Whether You Want It Or Not: Super Summer Extravaganza!

It has been decreed by Privy Counsel headquarters that you deserve (the choice is yours whether to view this as benevolence or hostility) a super summer extravaganza blog post, and thus, whether you want it or not, and whether getting one is even in your best interests, you are getting a super summer extravaganza blog post! 

We have a lot of photos of toilets to get through, so we'd better get started before the leaves fall from the trees and the bears (those mythical creatures who, according to a popular idiom, crap in the woods) go to hibernate, the lucky fuckers, while the rest of us have to continue getting the bus to work in darkness while trying not to freeze our toes or other extremities off, spend the day under fluorescent lights engaged in meetings with people who can't form coherent sentences, then go home in the dark only to find that the cheese has gone mouldy and women STILL don't count as humans.

Let us keep the darkness, metaphorical as well as literal, at bay, however, by focusing on metaphorical (and, in the case of the northern latitudes, unremittingly literal at this time of year, actually) sunlight: We have a special treat for you today! Regular readers will remember with fondness and admiration past posts by Intellectual Friend. Well, hold on to your hats and make sure your toilet roll is turned the right way around - here is a new contribution from that worthy intellectual! From Greenland, no less!

I thought I would show you this private toilet, which I saw (and wincingly made use of) in a forlorn settlement called Oqaatsut, latitude 69 N, population 40 not counting a couple hundred sleddogs.

It is I believe the cosiest loo I have encountered so far in such a context (the context being the lack of running water, no sewage system (the skybound pipe behind the seat merely serving as a mildly efficient vent and stench suppressor) and the undiggability of the frozen ground).

Black plastic bag in the toilet bowl/barrel.
Suspicious yellow-tinted meltwater in the washbasin.

Helpful inscription on the wall above, "Uunga errorit", which can be interpreted as meaning "Wash here" (an injunction which I did not feel inclined to obey, especially as I had my hand sanitizer to hand), where -it is the imperative 2nd pers. sing. ending.
There was no toilet paper; but if there had been any, I'd assume by analogy with other lavatories in the country that the roll would be lying on a mouldy windowsill or on the actual and clammy floor at the very foot of the toilet. Note however the ingeniously placed wooden soapholder (what passed for soap in there looked however very unattractive) and also the purple hook and festive handknitted towel.

I should add that I failed to obtain prior permission to take this sneaky photo, partly because our host, a venerable lady and oldest dweller in said settlement, could only speak Greenlandic (and some thick dialect of it at that), so that technically it might be a case of rape and abuse of one's privacy and private property, such as it is, although I'm no expert.

But the brave old lady had cooked us lunch, bless her, and she sat and watched us eat it with great interest. [Name omitted], the only fluent speaker of Greenlandic among us, mostly declined to engage in conversation with the host, leaving the hyggelig/lagom atmosphere to thicken up to its natural slightly awkward density.

It was a more or less planned stop we had on a little sailing trip which we took out of Ilulissat, a town to the north where we spent Easter. And here for the sake of variation are a few other pics from that Oqaatsut settlement and around: the [...] house of our host [omitted due to privacy concerns], a bleak view of the village, the worthy old vessel in which we were sailed thereto, and an icefell or two.

We've seen a lot of primitive toilets in our day (for instance, this one or why not ponder this one or indeed this one), and Intellectual Friend's bog description does not scare us; being situated, as it is, in a context of rugged wilderness and base survival. Continuing the theme of rugged wilderness, but in a location which offers no excuse not to offer hygiene and comfort, let's have a look at the toilets at Tugg, a hipster burger place in Lund, Sweden, where we went one sunny day with Australian Friend.

You'd think that Lund, this eminent university town, would produce nothing but civilised functionality, but you'd be wrong. Our main critique of Tugg has heretofore centred on the fact that whoever designed this eatery decided to put metal chairs on a cement floor. Why people choose to make the surroundings in which people are supposed to eat actively unpleasant and potentially damaging to one's hearing is beyond us. Then we went to check out the loos and are subsequently also wondering why anyone would choose to make a toilet unnecessarily difficult to use, due to an inexplicable urge to pander to the 19th-century farmyard aesthetic. Let's show you what we mean.

