously, Steve…you ought to check it out. It’s great. They say it’s like bringing a touch of Europe into your home. Oh yeah…that’s right… you’re in Europe, well almost, Canada, yes? If you tried it, you would never go back to corn cobs. You would probably grow another crop…perhaps sorghum. It pays for itself in savings on toilet paper. Great fun too and what better way to start a conversation than to discuss the attributes of one’s bidet? :roll: http://www.gobidet.com/
We have a brand of bog roll here that has the slogan “Love your bum” printed inside an upside-down heart (i.e. a bum, geddit?). An advert in the national papers for Andrex moist bum-wipes shows a large photo of a bikini-clad bum with the caption “Could you be cleaner?” Talk about pointing out a problem we didn’t know we had! I spent all day after reading that ad looking at people’s bums wondering whether they could have been cleaner. It’s a hobby I don’t wholeheartedly recommend.
