Literary Hotel Toilet Musings

  Observant readers may have noticed that we haven't been updating with our usual brio, zeal and gusto lately, i.e. there hasn't been a bloody peep from us for a whole week. Usually, this state of affairs would be due to us being bogged down in the daily toil and grind; sweating, cursing and generally labouring to earn the daily crust. But this time, it's because we've been too busy having fun! Hurrah! Thanks to Australian Friend who, among other things, treated us to a stay in a luxurious hotel in Edinburgh!
  We are both bemused and amused by the website of these digs, as it claims that "all furniture and antiquities have been specially imported from China". Though we didn't notice any Ming dynasty vases casually scattered around,  the toilet in our hotel room really was fabulous, in the original sense of "having no basis in reality; mythical (...) ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense 'known through fable': from French fabuleux or Latin fabulosus 'celebrated in fable', from fabula (see FABLE))" (Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003).
  As well as being fabulous, the toilet gives us, joyously, occasion to quote Helen Fielding at you again! In Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination (Picador, London 2004), the heroine claims that, regarding hotels, "The only real criterion of fineness she trusted was whether, on arrival, the toilet paper was folded into a neat point at the end" (p. 8). Personally, we couldn't care less, but in case you find the state of the end of the toilet roll a matter of importance on a par with democracy, world peace and being able to find a really good mojito: Reader, we assure you, the toilet paper in this hotel was folded into a neat point at the end.

Panorama of the fabulous bathroom. If it looks confusing, it is because there were mirrors simply everywhere.

The supersonic bath! Boasting gazillions, literally gazillions, of jet streams!

In the words of Homer Simpson, we don't even believe in Jebus, but find the discovery of a mixer tap in Britain an occasion for the uninhibited thanking of all the gods our imagination can conjure up!
Nice sink, too, if shallow: we had to fill our water bottle in the bath.

A square toilet! Hurrah!

VERY fluffy towels!

Extremely nice-smelling toiletries, though not an eco-label to be seen

Funky taps in the bath

The kind of controls that allow you to pretend, if that's your thing, that you're not having a mundane, ordinary shower but FLYING A SPACESHIP

V. v. funky-looking shower

At the time of taking these photographs we were not yet so drunk we were seeing double.
There's a mirror in the shower, folks.

As an aside, the bed in the hotel room was extremely comfortable. And the staff were very friendly. And Edinburgh is a fantastic city. But the best bit was the toilets.

NUMBER TEN EDINBURGH | 10 GLOUCESTER PLACE | EDINBURGH EH3 6EF | SCOTLAND
TEL: (+44) 0131 225 2720 | FAX: (+44) 0131 220 4706
http://www.numbertenedinburgh.com