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I (as a Finn) am a full-monty-guy what comes to bathing what so ever. I am not aware of continental bathing habits but professor's style on pg. 16 in Picaros is strange, very strange. The hat is understandable, if somebody is in sauna and the temperature is over 100 degrees Celsius. Well perhaps not a bowler but rather a knitted cap or a skull cap. I don't use any caps, I rather burn my earflaps.

But a bathrope? Is it normal to wear a bathrope in bath? In Belgium? Anywhere? I am dead serious, people have very strange habits. Or is this just a nuance of being Calculus?

I think it's just Calculus being Calculus. And maybe Hergé didn't want to draw him... dressed for a bath.

I though it was odd that Calculus was still in his robe, Michael Farr discribes it as being like a Victorian maiden.

Personally I wouldn't read it as Calculus deliberately wearing his bathrobe in the bath (through weird preference, maidenly modesty, national custom, or anything else). I think it's more that he's so engrossed in his thoughts or his book that he's forgotten to remove it before getting into the bath and hasn't noticed it even after getting in. In other words, an eccentricity of absent-mindedness, rather than a deliberate eccentricity of bath-time dress-sense.

That's how I'd read this visual gag anyway, though obviously it's open to different interpretations.

Thank you for answering to my dead serious question. An undeliberate act is a good explanation, that's what I thought first. Then I wondered, if there really were some special bathing rules/habits for gentlemen. As I said, human beings have a vivid imagination and people love to make weird rules.

speaking of weird bathing habits:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/08/2976637.htm

That's a tragic story. I'd never thought of having a sauna as a competitive activity! Was it personal ambition that drove these two finalists to the point of collapse, i wonder, or was there some national rivalry involved?

Re your previous post, you're right that some countries have strange bathing rules. For instance, in French swimming pools, including outdoor ones in tourist resorts, I believe men aren't allowed to wear normal thigh-length or knee length swimming trunks, but all have to wear those tight, sports-style ones. And in other countries, such as Ireland and Italy, swimming hats are compulsory in swimming pools.

But as far as I know, Belgian men aren't required to wear bath robes in the bath!

Yes it is, every Finn knows what is "a sauna competition" and meny of us have tried it every now and then. Bit like your whisky drinking competitions in pubs, the last man standing is the winner.


I guess it was rather than a national rivalry.


Thank God, so I don't have to take my rope with me next summer.

And finally, which one of the finalist is the winner, the Finn in the hospital or the Russian in the morgue?

I think they're both completely mad!

I don't entirely agree with 'endurance' contests like these. Similar to eating contests like how many pies/hotdogs or dubious offal you can eat in a minute. I fail to see the point.

I think the point is 15 minutes of fame, and if you're crazy enough to want it you'd do anything. Prize money should be good too.