Here is the toilet. Note the bare walls (nothing wrong with bare walls as such), the minimalist loo (again, nothing wrong with this for now), the weird and flimsy curtain stopping people outside from being able to look in, and the toilet rolls which, albeit plentiful, have worryingly been put into a rustic wooden box. It's not necessarily unhygienic but it's not exactly indicative of cleanliness either.

There are no paper towels; instead, brown (why brown? Why? Does anybody actually like the colour brown?) cloth towels have been placed in another rustic wooden box, this time placed reassuringly high up on the wall.

There are two bins; one for the brown (whyyyy?) towels, another for other waste. This is all fine.

 Now it's starting to get scary. The cistern for the toilet is an old-timey one on the wall, with a metal wire that needs to be pulled for flushing. Burlington is a Swedish brand with a nice-looking website that offers no information whatsoever about why one should use this type of cistern, whether it's in any way water-saving, or whether it's considered disability-friendly.

 The tap offers so many different types of horror that the breadth and width of the sum total of the horror is hard for the human intellect to comprehend. It's situated over a cattle-trough-like sink (why, in God's name, do hipsters keep insisting on sinks that look like they might be full of cow drool and half-chewed clumps of grass?) and is literally composed of a water-valve lever handle. It is very much not disability friendly, or indeed friendly to anyone who didn't grow up on a farm in the 19th century and has strong, calloused hands the size of dustbin lids, being very hard to turn. Also, the pipe offers only cold water. Not sure how this conforms to health and safety regulations, if at all. Note the toilet roll placed by the sink, on a wooden surface that is extremely likely to absorb water and breed bacteria, helpfully supplied by the hands touching the toilet roll.

In the manner of people who insist on serving you coffee in a glass, as if they are so far above material things that burn injuries are inconsequential (mugs have handles for a reason?), the architect behind this horror ensemble says, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT WHETHER YOU CAN WASH YOUR HANDS YOU DIRTY PEASANT ALSO STOP STARING AT ME AND GO CLEAN OUT THE OUTDOOR PRIVY NO I DON'T CARE THAT YOU ARE DYING FROM CHOLERA YOU SCURVY MALINGERER".

The door has an old-timey handle and no coat-hook.

The water pipe has a pressure gauge. Personally, we'd have preferred a sane and hygienic tap.

We're grateful that we were in such charming company, or bad things might have happened to our mental state. Swiftly moving on before anyone develops tuberculosis or gangrene of the soul, let's contemplate these interesting pictures from New York, described in Shewee Fiend Friend's characteristically terse staccato style.

Ok I'm in a weird speakeasy

They only have whiskey

And all vegan food

The bathrooms

Are beautiful

But

No paper towel or soap

Not sure how they're supposed to do that without soap
Our waiter left the bathroom before me
Also

 

 I knocked the toilet paper over

Afterwards we went to burp Castle

There are paintings of drunk monks everywhere
The toilet was disappointing

The toilet per se may be disappointing, but we see much entertainment value in the graffiti, for instance the "PODCASTS???" scrawl (we don't see the point in them either - why listen to people breathing weirdly into a microphone when you can get the information much quicker by reading?). Also we enjoy, as ever, almost seeing people.

We asked whether Burp Castle was a typo, but learned that it wasn't:

Nope that's what it's called

It's a monastery esque place

You're not allowed to speak above a whisper

 We suggested that you then "can't get drunk as there would be a great risk of laughing raucously?", and the following pithy exchange took place:

Shewee Fiend Friend: I guess? Unless you are good at getting drunk quietly
Privy Counsel: You might as well just inject yourself with melatonin and go quietly to sleep

 Jonny has been no slouch this summer, sending us many excellent contributions with messages which, readers of this long and pontificating post will be delighted to know, are short to the point of abruptness.

The conversation for this one went as follows:

Privy Counsellor: So many things going on. Care to make any comment?

Jonny: Not at this time.

Privy Counsellor: You have the right to remain silent.

According to the diploma this urinal is located at the Flying Duck in Ilkley, and has been twinned with another toilet somewhere.

