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I was brought up to fix the loo roll to the holder in an underhand fashion. That is, with the free end closest to the wall, rather than in a furtive manner.
My current landlady attaches the roll either way around. Curiously, because shes so laid back about it, Im not bothered when it ends up
the wrong way around, as theres a fair chance it will even out in the long run.
I recently helped my future landlord gut and rebuild his bathroom. During preparations for the topping out ceremony, it came to light that he is a confirmed Overhander. Now, because he insists on it, I just know that when I move in, it will annoy the hell out of me.
When I was younger (so much younger than today) I often travelled by rail. There was always a glass screen between staff and customers, and objects effected the transition from one side to the other on a revolving tray which span through 180° at the flick of a lever. The tray would turn quite quickly, and fetch up with a thunk in the rest position.
I propose a toilet roll holder that incorporates this mechanism. On discovering that, once again, the roll has been mounted the wrong way by inconsiderate housemates, a push of the button will revolve the roll about an axis normal to the wall. One may then continue with ones business in peace, free to enjoy ones sojourn without the disruption of inharmonious feelings.
Another flippable style:
http://www.shop4cla...roduct.asp?lid=1138 If the central post pivots. [Amos Kito, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
Baked
http://www.delphion...fstv&OUT_FORMAT=pdf As seen on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno [thumbwax, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
[link]
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Flip to the loo, my darling. |
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Oi! Where's the flippin' loo roll?! |
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Roll-loo-etta, jaunty Roll-loo-etta, Roll-loo-etta je te flipperay! Je te flipperay around, je te flipperay around. Array around! Array around. |
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Excellent, and easily bakeable. Can there be a left-handed version? |
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Silly [angel]. Left-handed toilet paper? C'mon. |
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on second thoughts though <g> I have what someone called mobile loo rolls. No 1 son habitually puts it out of reach. would that drive you crazy, eggy? |
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would be great if the loo worked like that and could be skewed off into a neat niche in the wall |
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Maybe if all you could see was a feed slot right in the middle of a roll cover, you wouldn't know if the paper was ascending or descending. |
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Another small step toward global peace. + |
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//free to enjoy ones sojourn without the disruption of inharmonious feelings// |
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You can get cream for that. |
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I've seen ones like Amos links to, that do pivot. Just whack the roll on one side, it swings around and falls down with the hanging sheet in the alternate position. |
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I do like FJ's approach - sort of a Schrodinger's toilet roll. |
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Btw, hanging off the front is the correct way. Down the back means that the sheet end is laying against the wall, and this is just wrong for more reasons than can be discussed here. |
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Love this, but [egbert], if your sock drawer is disorganized, can you sleep at night? |
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I agree waugsqueke, I'm an ardent "overhander". Still, I must award a croissant. |
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Thanks for the link, Amos. Waugs, an integral part of the invention (which on reflection wasn't made clear enough) is the characteristic action of the ticket office mechanism. The innards would be so weighted to provide a satisfying flip-and-thunk, deliberately tuned to reinforce the "so, there!" aspect of righting a wrong with minimal effort. Any physical input on the part of the operator would, I feel, serve to encourage aggression, increase annoyance, and result in a vaguely unsatisfactory visit. |
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It looks like I will have to agree to disagree with you and others over the correct orientation, thus poignantly underlining the requirement for such a device. |
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To extend this idea to it's [half]-logical conclusion: These roll flippers will become mandatory in every bathrooom. Upon a user's entry in to the room, a scanner will read the implanted-at-birth (preferences determined and stored sometime thereafter) RFID tag. The user's preferences will be extracted from a massive central database. A servo controlled version of egbert's mechanism will silently flip the roll according to the user's preference. This will occur so rapidly that the user will not even suffer the affront of seeing the roll installed the wrong way. |
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it will need to gauge the 'give-a-rat's-assness' scale of 'importance-in-the-scheme-of-things' this is to the user in order to give the correct level of flip-and-thunk. |
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Po, po, po. Now see, there you go bringing the politics back in. I try to eliminate the disharmony in the universe by silently, invisibly flipping the roll. But, no, you just can't let it go. Sigh...the world is destined for eternal strife. |
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I am half-amazed at your deciphering my previous annotation at all. |
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Now the question is raised as to the proper direction in
which the roll should be flipped. |
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Tell us, egbert, do you, yourself, flip to the left or do
you flip to the right? |
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You post a picture to some other website. Then post a link to it here. You'll see a couple of links already posted on this idea in the section below the main idea text. Click the [link] link to build a link to your picture. |
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<Aside to po> To be honest, in real life, I have a low rat's ass factor on this one, but I had the idea and it needed to be justified somehow.</Aside...> |
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Tiger Lily, clockwise in the northern hemisphere, widdershins in the south. Otherwise the Coriolis effect from the Earth's rotation may cause the last sheet to separate, double back on itself and put the tear lines out of synch. |
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UB, there's no need to shout, old chap. Have a cup of tea and regain your composure a little. Use of this device is not obligatory if you wish your dunny to be ruled with a rod of iron. That said, I do hope you're not advocating using starving children to flip toilet rolls manually? If so, why are they still starving when they are (presumably) on your ..er..pay-roll? |
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Dunny - an outside toilet, lavatory. (Australian Slang) |
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Underhanded, please, for the simple reason that
overhanded does not always provide enough power to
turn the roll without tearing too soon. And as for waugs
and others (here, have some apostrophes, [ ' ' ] and do
what you will with them) allusion that overhanded is more
sanitary, I say HA. Overhanded requires the use of two
hands to get the roll to actually rotate, forcing all kinds
of scrambling to get the paper, so how's that more
sanitary? (he asks, hoping not to get an answer, as this is
getting too close to gross for discussion) |
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There are times when apostrophes would mark their
target like a bullseye yet foregoing them allows the
"expressionist" an Adelbert Ames effect... |
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and foregoing them and pointing it out can be a useful
tool to distract from the almost total lack of relevance of
the overall comment |
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In this we agree. Now, would this mean, "mr imagonna",
that you are your own irrelevancy? |
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Nice use of quotes. I'd just say "I am irrelevant", and leave
it at that. Or is it "I am irrelevant," and leave it at that?
