http://www.amazon.co.uk/Big-Babies-Cant-Just-Grow/dp/1862078831

Get it in the diary now. http://www.globalhandwashingday.org/Index.asp

There are similar signs where I work. Fear of swine flu prompted a great many more to be posted. During a rant of a similar nature the FPO (who works in public health) pointed out that research suggests between a third and half of men don't wash their hands after using the toliet, and c.20% of women. Which is why she never eats the free snacks sometimes put out in bars.

on tinned food. In particular I like these words with the photo on soup tins of said contents in a bowl with a spoon in the immediate vicinity. I can only presume that there were great swathes of the population who struggled though life consuming their soup with a plate and a fork until this picture and the words serving suggestion duly arrived, thus emancipating them all from the shackles of inappropriate crockery and cutlery.

... whether there is a correlation between washing hands and the means provided for drying them? I imagine a lot of people don't bother if it's these generally useless air dryer thingies, but more wash if there are proper paper (or cloth) towels to wipe their hands with.

Every day, in the lift at Tufnell Park tube station, a snooty schoolma'am voice nags me incessantly:

"Keep clear of the doors... Do NOT obstruct the doors... Keep all belongings with you... No smoking ANYWHERE on the Underground... Don't forget to touch in and touch out with your Oystercard..."

And so it goes on... "Hands out of pockets... Don't forget your mittens... Are you chewing?" etc, etc.

Written protocols for hand washing and disinfection, how to take off gloves, infection control policy, infection control checklist, sharps decontamination checklist, impression disinfection checklist, radiation local rules..

And it is almost all utter, utter bollocks, telling you how to do what you already know, which consumes enormous amounts of time and huge volumes of paper for absolutely no discernible improvements.

Expenditure on advertising in the UK alone hit £19.4bn in 2007 for the simple reason that it works. It is quite easy to persuade saps like US that we need to go with Apple or Magnum choc-ices rather than with any other brand, or to reinforce the fact that what webuyanycar.com do is buy any car.

It takes no great leap, therefore, to imagine why it might be that our employers would spend a bit of money on patronising signs if it meant that their outlay on such would be considerably smaller than the amount they lose from absenteeism every year due to project managers who forget to wash influenza off their hands.

We're quite happy to live in a world where everything from snooker player's waistcoasts to wordmagazine.co.uk carry messages telling us what we should buy, and most of us that have worked in the media at some point are happy to admit that it works on us as much as much as it works on our "target demographic".

How many of us, for example, doggedly stayed within our iPod sexy-cool bubble once we'd tasted the magic of feeling "included", even though it was the common opinion of many audiophiles that Creative Labs made better, more reliable mp3 players that weren't chained to proprietary software?

If you take profit out of the equation though, so many of us suddenly fling our arms on the air and screech about how this rampant nannyism is hogging every last inch of our shared visual landscape and hobbling us into brainwashed, zombie-walking, wards of the state.

Witness the recent furore in the US in relation to "Behaviour Placement" in network TV programmes, in which environmentally responsible behaviour is supposedly being "subliminally" encoded into popular programmes like The Office, Law & Order and 30 Rock. Firstly, it's actually a misnomer to label any of this placement as "subliminal" for the simple reason that none of it is actually being placed beneath our consciousness; if it was, it wouldn't have been so readily noticed by almost everyone in the USA with a telly.

More importantly, of course, such programmes would never have enjoyed the budgets they do if they hadn't already leased out every available inch of their mise-en-scene to everyone from Pepsi, Hewlett Packard, and Bloomingdales through to Kelloggs, and I don't see anyone taking arms against those boys (apart from polymaths, autodidacts, visionaries and bitch magnets like Mark E Smith, of course).

So anyway, yes, where was I? Oh yes, we're deeply social animals who're either hard-wired with or who have acquired both a rudimentary moral compass and a need to be seen as socially acceptable. For that (and probably many other) reasons, we are profoundly suggestible, even when we see that suggestion process working on us. The only "fool" is, as usual, the person who thinks it doesn't work on them.

has been going on for longer than you might think. The Archers was originally started as one big behaviour placement exercise by the Min of Ag to try and provide information to farmers in a non-authoritarian fashion, reasoning that they tend(ed) to be sceptical and wary of anything 'The Man From The Ministry' tells them to do.

have a sign schoolmarmishly comparing the "global warming burden" of the nasty old paper towel and the lovely new air hand dryer. Said sign sits snugly between the two drying methods, both of which are offered.

