Pink in Edinburgh.

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How you deal with shame depends on where in the world you come from. In the UK we tend to want to hide anything shameful away. To get rid of it as soon as possible, and make sure nobody knows it ever existed.

We live in a society where we are not forced to face that which we are ashamed of.

In other societies, that is a natural- or at least culturally normalised- element of their daily life to tackle it head on. Is that more progressive? Coming face to face with your shame, and sometimes other peoples' shame, is arguably more strenuous.

And yet some say it's more natural, healthier even.

The process of taking responsibility for something you might be embarrassed about can perhaps be cleansing, even if the situation around you isn't clean at all.

And that certainly was the case in a hotel I stayed in in Kurdish Iran, where the shower drained straight into the squat toilet and you hand to stand with your be-sandled feet on either side of the abyss from whence the hotelier's morning shift peered back at you.