Continuing the Ilkley theme, Jonny writes:

Nice toilets

Someone wee'd on the seat which is infuriating

But nice nonetheless

Hamiltons Cafe just out of Ilkley

This reminds us of that time when Shewee Fiend Friend's flatmate "created small pools".

This sink, thankfully, does not resemble a cattle-trough, though the taps are that worrying breed of subjunctive mixer taps.

Semi-Intellectual Friend has also been in touch, offering this commentary on our ongoing Jonny Babe Parade:

Johnny looks shit hot. Shit hotter every time I see him on there in fact. I reckon he's one of those Paul Rudd types that just grows increasingly into their own good looks.

Yes, we naturally asked Semi-Intellectual Friend's permission to share these words, and got the following response:

If you ever want to share my compliments about Jonny on the blog (or any mutual friend (that I've just not met yet)), totally go for it. He's got Hollywood magnetism and the world needs to know about it.

 
Finally, in a triumph of 19th-century farmyard romanticism, we offer this picture of Jonny, dressed as a cowboy, in front of a sink shaped like a cattle-trough.

WE HAVE ONLY ONE THING TO SAY AND THAT IS "GIDDY-UP!!!"

For today's Festive Video, let's have something that evokes the midnight sun and the hope of good plumbing, as well as offering a mild dose of 19th-century barnyard aestheticism (hopefully a mild dose may ensure a vaccinating effect, like cowpox).

Festive Video: Maxida Märak and Downhill Bluegrass Band, Nikesunnas Jojk

Related Reading

All posts featuring Intellectual Friend

On toilet roll orientation: Rocking, Rolling, Ranting 

A medieval lavvy seat: The City Museum in Winchester: Circling the Drain

Yet another medieval lavvy seat, the finding of which was reported in the Guardian, the link to which article was probably sent to us by Shewee Fiend Friend:
Helle's toilet: 12th-century three-person loo seat goes on display

All posts featuring sinks that look like cattle-troughs

All posts featuring Australian Friend

All posts featuring Sheewee Fiend Friend

All posts featuring Almost Seeing People

All posts featuring Jonny

On the difficulty, for some people, to aim: (Don't) Aim for the Stars 

A post in which we hold forth on the topic of subjunctive mixer taps: The Hirschsprung Museum, or, Revising the Status of Denmark, or, Feverish Paranoia

All posts featuring Semi-Intellectual Friend

Things That Are Better Than Elvis

We don't know what your neck of the woods is like, but round our way there has been vigorous galloping in many directions, and enthusiastic cries of tally-ho! have been heard all over the realm. There has been frantic activity, not all of it related to escaping homicidal horror-clowns. Amid all the confusion, Shewee Fiend Friend accidentally agreed with us on two things, one of which was music-related. We know. It was a shock for everyone involved. Right now we're having a metaphorical sit-down in the shade, panting feebly and guzzling reassuring amounts of gin.

Shewee Fiend Friend went to a diner in North America recently, and sent us pictures with helpful and enlightening captions. The toilets in the diner in question were reassuringly sex-segregated, meaning that Shewee Fiend Friend felt safe throughout her visit. We've talked quite a lot about the horror of forcing women to share intimate spaces with people who a) are on average significantly larger and stronger physically, and b) commit 98 % of all acts of sexual violence. However, we'd still like to take this opportunity to recommend this excellent summary on why mixed-sex toilets are awful for women by Woman's Place UK, and also this one by Holly Lawford Smith.

Allez, en piste! Shewee Fiend Friend writes:

Inside it was pretty cool. Lots of 50s shit

Every table had a personal jukebox
I played Video killed the radio star Not Elvis
The bathrooms. Phenomenal

You enter this little vestibule from which you can enter one of two toilets
 

If you look closely, you'll see women's is marked doubly
I like that

 Same for men's

 And in case it wasn't clear, the doors go to the floor

Very pleasant and reasonably clean. Above right was a sturdy coat hook

The joy of almost seeing people is present in this photo!

