A Morally Improving Story for World Toilet Day

World Toilet Day - the highlight of the Privy Counsel year - is coming up! We came across a competition that encourages people to share their best and worst toilet moments, and, having highlighted, in a previous World Toilet Day post, the dire situations that can arise when proper plumbing is lacking, we thought we'd share a less-than illustrious moment from our own past. (We may have hinted at this incident once or twice before, but have never actually related the story in full.) Putting it off isn't making this story any less embarrassing, so let's get on with it, shall we?

Let us set the scene: Golden Square, Soho.
Note the very spiky fence.
Image from Geograph.

Imagine a work Christmas party in London's Soho. The company has had a good year, and the wine is flowing. Everyone is happy! The normally buttoned-up boss even makes a risqué joke, to everyone's amusement and delight. Eventually, though, the canapés run out, and the music stops. It's time to head out into the cold and wend one's way to the after-party. However, there are still some bottles with wine left in them, and to a few festive employees, it seems a shame to let perfectly good alcohol go to waste. Being equipped with handbags and voluminous coat pockets, they make their way outside with the lovely, lovely wine in safe keeping. 

Stumbling through Soho they come across a very suitable set of steps in Golden Square, which seem to be made for drinking wine on! Imagine the happiness of our protagonists!  It's nearly Christmas, and they've got several bottles of wine, which were completely free! They sit down and drink the lovely, lovely wine appreciatively. After some time, however, they feel the need to heed the call of nature. Is there a toilet nearby? they wonder. There is not. However, there's a perfectly good bit of shrubbery in the middle of the square, which seems like it was made for relieving oneself in! Lucky, that! Our celebrants are busy trying to climb the annoyingly spiky fence when a police car appears. Embarrassment ensues. The policemen don't get out of the car, but they don't drive off, either; they stay put. "Should I stay or should I go?" our full-bladdered party people wonder. Eventually, it appears that "I fought the law and the law won": the police stay until our festive wine-drinkers stop attempting to hurl themselves over the fence. The would-be law-breakers wobble away. After all, they really, really, really need the loo.

Moral of the story? There totally need to be more toilets everywhere!

(Do the festive wine-drinkers ever make it to the after-party? you wonder. Probably they do. To be honest, however, our memory is a little hazy on this point. Chances are that some of us ended up on passed out on the night bus, or getting rather intimately acquainted with a bin in Hammersmith.) 

Golden Square, Soho: These steps were made for drinking wine on!
(If only we'd had a Shewee, however, we might have been spared much embarrassment!)

Let's have a festive video, shall we?



Festive video: Bobby Fuller, I Fought the Law

Related Reading
Why Today Is a Toiletally Important Day
World Toilet Day 2011: Taking Our Baths and Our Women
It Finally Happened: World Toilet Day
Special News Bulletin: World Toilet Day 19 November
The Old Ballcock and Chain, or, An Open-and-Shut Case, or, The Long Tap Lever of the Law

Graffiti in Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country

I am part of the #Blog4Sanitation movement setup by Splashdirect to raise awareness of the importance of global sanitation. Learn more about World Toilet Day.