The way I see it, phone cord twisting and bathtub drain directions are two separate mysteries.

A few years ago, I read a novel called "Dad" (I can't figure out how to underline in a voice card) by William Wharton. It was interestingly written but fairly plotless. The narrator was watching his father die, and the father had this obsession with watching water empty into drains. William Wharton insisted that water drained clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the Northern. I've moved around quite a bit (within Northern Hemisphere), and all of the drains I've had since reading the book drained clockwise.

Novelists may talk like they know what they're talking about, but beware.