Urban Myths Some of Us Believed

Including me.

The spider from Atlantis (My own graphic)

I once knew someone who was adamant, and I mean adamant, that spiders got into the bath by crawling up the plughole. I explained to her how the u-bend below a plughole works, and that it was highly unlikely a spider would be able to get any purchase on the interior of a wet vertical waste pipe in complete darkness, and then manage to swim through the water in the base of the u-bend, before making an appearance via one of the holes in the plughole strainer.

But, even if a particularly determined spider made it through the water and hauled its dripping body through the strainer, it would find that its efforts had been in vain. For it would not be able to get out of the bath, because the sides are too steep and smooth for it to climb.

“Maybe,” I said, “the spider accidentally fell into the bath, and, as it is demonstrating, can’t climb back out.” But no. It came up the plughole.

This spider-up-the-plughole belief is one of many falsehoods that people hear of in childhood, and some hold onto into adult life.

Red Rag to a Bull

George Orwell once covered this topic in his column in Tribune, after a barmaid had told him that if his moustache came into contact with the beer as he drank, it would turn the beer flat. He trimmed his…