The Royal Toilet at Kronborg: "A Foul and Pestilent Congregation of Vapours."

Bunden i vejret eller resten i håret!*
We spent an utterly, utterly festive day in Denmark recently! We simply couldn't imagine a better-spent day; we devoted literally the whole day to photographing Danish toilets, checking out syphilis exhibits in museums, and drinking beer!
Actually, we've got UNBELIEVABLE amounts of photos of Danish toilets, so many that we literally don't know where to begin. But we reckon it's always safest, when one is dealing with people prone to OCD, to arrange things either alphabetically or chronologically.

Vil du tale lidt langsommere?**
Since the Danish language is fucked up beyond repair, however, we won't be able to do an alphabetical account of the toilets, and have therefore decided to start with the oldest toilets, at Kronborg Castle.

Hvor er toilettet?***
Turns out that Kronborg, which observant readers will recognise from Hamlet, is full to the brim of Danish toilets!

Mit luftpudefartøj er fyldt med ål!****

A throne fit for the King of Denmark!

For now, it's got a bucket in it (in case adventurous tourists take historical re-enactment a bit too literally?)...

...but back in the day, a clever construction ensured that the contents of the toilet ended
up in a brick cellar. We presume that "cellar emptier" (that is, gong scourer) was not an attractive career prospect
for the up-and-coming young castle employee.

A close-up of the brick cellar.

The charming view from the window!

There was also ventilation, thanks to this attractive hole in the ceiling! Hot damn!!

Here's a very festive painting from inside the museum!
We have no idea what's going on, but there's naked people, a lion, and a ship with Danish flags!

The cannons are pointing towards Sweden - traditionally, the great enemy.
Dannebrogen helpfully fell from the sky, in order to guide and protect the Danes, in Estonia in 1219.

Danes are prone to getting philosophical, especially after a couple of rounds of snaps.

* "Bottoms up or the rest in your hair" - only used with friends when very drunk.

** "Could you please speak slower?"

*** "Where's the toilet?"

**** "My hovercraft is full of eels."

Related Reading

Christian IV's toilet at Rosenborg Castle: Blogging Something Rotten

Even more royal Danish bogs: Waltzing around Amalienborg

Another 17th-century toilet: We Receive a Postcard

More castles: Christinehof - A Woman's Er, Bog Is Her, Er, Castle?

Henry VIII favoured brick toilets. Read about one of them in the Historic Toilet Tour of York

More historical toilets: Historical Toilets, Baths and Kitchens - a Useful and Humbling Lesson
More musings on the Danish language: Tømmermænd at Café Jorden, or, Sleepless in Aarhus, or, Fear and Loathing in Jutland

Put Him in a Longboat Till He's Sober: Sail-loo-rrr Lingo with German Friend!

As regular readers are aware, we have a hoard. A hoard not of dragon gold, but of fabulous toilet pictures from German Friend. We go round thinking about posting more of them pretty much constantly (that is, during any time we can spare from thinking about cholera, syphilis, and Richard Armitage), but somehow we don't very often get around to it, most likely due to laziness or, if we're engaging in self-deception and ascribing ourselves more flattering motives for our actions, a selfish desire to hoard the German-Friend-pictures, hugging them close to us and never, ever letting them go.

Be that as it may, we received a message from German Friend the other day. "With so much Armitagery," it read, "is there still space in your heart and head for new loos?" We told German Friend to not be a silly chumps! Armitagery or no Armitagery, there is ALWAYS space for new loos at the Privy Counsel!

So, all aboard - here's German Friend's rampantly festive notes on his latest find!

Have you found syphilis yet? [Editor's note: Yes, it really did begin like this. We do love our friends!] Loved your cholera babes (not literally or physically). [Editor's note: the Cholera Babes are coming to the Counsel soon - all will be explained!]
All aboard here, ahoi and all that shanty.
Nipped back home to Hamburg last weekend and did some home-tourism, found this in a nice, nautical-themed hotel, the submarine-style toilets were, fittingly, in the basement. The gender signs read "beards" and "broads".
As garnish, here is some Sail-loo-r lingo:
Ahoi, all rolls on deck.
Turd over board!
Abandon shit or stem the tide!
So.
There :)

It DOES look like the inside of a submarine!

No idea what's going on here, but it looks surprisingly hygienic.

Are those flowers? Or some kind of fungal growth?

What the hell?

Because a man without a beard isn't really a man.

Broads ahoy!

We should maybe add that last time we met up with German Friend we had a very jolly time, and festive, nautically-inspired rum was in no way not on the agenda.

