Just humour me, and read the title of this post to the tune of a well known song by The Verve…

One thing I had forgotten to mention, that amused me slightly, is that ever since the Balkans, Nige has been hankering after a ‘Universal Plug’. This plug, apparently, will solve all his problems; enabling not only washing, but shaving as well in far flung remote places. It went on The List of Things That We Need For Our Actual Big Trip, that we are slowly compiling as we take our mini trips (which, put that way, are now completely justified research into gap year trip planning…).

The plug issue came up in the Balkans (I forget where) as there wasn’t always a plug in the sinks of hostel bathrooms. Being considerate planet conscious citizens of Earth, we both agree that running water down the sink to enable shaving is not best use of the world’s natural resources (and please don’t remind me of the irony of this statement bearing in mind that our carbon footprint is as big as Gulliver’s).

Anyhoo, he’s looked online to no avail, and he’d even asked in the Central Market in Riga (why on earth he thought Latvian hardware market stalls were going to stock universal plugs, much less understand what he was asking for I don’t know – they all politely shook their heads anyway, and we moved along).

Well, after a work trip back to the UK last week, he’d bought a universal plug from Cotswold Camping (which is, arguably, the Flashpacker’s alter of worship). Although the 70’s sink in our 70’s kitsch hotel had a perfectly serviceable 70’s plug, Nige pulled the new purchase from his toiletry bag with a flourish and declared he was going to use his new amazing universal plug… which turns out to be not quite so ‘universal’ after all!