toilet paper

Why everyone’s talking about...

It’s a crisis! Must buy toilet paper! Out of my way!

Calm down! You could probably live without it. Before the Chinese invented it in the 14th Century, Romans resorted to a sponge on a stick, Eskimos used moss, Greeks preferred clay, and native Americans used corn cobs…

So why is everyone panic-buying?

Because we see others do it and fear a shortage. It makes us feel we’re doing something in a crisis. It’s cheap and supplies keep for ever. The first shortage scare came in 1973 following an unsubstantiated rumour that began in Japan. When US TV host Johnny Carson mentioned it, panic-buying ensued.

So don’t listen to celebrities?

Depends. The singer Sheryl Crow once said that for the sake of the planet, we should use just a single square of toilet paper per visit. Beyoncé allegedly insists on red toilet paper and it was reported that Simon Cowell bought luxury black paper at £10 a roll. Model Kate Moss’s one-time boyfriend Jamie Hince demanded 120 rolls for their visit to Glastonbury one year. (That’s a lot more than the average 57 sheets a day everyone uses – according to statistics!)

How do they get through so many?

Who knows? But toilet paper has other uses. People have made wedding dresses out of it; a novelist once printed an entire novel on a single roll; and during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the US Army used it to camouflage their tanks.

Wow. There should be a museum for all this.

There was – in Wisconsin, with 3,000 rolls, but it’s since been wiped out.

What about the famous Andrex puppy?

Aaah! The cuddly labrador (below) has been associated with the ‘nation’s favourite toilet tissue’ (eight million miles of it are sold every year) since 1972. Originally, a little girl was to be filmed trailing a roll but the idea was blocked by TV regulators who thought it would encourage wastefulness. So she was replaced by a playful puppy, which became so popular that Madame Tussauds created a waxwork version. More than 120 different puppies have been used in the adverts over 48 years (that’s

336 dog years!).