It's a dirty joke

My bathroom towel plans to give me E. coli. It said so online. So now there's that to worry about. I didn't see it coming. Trump accidentally sitting on the red button and blowing us all to kingdom come, yes, but attacked by my own linen?

To explain, word is that if you place your bathroom towel under one of those super- duper medical scanners, it reveals a microbial hot zone bubbling with potential disease and doing few favours for the thread count.

I can no longer look at my towel in the same way. I've taken to holding it at arm's length, which is a really inconvenient way of getting dry, and its picture of a happy frog is starting to look downright sinister. Still, I mightn't be too thrilled either given the places he's visited over the course of our relationship. Informer hastens to add grim acceptance that, should I indeed succumb to the delights of fabric-driven E. coli, my towel will be merely the conduit; not the culprit.

My body must bear all blame, just as your body will be responsible should your own towel turn tyrant. Not that anyone should be surprised to learn that the human body is a dire and disgusting vessel. From top to toe, it's a house of horrors. Working our way down, consider the following - dandruff, nits, earwax, snot, tooth decay, halitosis, BO, skin tags, rashes, sores, pimples, warts, boils, piles, flatulence, Nos. 1 and 2, toe jam ... and that's just Mrs Informer.

It's always been this way. Humans have been rotten for millennia, festering in our own filth and notoriously haphazard with our hygiene. For example, in the exhaustive research undertaken for today's rectangle, Informer discovered that the reason so many medieval marriages took place in June was because most people enjoyed their annual bath in May. This meant they were still fairly clean - really? - when the big day arrived, although brides also carried flowers to mask supplementary pongs.

When I received my grandfather's World War I service records, his medical certificate showed how the army checked every soldier for a litany of ailments and conditions. And I quote: scrofula, phthisis, syphilis, impaired constitution, defective intelligence, defects of vision-voice-hearing, hernia, haemorrhoids, varicose veins, marked varicocele with unusually pendant testicle, inveterate cutaneous disease, chronic ulcers, traces of corporal punishment, contracted or deformed chest and abnormal curvature of the spine. Fair dinkum, the Turks and Germans must have seemed positively benign by comparison, at least initially.

With such anatomical atrocities, it's little wonder the bathroom towels of the world are fighting back - manchester united, anyone?

Transformed into craven cloth cauldrons, these bacteria traps are collecting all the muck we repeatedly dab, rub and wipe on them, and are preparing to send it all back to us in highly infectious spades. At least we'll be in the right room when the inevitable carnage begins.

Rest assured that Informer offers scrupulous attention to personal cleanliness, but if even my sterling efforts are not enough to withstand a treacherous towel and a pissed off frog, I hold out little hope for dirty urchins like my readers.

So, with no option other than to throw in the towel, I am tempted to wash my hands of the lot of you. Until then, please continue with your breakfast. I'm off to post a picture of my feet on Facebook.