You'll also be delighted to learn that we have, after scouring the seven seas, found a festive video, for your delight and edification! We have no idea what's going on - three accordion-wielding peasants in knee-socks thrash about while performing a sea-shanty - but the festiveness levels are through the roof!

Festive video: Rapalje, Drunken sailor

Related Reading

Why going aboard (so to speak) a submarine may be a dangerous business:

Who Knew That Going to the Toilet Could Be So Dangerous?

Intellectual Friend investigating Polish feminine endings and vocative cases in a maritime setting:

Dirty Toilets and Dirtier Minds - A Nautical Theme

Australian Friend's foray into the world of nautically themed toilets:

HTFU - A Journey through an Australian Dunny
Another email we received with a forceful, festive intro:
We Go Underground

We philosophise on why our friends spend so much time and effort sending us shit:
Rumours, a Teaser, and More Epistolary Action (With Useful Facts about Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country)
All previous posts from German Friend:
German Friend

Rumours, a Teaser, and More Epistolary Action (With Useful Facts about Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country)

There have been rumours. The usual whispers of a nameless fear growing in the East, of course, but apart from that, also rumours of a really good and colourful toilet on Jutland. We've sat on this picture from Danish Friend's Danish Dad  for some time now, having titillatingly hinted at the existence of it once or twice but not actually having had the grace to dish up the goods till now.

Anyhow, here's how exciting things get when we hear rumours of toilets of which nobody's actually taken a photo, but which Danish people are deeply committed to finding on the internet. Intellectual Friend says:

And also this teaser, a pre-glimpse of that artistically painted men's toilet which Danish Friend's Danish Dad knows about. It's apparently the only photo findable online, so it cries out for a photographic mission up there by some Privy Counsel representative, or accredited special envoy, to be organised in the near future!

The toilet that Danish Friend's Danish Dad mentioned.
Image from sfrkro.dk

Having always argued that Denmark is everyone's favourite toilet country, we're delighted to be able to show you this gem of a picture!

We've been having a semi-literary conversation with Semi-Intellectual Friend (read his latest semi-intellectual contribution here!) lately, about our friends' contributions to everyone's favourite toilet blog. We went remarkably soppy at one point and blurted out, in a torrent of commas, that:

We find it thrilling that our friends are so intelligent and write such eloquent, witty, and, damn it, what's the word? voluble, or even grandiloquent, maybe, emails about, of all things, toilets, just to humour us.

Semi-Intellectual Friend promptly replied that:

I'm not sure why so many people are so willing to give up their free time just to message you - sometimes it can take aaaaages to write emails to you (I wrote a whole lot of other rubbish even just in this one, but deleted it as it fell well below the required standard).

Semi-Intellectual Friend also seems to believe that we at the Privy Counsel enjoy some sort of special divine grace due to being honoured with toilet (and, we hasten to add, other) communications from Intellectual Friend, everyone's favourite mythical being (read about Intellectual Friend's mythical status here). On being asked why he doesn't just ask Intellectual Friend how he is himself, rather than incessantly seeking this information from us, Semi-Intellectual Friend replied:

As if I could just go and email [Intellectual Friend]. Are you mental? I need to ritually bathe myself, clad myself in the finest druidic underwear and face the Northeast just to think such a thought.

Anyway. All this is by the by. Sallingslund Færgekro. Go and visit it! Enjoy the toilets.

We've got some more pictures for you to enjoy:

Danish people - aren't they delightful!
Image from sfkro.dk.

"Vaj nu, Dannebrog, på voven" - possibly our favourite song!
Image from smalldanishhotels.dk.

We simply CANNOT GET ENOUGH of Danish people!
Image from morsmobil.dk.

Danes: so goddamn adorable!
Image from smalldanishhotels.com.

Wouldn't be a proper blog post without a festive video, would it?

We imagine this might be useful to Obsessive Emmerdale Fan Friend, who is committed to learning to speak Swedish with an Indian accent.

Sallingslund Færgekro
Sallingsundvej 104, Sallingsund
7900 Nykøbing Mors

http://www.sfkro.dk/

Related Reading
The Spirit of Christmas: Mixer Taps, Urinals, Relief 
Christmas 2013: Shetland Shithouses Part II. Umm, Poetry in Motion?
Rampant Titillation - Basically, a Real-Life Epistolary Novel!
A Charming Domestic Vignette from Intellectual Friend, and Musings on Intellectual Safety
Danish Friend's and Intellectual Friend's wedding, at which Danish Friend's Danish Dad did a lovely and amusing speech:
Hwæt! For Better Or for Worse, Whether There Is a Toilet-Roll Holder Or Not, Etc.

