Core, you are totally Loo-ny! A gentle rant of sort.

Long were these the staple of junk-modelling in playgroups, after-school clubs, nurseries, schools and any sort of situation involving imaginative building.

I’ve seen them turned into goggles, telescopes, penguins, Santas,  snowmen, rockets, shakers, festooning cardboard castles as turrets, anything your brain cares to imagine.

So imagine my surprise in one educational environment (not my school, though since then, someone has said something of that ilk in the Foundation Stage) where I was told that “We are not allowed to use them any more for health and safety reasons.” 

I heard this in a few contexts and wondered who was the omnipotent authority who suddenly, one day,  saw fit to prevent usage of the humble loo-roll core for such a myriad of uses?

“I decree, that these abhorrent pieces of  cardboard are too gross! Off with their heads!"

"Be gone with them, foul beasts!"

"Urgh, it's putrid and vile, we must do away with them!"

In a very far-off on the horizon way, I saw the point- yes, they are kept near toilets-poo, blardy-blah, germs, illnesses etc. Yes, loo rolls are kept in the toilet.

But really?  Were children in the past made ill by using them in their creations. “Yes, June, I can attribute little-Horatio’s terrible cough to that infamous day where he used the centre of the toilet roll to construct the Titanic and much ill-health has befallen him since! Woe is me!”  Surely, unless you are very unfit, your loo-roll is kept in a relatively clean environment!

Do you,when you’ve finished your loo-roll smear poo-ey hands all over the core and rejoice at the possible demise of the children you will subsequently offer it to?  Are you so incompetent at bum-wiping that you have missed the toilet roll completely  and wiped your poo all over your hand and then touched the loo-roll  core?

Did you pick up the loo-roll core with poo-encrusted hands and decide that this would be the perfect roll for Terence’s Parthenon model?

How long can germs survive on a thin cylinder of cardboard? What form do they take?

Surely, we have clean hands when we come to touch the loo-roll the first time?   Ideally, when assessing the necessary amount of loo-paper length, do we not make a decision to begin the new roll if the previous roll is insufficient?

I don’t know the thought behind it and the theory and evidence but I think it’s sad that something that was once used merrily in so much imaginative play is not allowed in many places.

Mind you, I'm the one who was obsessed with toilets aged 3...

xxx