Helpful tip or worrying indictment of marketing practice?

My attitude to a housework schedule is as follows: ignore it till it's too repulsive to ignore any further then ignore it some more.

Today nonetheless even I felt moved to clean the bath. However, there was a problem. The bathroom cleaning wipes were in the kitchen where I had taken them several weeks ago in a fit of enthusiasm about a chore I still haven't done. Walking five yards to the kitchen seemed a little too much like hard work so I used some Tesco wet bog paper wipes instead. And they did a wonderful job, far better than cleaning wipes.

So, my concern is, is this the sort of handy tip that twenty years ago, when wipes didn't exist, I would have shared with a women's magazine. Or are wet bog paper (gentle, soft) and cleaning wipes (strong, disinfectant) actually exactly the same thing? In which case, should I worry more about my bottom or my bath?

I'm repulsive and I just don't care*

It would appear that I'm 90% repulsive as I tick the box for 9 out of the 10 top turn offs for men (according to the Daily Mail).

TOP TEN TURN OFFS FOR MEN

1. Hairy upper lip
2. Dirty sheets
3. Hairy legs
4. Untidy nails
5. Body hair
6. Ungroomed pubic hair
7. Messy hair
8. Bad outfit
9. Ugly footwear
10. Lack of perfume

Nobody could ever accuse me of a lack of perfume but it seems to me that a lot of these come down to a) being human and b) having a life. The sheets, I should emphasise, are courtesy of Trilogy Rosehip Facial oil, which while doing wonders for the complexion, dyes sheets and pillowcases a shade of yellow that resists every stain remover I've tried.

As for the female equivalent:

TOP TEN TURN OFFS FOR WOMEN

1. Dirty sheets
2. Untidy nails
3. Untidy room
4. Unshaved face
5. Bad outfit
6. Ugly footwear
7. Lack of perfume
8. Hairy upper lip
9. Ungroomed pubic hair
10. Ugly underwear

the only one that bothers me is the dirty sheets (unless of course he uses Trilogy Rosehip oil too). Where's (in no particular order) bad breath, smelly feet, racist attitudes, homophobia, misogyny, annoying voice, being boring, talking about football and weighing less than me in there?

*Actually I do care because actually I find being repulsive quite upsetting but not enough to do anything about most of the things listed there and more so in that such shallow things matter more than being good company. Bad smells however are beyond the pale, in man, woman or animal.

Free to a good home, 2 cats, not in full working order

Failing that, can anyone indicate how much it might cost to convert the entire flat into an actual litter tray, given that to all intents and purposes, that's what it has become?

S3hit

I'm now down with the kids (and as of today totally out of date) and have moved from my lovely Blackberry to a smartphone - the Samsung S3. I've just spent the entire evening trying to set up my 123-reg email on it, without success. I can't figure out whether the problem belongs to Samsung, T-Mobile or 123-reg. My work email I can set up fine. My virgin email I can set up fine. So I suspect the problem is 123-reg's but who knows why - certainly not their help page which is no use whatsoever? The outgoing pop3 setup works OK but I can't get the phone to access the SMTP server - it keeps rejecting my username and password, even though it works just fine for Pop3. Anyone? Halp?

What would you have done?

I took today off because I had a long standing booking to watch a matinee of one of the Met Opera broadcasts at the local cinema. It was Parsifal, starring Jonas Kaufmann who I mentioned a few posts back.

It started at 1pm. At about 12.40 I was at the bus stop waiting for a bus. I wasn't late but I wasn't especially early either. At that point a rather dishevelled older woman, who I'd never seen before, approached me and started talking. She said she had shingles, had a hospital appointment and was feeling very unwell. Then she started crying about how she had no-one to go to the appointment with her. The thing is, I know how that feels. I've been in that position and it's awful.

But... day off... very expensive prepaid opera ticket... favourite tenor... only chance to see it...

So I told her to sit down and to take the bus to the hospital instead of walking which is what she had been planning to do. I then told her I really hoped her appointment went well and got on the bus to the cinema, where I simultaneously really enjoyed the opera and felt like an utterly awful human being. And still do.

What would you have done?