Rampant Titillation - Basically, a Real-Life Epistolary Novel!

Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well. It seems there is simply no limit to how communicative our friends can get. We've been publishing a fair amount of Intellectual friend's musings on life, the universe, and toilet doors - always gratefully received due to their unrestrained intelligence, wit, and keen understanding of all things toilet-related - recently, and what do you know? Semi-Intellectual Friend has just dispatched a massive missive about wedding toilets!

We've been busy as, well, beavers, lately and, due to a combination of a rather solid workload and an increasingly severe obsession with Richard Armitage, we have found it a challenge to maintain our usually rigid blogging standards. Hampered in our endeavour to provide our regular readers with the edification and amusement we know they eagerly crave, we've been scratching our metaphorical beards, hoping for a long email containing amusing photos, in order to be able to pass it off as original material and save ourselves time. Well, sometimes, apparently, prayers are answered.

For layout reasons we're interspersing Semi-Intellectual Friend's drunken toilet photos in the text,
even though they're not explained till quite a bit further down.
That's a pretty weird urinal, huh?

In fact, dear readers, you are in luck. The above-mentioned solid workload and Richard Armitage obsession render us, as we have mentioned, permanently pressed for time. We simply cannot be arsed editing Semi-Intellectual Friend's message, meaning that we are going to just reproduce it as it appeared in our inbox. And, what's more, you get our replies as well! This is, basically, an epistolary novel - right up there with Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Lady Susan!

Semi-Intellectual Friend: I have photographs for the Counsel team. I'll get them to you soon I promise. Important photos. Probably life-changing. 

The Privy Counsellor: Look forward to the life-changing photos. Do they, by any chance, incorporate Richard Armitage? No worries if not, but it would be great if they did. 

No Richard Armitage in sight, alas.
There is, however, an encouraging - if empty - beer glass. 

Semi-Intellectual Friend: I do have a crapload of drunkenly-taken wedding toilet photos (is this actually one of the key genres of toilet photos these days?). To be honest, the toilets were pretty unremarkable – just your bog-standard two toilets and a bunch of urinals set-up (sorry, pun unintentional – though is it even a pun in this case?), but the choice of paper or cloth towel was a nice touch, as was the availability of hand moisturiser, which is a product that a nice lady who was trying to flog hand moisturiser down the mall told me off for never having used before. And I still haven't used any because real men have hands that are as cracked and tough as the floor of the Gobi if it was made from leather. 

Really, there are two reasons for a wee photo or two of these toilets (again, not on purpose): the very literally conceived toilet art (blurrily captured in the photos – they were classy sketches) and the super-weird urinals, which had a big step right in front of them. No-one really knew how to deal with that. To step up or pee from a distance? I think most of the users just saw it as a chance to show off and opted for distance, usually standing further back than was really necessary to demonstrate their range and power. I did have an entire conversation with a guy about the step while he was peeing, but as he was looking at me constantly while holding his penis in one of his hands I felt too uncomfortable to actually take in any of what he was saying. I think he was saying that they troubled him too. Anyway, nice toilets. 

Maybe you should set up a guest scoring system, separate from your own. But ridiculous, obviously, to ensure that all those who are not full members of the Privy Counsel are suitably belittled and aware of their low station. I'm not feeling very creative at the moment but, hmm, like, I award the above male water closet the score of Tesco's Finest 100% recycled toilet paper (possibly not a thing), though I know it probably read more like a Toilet Duck Fresh Gel Discs Lavender.

Toilet art.

That guy did have great technique. In fairness. 

And you really don't have to post what I said verbatim, if it ever goes on the site. Feel free to express what I said in your own inimitable style. And that second paragraph really wasn't part of the review, if you do put it on your website in any form. If it was, I would have spent more time thinking about a suitably shite scoring system. 

Irish toilet art.

The Privy Counsellor: ZOMG. That's amazing! Just what we need - as we've just said in the blog post we're writing, not very successfully due to getting distracted by photos of Richard Armitage, so to speak at the time of writing, our obsession with Richard Armitage renders us intellectually handicapped and differently abled to write blog posts that reach the stringent standards of intellectualism which the Privy Counsel, believe it or not, usually strives to uphold.
We've been praying for a long rambling Friend post with pictures and - GADZOOKS, EGAD - an alternative scoring system! The mind boggles! is this a new toilet-blog paradigm in the making?

Just one question: Where was the wedding? And yes, wedding toilets are totally a separate category, though we've never had Friend Toilet Photos before, so - GORBLIMEY - this is, like, totally revolutionary!!! 

Hang on, we think [Obsessive Emmerdale Fan Friend] just sent us more pictures of Richard Armitage...

