Cold, cucumbers and tango

It's that time of year again when numbers are down at milongas because the nights are cold (for Sydney) and wet (torrential is an adjective created for our rain) and unless you can drive to the door in a warm car sometimes it is just too hard to go. And then you get a cold! Or your partner does - and rather than go to a milonga and pass germs around the dance floor, you decide to forgo it and stay home! At least that what's you hope those with colds will do. The Silver Fox has a cold this weekend so we will be staying home! Or maybe he will - I'll see.
Which brings me to cucumbers! There has been a horrible outbreak of e.coli in Europe - a bacterium that hits suddenly and can kill. It is usually sourced to someone who didn't wash their hands after going to the toilet and before handling food. The poor old cucumber has been made the culprit, but now a bit of commonsense is coming into the media stories and it appears that cucumber could not be the cause.
The link between the common cold and e coli is of course hygiene. It is so important to wash hands that the other day when I was sitting in the outpatients department of a large hospital on a completely different matter , the video on show was all about washing hands - and not sneezing into one's hands.
It is to be hoped that all we get this winter in tango is the common cold - and that the dreaded e.coli stays on the other side of the world. Maybe a container of the antibacterial waterless hand sanitizer at the milonga door is a good idea?


Anonymous said…
I stayed home for two weeks with a cold until I was certain that I wouldn't be coughing at the milonga. Others don't feel the same as I do. I saw a man coughing into his right hand between dances.

I think I'll buy a big container of hand gel and put it on the bar at my favorite milonga. It's cold outside and many show up with colds. Nothing keeps people away from their regular habit in BsAs.

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