A big-sized problem.

 Have you noticed that we are now totally dependant on something which barely existed a generation ago? No woman’s handbag is complete without some. All good hotel rooms have a box full of them. There could well be one in your pocket right now. I’m talking about paper tissues. Family-sized, big-sized, handy-sized, we just can’t get enough of them. Yet not that long ago, we got by without them; instead we had that disgusting patch of cotton called a handkerchief.

 I’m not advocating the return of the hanky. A less desirable piece of fabric is hard to imagine, particularly after it’s been put to its intended use. Those of you who can remember them will recall a couple of things. You got them as presents, usually with somebody else’s initials embroidered on them; and it was considered ladylike to have one tucked up the sleeve of your blouse.

 The weirdest thing about the old hanky was the amount of uses it had. You could tie your money up in it. If you were a Pommy at the beach you could put a knot in each corner and use it as a hat. You could tie it around your neck and pretend to be a cowboy or cowgirl.

 There were the evil uses too. Every child dreaded the moment mum spotted an ice-cream trail on your face, which had to be removed by her spitting on a hanky and rubbing your face with it. For some reason this had to be done in public, with many accompanying tuts of disapproval.

 The tissue put an end to all of that. They’re more hygienic, they’re disposable, they don’t need washing…but there’s the rub. I think the tissue resents the fact that it’s disposable. Anyone who has left one in a pocket and then included it in a load of washing knows what I mean. A couple of ply of gossamer-thin paper only big enough for one feminine nose-blow can disintegrate into enough fragments to ruin a family’s washing for weeks.

 In fact, a sure-fire way to sabotage a teenager’s social life would be to let him or her rock off to a favourite nightclub, only for the ultraviolet lights to reveal little bits of white tissue stuck all over that cool black shirt or dress. It’s hard to look attractive when you resemble nothing so much as a Dalmatian in negative.

 Any discarded tissue which isn’t safely stowed in a bin will certainly come back to haunt you. My dad found that out the hard way a few weeks ago while mowing the lawn. You drop one as you’re lawnmowing and foolishly think the mower will sweep it into the grass-catcher. Wrong. It spreads itself all over the lawn and has to be picked up by hand. If you try to go over it with the mower again, it spreads to an even bigger area in even smaller pieces.  I wonder how many forests are cut down specifically to make tissues. Maybe there are plantations of special tissue trees; they’d be really brittle, thin, wispy trees which go all floppy and disintegrate when it rains.

 Tissues really aren’t terribly practical. There hasn’t been a tissue made which can withstand two hard snorts from a grown man’s nostrils. The big-sized tissue is just a ploy to make you think you’re getting something tougher, more practical. All big-sized means is that the tissues are big enough for us to unfold with our stubby fingers. (Can you tell I don’t like my large stubby fingers?)

 You can’t possibly start a box of tissues without tearing the first one into several pieces or dragging a clump of ten out of the top in one go. Whereas the old hanky could be re-used many times a day (disgusting as it may seem nowadays), the tissue can be used once, maybe twice, tops. Tissues are a triumph in marketing over matter. They’re an inferior product. You can’t wet one and clean your kid’s face with it – all you do is rub little bits of paper over their skin.

 Tissues come in colours, in boxes of countless different designs. This is presumably intended to help the boxes blend into different décors. In fact, all the artists succeed in doing is making them look like tissue boxes. At least this provides an outlet for all you craft lovers to think up forms of disguise.

 Yet there is a tissue that can’t be beaten. We first saw it in its lemon-scented genius as the refresher towel at KFC. It cleans the grease off your hands like magic; it’s wet, yet it doesn’t fall apart. Now widely available in travel-packs and cylinders to keep them moist, no picnic or day out is complete without them, no mother would leave home without them.

 So from the useless dry tissue has evolved the practical wet one. Let’s hope that even now, paper scientists are working on a paper tissue into which you can blow your nose with absolute confidence. Then we can leave all those cold, wet noses to the dogs.