 The comforting reminder that employees must wash hands

(I don't know why Americans have these signs everywhere. I find it disquieting that employees need to be reminded)

And finally, just in case it wasn't clear

Wasn't that wonderful? We feel somehow safe and clean, which is how we like to be if at all possible.

A friend who we might refer to, for the sake of convenience and also accuracy, as Nerdy Beer Obsessive Friend, sent us this festive photo from a place in Helsingborg, Sweden, that provides culture for the people.

Mmm, let's have some more of that almost seeing people joy! Hurrah!

Now for a Jonny Babe Parade photo. For reasons to which we are not privy, Jonny is going through a Peaky Blinders phase. The result is most pleasing. We don't know where this photo was taken, and we also don't care.

Woof!

The thing about getting older is that one realises there are things that are better than Elvis. For instance, sex-segregated toilets. Also one realises that there are a fuckload of Elvis songs that other people did long before Elvis, and that are actually much better. Today's Festive Video is one example.

Festive Video: Big Mama Thornton, Hound Dog


Related Reading

An excellent summary of why mixed-sex toilets are awful for women, by Woman's Place UK:
Why Gender-Neutral Toilets Don't Work for Women 

Another excellent summary of the issue by Holly Lawford Smith:
Should Companies Install Gender Neutral Bathrooms?

Some previous Privy Counsel posts on the horror of mixed-sex toilets, which can be summarised with  the words a) NOBODY WANTS TO ELBOW THEIR WAY THROUGH A SEA OF BEARDED HIPSTERS TO GET TO THE SINK and also b) HARDEN THE FUCK UP AND GIVE THE WOMEN THEIR OWN FUCKING TOILET:

Divide [the Toilets] and Conquer [One of a Multitude of Aspects of Women's Subjugation to Male Violence]

"Let Them Eat Cake" - Could It Be Any More Obvious That a Man Designed These Toilets?
 
Stockholm Central Station: The Trauma Is So Great We Are Brought To Quoting Cicero

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

All posts featuring Jonny

Springing a Leak

It seems improbable, at the arse end of February, that you will ever see sunlight again, or do anything more constructive than sit wrapped up in your duvet, rocking back and forth and eating cheese. The memories of last summer's carefree, open-air gin consumption seem like a dream at best, or at worst a cruel and sadistic joke by our robot overlords who may well be amusing themselves by implanting false memories into what passes for our brain these days - we can't prove that they're not. Still, the world keeps turning round the sun and soon enough the birds are tooting in the shrubberies and various species of wildlife are doing unspeakable things to each other in the grounds and messuages. Spring is here, and there are signs of life from various corners of the world. Semi-Intellectual Friend, for instance, sprang this stark and surprising message on us:

Holy shit. I assume the internet is all over sending you stuff like this but biiiiig feature on hand towels vs dryers in the Guardian today:  

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/25/hand-dryers-paper-towels-hygiene-dyson-airblade

[...]

Also noticed a link to an older story about bowel movements near the bottom (fnar) of the page:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/nov/30/bowel-movement-change-the-way-you-poo-squatty-potty-toilet

Is the Guardian trying to make a move on Privy Counsel? Maybe you could sell out and make your millions.

Regarding the hand-dryer-versus-paper-towels issue, there are good arguments on both sides. We reckon it's one of those things where you just have to pick a side, and stick to it, belligerently. We've made our views on air dryers known, and will most likely maintain our opinion, even if presented with evidence that we are wrong, until old age and senility make the matter moot. Be advised that we are prepared to defend our viewpoint in a bout of bare-knuckle fighting. Bring your own gin.

When it comes to bowel movements and the worry that sitting on a toilet is "unnatural" compared to the "natural" method of squatting on the ground, we think it's mostly Brits who agonise about this. Possibly also Germans. (More research is possibly needed on which nationalities, exactly, are afflicted by this particular anxiety.) Personally we are very fond of the allaturca or squat toilet, but we by no means feel the need to purchase the "wildly popular seven-inch-high plastic stool, designed by a devout Mormon and her son, which curves around the base of your loo".

