On 4/25/2013 4:28 AM, Sacha wrote:
A friend of ours recently told us that he was staying in a London hotel
on Friday night, prior to taking part in the Marathon. On arriving, he
decided to make himself a cup of hot chocolate, using the kettle in his
room. As the kettle was still full, he simply switched it on and made
the drink. After taking one swig, his mouth and gullet felt as if they
were on fire. It turned out that the staff had descaled all the kettles
and someone had forgotten to empty and rinse out this one. He had
horrible stomach upsets all night but recovered to do the Marathon and
was offered £100 compensation by the hotel. He put this towards his
charity and told them it would not indemnify them against repercussions
if he developed any further illnesses as a result. But as he said to me
"do you empty bedroom kettles and refill them?" and I said "always". His
reply was that was a 'woman thing' and men normally just boil up what's
still in there. Don't!!

I'm here in the Southern U.S. where we drink (horrors) ice tea. I have a
wonderful little electric kettle that I use for things that require
small amounts of boiling water but I'm the only one using it and I
always empty it after each use. It helps mitigate the buildup of lime
scale in the cute little kettle. ^_^

TDD