Bathroom reading

Though why it is that Americans insist on calling the toilet the bathroom is beyond me. I'm rather fond, when I hear someone here say they're going to the bathroom to ask 'oh, are you intending to take a bath?'. The first couple of times the new victim looks puzzled and then it sinks in.

I suspect the euphemism springs from the same roots that led Victorian England to put trousers on piano legs but habit keeps it going in an age where most people are somewhat more laid back about such things.

This may be far more detail than you'll ever want to know but I usually don't need to spend a lot of time there. Walk in, do the needful, walk out and away I go. Nonetheless, it's comforting to have reading material to hand. For the last three years it's been a large volume of George Orwell's essays and journalism.

Nope, that volume wasn't chosen as a way of assisting the process at hand :-) But as an all but card carrying commie pinko leftie tree hugging liberal long-haired hippy bastard what else would you expect to find sitting on the top of my cistern? Michael Savage's 'Liberalism is a mental disorder?'

A week or so ago a magazine appeared beside the Orwell aforesaid. I hasten to add that it wasn't my doing! It's a copy of People Magazine, the Brangelina edition 'celebrating' the birth of an infant to Brad Pitt and Angelian Jolie. See? I do keep up with even the least important of current events!

The thing I noticed on the cover was the purported publication date. June 19 2006! I'm writing this at 2 AM on June 14 2006 and the magazine's been there at least a week.

Back in the very late 1970's I used to go to McGills newsagency[^] (magazine store) in Melbourne and buy the latest issue of Dr Dobbs Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia[^]. How's that for a magazine name? What used to amuse me was that even allowing for shipping at economy rates I was able to buy the June 1979 issue in May! Obviously it was available on newsstands in the US in April. Why then call it the June issue?

*shrug*