On hygiene and health at the end of the day

I am not an expert on hygiene. No really, even though, when working in school kitchens, I took a health and hygiene exam (and passed, I'll have you know - it took me twenty minutes out of the allotted 2 hours - but hey, if you're offered questions like "which of these things must you never do in a kitchen - 1. wash all surfaces every night 2. mop the floors before leaving or 3. flush the leftover food down the toilet?" it's hard to maintain interest for more than five minutes)
But I have this gut feeling that a thermos lid with an 'easy-pouring' attachment which can neither be removed or opened and won't admit the smallest of cleaning implements will probably be seething with interesting bacterial cultures. Certainly, when I attempt to clean Barney's every so often, it takes me about half an hour to rinse and shake out all the gunk which has glued itself in there. I simply refuse to use the attachment and just unscrew the lid in the old fashioned way, keeping the attachment as tightly fastened as possible.
Similarly, when the children were little I used to despair of getting the deposits of juice and stuff off the insides of the tiny sucking lids of beakers. Some of which came with similar 'easy-pour' type lids. Some of which, indeed, even came with complex lids and attachments which you couldn't get into at all.
Oh, just soak it in steriliser, they say airily. Right. Is that the stuff which destroys 99% of all known germs? So is that 99% of all germs of every known kind or is it 99% of the varieties of germs which we know about? Possibly they don't even discommode one or two varieties at all. And even if it's 99% of all known kinds of all germs, the other 1% will be blithely learning resistance and multiplying away in there.
I dare not even ask what is or isn't covered by the euphemistic 'germs'. since it's a term that belongs to the days before we knew that bacteria and viruses existed and weren't the same thing and long before anyone had discovered MRSA and all the other stuff we no doubt bring home from hospitals and dribble into our cups and lids.

Speaking of which, I wonder if hospitals use 'easy-pouring' lids and beaker tops for children and elderly people who have difficulty drinking from a regular, open topped cup! Hmmmm?
Last night I asked a friend of mine about this (she's a nurse) and she said yes they do use those - oh well they go through a dishwasher and the steam sterilises them. Hmm.
Here are yesterday's sunsets

And later I just happened to look up at the window - I was about to think, time to draw the curtains. But guess what happened instead.
And some time today, either when tying the dog to my leg or perhaps when untying him from a tree, the camera did this. I've no idea what the camera thought it was doing but I quite like it :)