Pedant Shmedant. |
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But in the meantime, I think I figured out why the paper
breaks more often if pulled off the top than the bottom
(like anybody cares): the act of pulling off the bottom
lifts the roll slightly (or just takes some of the weight),
allowing it to turn more easily, while pulling off the top
effectively adds weight to the roller, causing more drag. |
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And besides, no joke, Miss Manners says it should hang off
the back. There. |
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Boy, [FarmerJohn], is gonna have to redesign those "boxer
shorts" again... |
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[mr immagonna], glad to know, relieved actually, that
we(')re playing the same game. ;b |
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// Overhanded requires the use of two hands to get the roll to actually rotate // |
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No it doesn't. I now understand why you prefer it underneath, because clearly you don't know how to operate an over-top roll. |
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Gotta go with waugs here. Perhaps your loo-roll is rusty: how can it be more difficult to tear the perforations in one direction than another? |
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snarfy, please see my last anno, right after the [(like
anybody cares)]. I now add that it is more difficult to get
the roll to move, not impossible, not even all that hard;
but frequently enough to annoy me, I break the paper
holding only one sheet when hanging off the front
(HOTF). However, when HOTB, I never prematurely tear
the paper. |
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In Spain, they have like a little "pole" which stands vertically on the ground in the loo and can hold four at a time. Can't believe I'm taking the time to write about this...still, beats working. |
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'Fraid the paper must come over the top, otherwise I can't fold in the end corners and display that nice point that I learned about in hotels. |
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I'm a confirmed overhander, but while I was cat-sitting for a friend (I owed her a big-time favor, I hate cats), I learned to go the underhand method. The cat loved playing with the roll, leaving piles of paper on the floor. The underhand method, however, only frustrated the cat by keeping the paper neatly wrapped up on the roll. |
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That doesn't make any sense. The paper is equally capable of being kept neatly on the roll with either method. |
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It makes sense if the cat was pawing at the roll and not at dangling paper. Reaching up from below and pulling down on the front of the roll, the cat would cause the "OTT" roll to unroll, whereas the "underhand" roll would stay wound. Sheesh, I understand few of the things that are said around here and this has to be one of those few? |
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*whistles appreciatively* 42. |
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Wait a minute, folks. I'd like a little more info here about that leaf thing mentioned in the summary. What exactly does one do with this leaf? And what happens when you turn it over? I'm confused. |
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I can't believe how much analysis has gone into which way round to mount the roll. |
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I must agree [FM], particularly as there is only *one* way as per [UB]'s second anno. |
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I fail to see the relevance. Guess its just being pedant... To come to a compromise, why not forget underhand and overhand and go for sidehand? |
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So that the rod sticks horizontally out of the wall? Just flip the roll over the rod and let the paper dangle to the left or the right. |
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My cat just likes to rip open the complete spare rolls. This gives a nice patterns of holes in the roll. |
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I'll see [Freefall]'s observation on cats and raise it by a toddler. While a cat may just go for the loose end and pull, a toddler almost always applies a downward swat to the front of the roll itself. Once again, an underhanded roll stays neatly rolled while an overhanded roll becomes a pile on the floor. That fact alone is sufficient reason to prefer underhandedness in any environment likely to be occupied by a toddler. |
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When neither pets nor toddlers are present, the roll goes on whichever way I happened to pick it up, as the rat's-ass factor is essentially zero. (How many rats use paper anyway?) |
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For all who have ANY rat's ass factor in this discussion (other than amusment value) "Charter [or appropriate local institution for the mentally troubled] can help." I'm sure there exist drugs that can cure your OCD and let you get on with life with out going on a killing spree because of your toliet paper frustrations. |
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If you have a centrally fixed toilet and foot stand, then the entire bathroom could rotate 180 degrees to change the toilet paper orientation. The sink could be weighted on the bottom and allowed to pivot so that it remains upright. |
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Silly waugs. The personal library (hah!) would fall on the floor. Er...ceiling. |
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<blinks>[sommbodystopme]</blinks> |
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Why not get loo roll manufacturers to make random loo rolls, the winding is varied.
The first ten revolutions of the loo roll bring it off in an out-ie type fashion; then suddenly it appears the loo roll has been flipped. The manufacturer switched the winding process in the middle of manufacture, the loo roll is now an in-ie...but wait, another few turns flips it's back to an out-ie... |
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Could you draw me a diagram of that, Mr Escher? |
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Do I look like [FJ]'s and [Bristolz] love child?.....Don't answer that. |
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shirley the common printed bog-roll clears up the (t)issue of whether over- or under-handed is the correct way to hang the roll? |
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the printed variety (avec dolphins, flowers and the like) only looks right when hung overhanded, allowing, pointy-folded-ness, and distance from the wall... |
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