How Clean is Your House?

Here Kim and Aggie do actually include a series of Crime Files; factoids of horrifying information, usually about "beastly bacteria", which are destined to make you at least question, briefly, the wisdom of opting to leave your dishes soaking overnight after that joyously wine, port and a whisky or seven-for-the-road-fuelled dinner party. "When you let dirty plates sit for a long time the food contributes nutrients for bacteria, so they will rapidly multiply". It's therefore best, they suggest, to "wash all dirty dishes in hot soapy water as soon as possible." (Paper plates are, of course, always an option.) Divided into chapters that cover each room and full of astonishing top tips, such as using a banana skin to dust plants ("the dust" apparently "clings to the skin and the juice nourishes the leaves") it will have you on the way to meeting their notoriously exacting standards. But, a note on the back of the jacket kindly reminds us to give this volume "a dust every now and then" and under no circumstance use it "as a coaster or a dinner tray." --Travis Elborough