Oh. It was a picture of Eoin McLove. *goes back to looking at Richard Armitage fan blogs* 

All good things come in threes?

Semi-Intellectual Friend: "I smell wee!" Timeless classic. 

The wedding was in Rathmullan House, a cunningly named hotel in Rathmullan, county Donegal. It was actually awesome. My uncle not only had the good sense and decency to make me one of his best men (a post I qualify for through interpersonal skills and latent Scrabble skills [well, I assume they're latent; not having played much Scrabble I'm not too sure, but I expect them to pop right out when the world finally gets up the confidence to challenge me to a game]), but he also hired out the entire hotel, which enabled everyone to get blind drunk in peace.

I fully expect your harnessing of the alternative scoring system to raise toilet-blogging to new heights, as a genre, pastime and formative new-world ideology.

The Privy Counsellor: Wedding sounds like it was really good, though we have a sneaking suspicion that you mentioned Scrabble just to annoy us.

Semi-Intellectual Friend: Re: Scrabble. I only do most things to annoy you. Even when you're not around (admittedly, almost always), I'm doing things like preferring hand dryers over recycled paper towels in the hopes that the negative impact of such an act will be chain-reactioned through all the atoms of our existence and push a small stone into your shoe when you're running, just at the exact moment your foot hits the ground (yeah! that was me). 

I'm such a fool. I can hear my friends in the next room having a discussion about how Luxembourg's toilet rolls are the best in the world and I'm in here trying to understand the semantics of the name Thor in Iceland, a subject I am totally unequipped to consider.

Apparently you can just flush them or something. They're exceptionally biodegradable.

Ireland: A place of eerie, haunting beauty.

As regular readers will know, wedding toilet pictures are totally a sub-genre. Check out ours here: Weddings.

Somehow we feel like we should end this mind-bogglingly excellent post with a festive video.

Festive video: Mitchell and Webb, Posh Dancing

Related Reading

(Don't) Aim for the Stars

HTFU: A Journey Through an Australian Dunny

Hwæt! For Better Or for Worse, Whether There Is a Toilet-Roll Holder Or Not, Etc.

A Charming Domestic Vignette from Intellectual Friend, and Musings on Intellectual Safety
AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! AIR-DRYERS!

A Charming Domestic Vignette from Intellectual Friend, and Musings on Intellectual Safety

Intellectual Friend has been rather prominent on everyone's favourite toilet blog lately (see for instance the post Blurry, Lop-Sided Archive Musings, and Cuteness, Intellectual Solace, and a Correction), and continues to be so. This is a boon to an intellectually weary toilet blogger and, we imagine, to intellectually and otherwisely curious blog readers, eager for edification and amusement. Let us have, for this is what we have on offer, a charming little vignette of domestic life at Intellectual friend's and Danish Friend's abode. Intellectual Friend writes, referring to our recent, well, for want of a better word, orgy, in Intellectual Friend's literary efforts:

Hurrah for everlasting fame, glory and renown!! And many thanks for upholding my by now mythically legendary intellectual reputation (which also conveniently allows me from time to time, I suppose, to not live up to it at all and yet still pretend to deserve it, if need be by invoking the truth-transcending quality of myth and the fact that legendary things are true insofar as one doesn't actually check if they are actually true)! 

As to less publishable news (notwithstanding some implicit typological relation to toilets), that have somewhat less to do with either romance or intellect and rather more with man's pragmatic everyday struggle for survival in this perilous world, our bathroom door underwent a comprehensive, unidirectional and irreversible latch failure this morning at 7 am, and this occurred regrettably, as fate would have it, while I was actually inside and intending to be out, and so was operating the fateful handle-latch-bolt mechanism, being urged (me, and not in the least the impassive mechanism) by prospects of an impending and much-needed rich breakfast. In other words, the bathroom had locked me in like a damp burial chamber, and, after trying some of those old burglar tricks one sees in films, none of which worked due to our bathroom door having been designed to successfully resist attempts at breaking out from within as well as in from without, I embarked on an epic and merciless combat lasting three quarters of an hour, and, with the crucial help of an able wife accomplice passing me arrays of weapons through the arrowslit window, I eventually hacked and stabbed and speared and nailed and bit and tore my way out, leaving a decimation of bent and slaughtered metal debris and a desolation of harassed and ruined wood shards and choppings behind me, through the vicious and ruthless employment of a kitchen knife and a sturdy screwdriver.

Our recent baffling, inexplicable, and mostly non-plumbing-related obsession with Richard Armitage renders us at present distracted, incoherent and absent-minded, but even we, in our intellectually unaccountable state, realise that a charming vignette needs an illustration.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a 15th-century aquamanile, used for the washing of hands at table.
Image from Pinterest.