I found this Council road sign to be especially helpful. Not as helpful as the several inches of ice and snow on the road, though.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4016/4205691059_b55724a048_b.jpg

...is when there is a sign, usually in workplaces, saying "Now Wash Your Hands" so you go to the sink and it has scaldingly hot water. And no plug for the sink so you can try to get an acceptable mix. Genius really.

"This blind is kept closed to obscure your outline from the offices opposite"

Now, unless you're Cyrano De Bergerac surely it's not really an issue that anyone sees your profile through frosted glass? It's so frosted as to render any image a mere blur anyway.

..but until they start making doors where you don't have to pull the handle to open them to get out, this hygiene business is flawed.

Human sized catflaps are my suggestion. So we can forward roll out of loos.

If, sorry, when it pops up next series of Dragons Den, remember where you heard about it first.

Twin catflaps, you say. Not an option I had considered, but I appreciate your health and safety concerns. And you know what, I like your suggestion even more.

What with the Olympics just around the corner, just imagine how much better our chances of medal success will be in the gymnastics with all this daily rolling.

Definitely one of those win/win situations I keep hearing about. We will be a nation of germ free medal winning forward rollers.

who went to the butchers to order some cooked meat. When she saw the butcher handling the meat with his bare hands she shouted,"No no no! Use the serving tongs. Think of the germs"

The following week she returned to the butchers and he was happy to report he was now using the tongs on the cooked meat. She then enquired, "Why is there string sticking out of your fly?"

"Ah" said the butcher. "Extra hygiene. When I go for a wee I pull my willy out with the string so I don't have to touch it"

"But how do you put it back into your pants?"

"I use the tongs!"

Ta daa...

nailed this one. In the book So Long and Thanks For All The Fish we are introduced to a character called Wonko The Sane, who reveals, in a conversation with the book's protagonist Arthur Dent, that he adopted his name after realising society had gone mad. For him the tipping point was picking up a packet of toothpicks in a restaurant and finding that they had instructions written on them.

... if someone had stuck a sign on the dishwasher at work stating 'Don't use Fairy liquid' then it would probably still be working, the kitchen wouldn't have been flooded with bubbles and I wouldn't keep seeing a mental picture of the Rolling Stones in sailor suits!

there's a sign in the corridor leading to the changing rooms which says "this floor can be slippery at certain times". Obviously, every pavement outside doesn't need such warning, but who would suspect there may be water inside this building? It's a swimming pool, for god's sake.

correct hand washing protocol and they understood why and carried it out to the letter...... then I took them to The Reading Festival. My God where do you even start? 20 bogs on a 40 ft tanker full of shit, piss and vomit and goodness knows what else left to fester and fill up for 4 days. Just breathing around it is impossible never mind anything else, people are in such a hurry to get in and get out that the walkways are drenched with old piss. Then they expect you to squirt some disinfectant soap on your hands when you leave that deals with all that. Where are the health and safety boys at festivals?

Oh we were all fine at the end by the way, no tummy bugs or anything, don't know what that tells us, maybe we were just lucky.

on a packet of cashews and The Word office door.

May contain nuts.

...I'll get my blazer.

Home-made signs like "Your mother doesn't work here!" that festoon workplace kitchen areas make me wonder why we can't all just along, yeah?.

Was it Eamonn, in the podcast, who disparagingly referred to those who dont wash their hands as "walkers"?

Well with some of the seedy bars and clubs I've been to, the prospect of even touching the taps and sinks is enough to instead rely on "natural disinfectant"

It's in the Peak District, long popular with climbers & walkers.

The signs there have become a local legend:

"This is not an office, if you want to use your mobile phone go outside"

"For Health and Safety reasons there is a ban on pushchairs, prams and irresponsible parents in this cafe"

"Private property not public toilets, thank you. 20p otherwise, or confrontation"

"To those who are concerned about nuts in our products - we are too nutty to know ourselves"

...and best of all
"We DO NOT serve mushrooms."
(Phil, the late lamented owner, had been known to throw out anyone presumptuous enough to ask for said fungi.)