Sunday 22 May 2011

First

So, the nice people at Guerrilla Science are running a competition (http://guerillascience.co.uk/archives/1896)  to see if anyone can go forty days without washing.

I can.

One of the conditions is that you have to tweet daily about the experience and, despite my extreme distaste for twitter, this I will be doing. But there are certain things that can't be said in 140 characters and I'm doing this because I'm curious to see what happens, so I think it's something that will be interesting to document properly.

The rules state that I can wash my hands to maintain some kind of semblance of basic hygiene. Other than that, no washing. The rules say nothing about oral hygiene but, as I aim to do this properly, I will not be brushing my teeth either. At this point I should mention that we celebrated mine and a friend's birthdays yesterday with an A-Z pub crawl of Brighton and my mouth tastes like arse.

There are a number of things that have to be considered before you can allow yourself to commit to something as stupid as this. I told everyone I work with, or at least those I work within a two metre radius of. I asked my girlfriend nicely if she would allow me to do this, the upshot of which is that I'm probably going to be celibate for most of the time but I'm allowed to share a bed with her. That's good, the sex I will work on. Most importantly though, is whether can you deal with your own stench. I'm  soap dodger by nature, I'll easily go without washing for two weeks without really noticing, but this is going to be through the height of summer and two weeks is one thing, six another. We will see.

Probably the biggest problem will be that the fact it is a competition will be a continuous reminder of what I am doing or, more precisely, not doing. It's day two and I'm already getting nostalgic about hot water.

More updates when I can be bothered.

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