The trouble with commuting is that on those days when you don’t get a seat you have half an hour to stand and ponder the stranger things in life

I’ve been thinking about housework and how the two halves of the population seem to view mess / dirt / the need for cleaning through two totally different filters

Housework is the last great battlefield of equality – statistics suggest that even when both partners work outside the home, the female half will still do the majority of the household chores – for most men I know household chores are something they do when asked but not something that registers on their list of thing that need actually doing as any matter of urgency

I’m by no means perfect but there’s some sort of compulsion that means sheets have to be changed regularly and tidying done (a massive carve out here for the bedroom – for some reason getting this tidy and under control only seems to happen on an irregular basis but hey I’m a grown up and if I want to not hang up my clothes at the end of the day and hang them on the wardrobe doors you know, I’m allowed to!)

Skirting around the fact that putting things on top of the dishwasher does not equal putting them away in the dishwasher and putting a beer bottle on the worksurface above the recycling bin is not quiet the same as actually, you know, putting it in the recycling bin, the big issue seems to be around toilets

Were the men in our generation brought up to think that there are a bunch of fairies who magically fly in, clean the bog and then disappear or do they genuinely think that toilet cleaning = women’s work and they just don’t need to bother themselves about it?

Even the most modern, equality focused man who is as happy doing DIY as cooking a three course meal AND not using every item in the kitchen AND putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher afterwards seems to have a blind spot when it comes to cleaning the loo

I’ve tried the leave it and just see what happens but to be brutally honest there’s a point where I just can’t leave the loo in the state it is and have to stage an intervention

Mothers of sons I hope in amongst teaching your boys to iron, to cook, to sew a button back on and how to change a duvet without getting tangled in it please could you add in how to clean a loo and when to do so?

I reckon that equality in the home can only exist when men step up and clean the toilet without having to be asked

What do you think?