18 MAY 2002, Page 40

The bottom line

From Mr Guy Bellairs

Sir: Robert Gore-Langton (`Flushed with pride', 11 May) amusingly describes China's primitive sanitation practices, but he forgets that Britain is also backward in this respect. Continental Europeans don't wipe, they wash. The UK is more backward in adopting the bidet than China is in using the WC.

Guy Bellairs

Funchal, Madeira