Does this lovely aquamanile remind us of something? Does it ever! It reminds us of the lavoire, on which Intellectual Friend expounded most eloquently and intellectually, for the benefit of all our regular readers in the Academic Excesses post.

The lovely lavoire from Malmöhus museum.
Image from The Privy Counsel.

We feel safe knowing that Intellectual Friend remains ever intellectual, ever acute, not relaxing for a moment his ceaseless vigilance against ignorance and academic inaccuracy. This vigilance allows us to occasionally let down our own intellectual guard, and safely indulge in fan blogs devoted to Richard Armitage, while planning our upcoming Privy Counsel Pin-Up post.

Also, speaking of intellectual vigilance, we've got an exciting, incendiary, ground-breaking, paradigm-smashing post from Semi-Intellectual Friend coming up!

Related Reading
Blurry, Lop-Sided Archive Musings
Cuteness, Intellectual Solace, and a Correction
Lavoire of Love
Academic Excesses
Privy Counsel Pin-Ups

Blurry, Lop-Sided Archive Musings

Since writing the below, we've sobered up, got drunk again and engaged in what we're pretty sure qualifies as line-dancing. You only live once.

Egad, corblimey and plain out zounds! what a week it's been! We've been working semi-productively on an etymological mystery with Intellectual Friend, heard some good news from Obsessive Emmerdale Fan Friend, and generally experienced a reasonable amount of thrilling tidings, semi-unbridled festiveness and joie de vivre!  (And only part of that joie de vivre is beer-induced.)
Another thing that's been adding fizziness to the Privy Counsel atmosphere is burrowing into the archives at Arkivcentrum Syd. This festive archive, filled literally to the rafters with exciting material and friendly staff, isn't far from our favourite university library, the Lund University Library - one of the toilets of which we have privately dedicated to Intellectual Friend, in homage to his giant intellect! (A truly dazzling intellect deserves its own honorary toilet, surely?)
Also, we are simply bursting with delight to tell you, the toilets at Arkivcentrum Syd are excellent. No relative, maybe, hmm-let's-think-about-it caution here - these toilets are truly spiffing!
Enjoy:

We regret that modern technology has, once again, thrown a spanner
into the works. If you find this sideways toilet perspective enjoyable,
see Gleeful Antics at Grays Court.

Check this out! Mixer tap, cleanliness and gleaming hygiene as far as the eye can see!

We fucking love these doorhandles.
They're easy to use, and you can operate them with your elbow, meaning
you don't have to recontaminate your hands by touching the doorhandle
after painstakingly washing your hands.
If you enjoy opening doors with your elbow, see our OCD label.

Isn't that lovely!

Woof! UNBLEACHED PAPER TOWELS IN A STYLISH HOLDER!
If you enjoy paper towels, see our post called AAAAAAARGH!

Here's the sink again. Christ, it's lovely.

AND HERE'S THE BEST THING OF ALL! TOILET ART!!!

This painting, displayed in the Arkvicentrum cloakroom,
is by a chap called Peter Lundström. It's entitled Orpheus Street.
(N.b. the painting is also sideways, due to technical errors.)

Another painting (also show here sideways), by the same artist, is called Mossbury Road.
We find the in-your-face boldness of the non-integrated tap refreshing!

We hope you enjoyed that glimpse of scholarly toilets! Speaking of which, Intellectual Friend sent us a line after we published his oh-so-intellectual justification for ill-advisedly using the word cute:

"What a pleasure to get published, almost instantly, and without even being asked to make corrections to over-rambling sentences and lack of supporting references, and all this in a cutting-edge, no doubt world-leading bog blog, where, on top of everything else, one even gets a brilliant editorial foreword, afterword, and epilogue to one's ramblings! "

Anyone for a festive video to finish off all this gusto, brio and joie de vivre? Because we shook our boots to the un-feminist version of this song on the dancefloor last night, we have a strong urge to play the feminist version, in order to restore the balance of the universe. The lyrics seem strangely appropriate: 

We are scholastic
Smart and sarcastic 

Not fucking plastic

"Law Revue Girls want to define those supposedly 'blurred lines'."

Related Reading

Lund University Library: Festschrift to Intellectual Friend

Cuteness, Intellectual Solace, and a Correction

AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! AIR-DRYERS!

The Intellectual Streak Continues: Leeds University Library Bogs, or, Yorkshire Graffitti

More Intellectual-Friend-Related sideways toilets:

Gleeful Antics at Grays Court

A Toilet Mystery