Dear John, there's a fly in...

A while back, a little fly like this one below caught my eye at one of the men's urinals I had to use:

I then learnt that there was a supposed reason why flies might be found etched inside men's urinals. It's based on an interesting idea about behaviour -- in this instance, men's (I am told such "flies" are not found inside women's WCs). I had meant to blog about this notion, known as the "Nudge" theory or approach. But my colleague Andy Ho has beaten me to it, with an article in ST's Opinion pages:

So, obviously, if this hypothesis can be consistently shown to be valid, it means people can be "nudged" to behave in a desired way, and they won't even know that they are being subliminally nudged. It's like fire then -- a good servant but a bad master. And who is to be the judge of a "good" desired behaviour?

Here's more on the Nudge approach, in this article titled "There's a fly in my urinal":

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121310977

There is even a blog, inspired by Nudge, that keeps tabs on urinals worldwide which either have the etched fly, or which adheres to the concept, like this pic said to be taken in Amsterdam:

http://nudges.org/tag/urinals/

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So, ok, what else about toilets can I take aim at? Well, there's this sign:

And this one...

And, finally, a toilet humour cartoon!...