*

You can buy The Role of Towels as a Control to Reduce Slip Potential from –
natch – the Health and Safety Executive. It’s the culmination of £12,000
worth of research into what happens when you step out of a bath onto a towel
you’ve placed on the floor to reduce the risk of breaking your neck. So, do
towels do the job? Let me spoil the book for you by giving away the last
line. “The testing carried out here is insufficient to draw significant
conclusions,” it says, with masterful understatement.