Is the Guardian trying to make a move on the Privy Counsel? What a fascinating question. What do our readers think? Feel free to drop us a fan letter in the form of a five-paragraph essay, either arguing for or against, or discussing the different viewpoints. Don't forget to summarise your views in a neat conclusion.

On avance. We're sorry to inform you that we've had another disagreement with Shewee Fiend Friend. Though most of the time we are as two giant brains pulsating as one, sometimes we have different opinions about things. Last time we counted, we came to the conclusion that we disagree on a total of nine things. (We're fucked if we can remember what those nine things are, but remember our terror when we realised that the powerful magical number nine was involved. We're not free of superstition at the Privy Counsel, however intellectual we purport to be.) Our latest clash was regarding the toilet doors at Vancouver Airport. Shewee Fiend Friend thought they were great, we thought not. We shall present you with the evidence, so that you can form your own opinion and stick to it, belligerently.

Possibly an entirely inoffensive toilet. We can't quite tell from this photo. The tiles are nice, though.

If you enjoy almost seeing people, here's your chance to go hog wild!

We do like the fact that these doors look like they lead into a Wild West saloon, but why do people insist on designing toilet doors that don't go all the way down to the ground? Our guess is, a man did this.

We can't fault these hooks. They're fucking excellent hooks.

The conversation went as follows:

Shewee Fiend Friend:
Vancouver airport loo is swank

Privy Counsellor:
They are very good hooks
I shall make a note of this.
Thank you for sharing the picture of the excellent hooks

[...]

PC:
Swanky, but don't go all the way up to the ceiling or all the way down to the floor
#fail #YouHadOneJob
Nice and bright, but why do they do that horrible material in the sinks that looks like grubby cement

SFF:
It's sparkly [the Privy Counsellor]
I love it
Sigh
So critical
The doors were super nice 
They looked all woodsy/cabiny

PC:
Yes but they're not noise-insulating

And that's the end of that fascinating academic debate, because at this point we went on to discuss something completely different.

Finally, we've got a build-up of enticing pictures of Jonny that we should publish before there's a blockage.

The first picture comes with this comment:

I did an art piece
It’s dark tho
Viewer discretion advised
It’s called Beauty and the Beast
The [non-] mixer taps are the beast and it think it’s obvious who the beauty is

We couldn't agree more! Woof!

The next set of pictures is summarised by these words:

Somewhere in London
Too drunk to take note where
There was a dog in the bar too so extra points

Feeling single, seeing double?

Well, this is a very nice sink, good tap, and unobjectionable hand soap. Why do people insist on making counters out of wood, though? There is a reason why the traditional materials are porcelain or stainless steel - they're easy to clean and FUCKING HYGIENIC. Wood absorbs water, making for a germ-friendly environment and has plenty of crevices for bacteria to fester in.

JONNY TOILET SELFIE WOOF!

We can't tell if we approve of this saloon-style door or not, as it lacks context.

The graffiti comment says, "We evolved to walk upright and use cutlery".

Actually, now we check our archive, we discover that there is a metric fuck-ton of toilet selfies from Jonny that we have forgotten about, due to the horror, trauma and gin consumption of recent times. We don't wish to overwhelm you with wonder and awe, so we'll save those ones for whenever we next find ourselves inspired by the gin fairy.

Let us finish with a festive video. We enjoyed, when in Budapest recently, a very nice and intellectual lunch with Lithuanian Friend and her intellectual colleagues. One of them sends his regards to the Privy Counsel's readers, and a video! It relates to our musings on the German toilet shelf, which is apparently rife in the Hungarian capital, and about which we poured forth appalled comments at some length in our post about that city. We're not sure we agree with any of the points made in the video, but it might potentially be considered an amusing political commentary. Apparently, the above-mentioned intellectual colleague says to keep in mind that the drawings are not correct.

Festive Video: Hermeneutics of toilets by Slavoj Žižek


Related Reading

Some other times when we enthused about the arrival of spring:
Cracking Some Suds in Kreuzberg

In Which We Express Our Gratitude to Electricians Springing into Action

All posts featuring Semi-Intellectual Friend 

Our opinion on air dryers:
AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH AIR DRYERS 

All posts featuring the allaturca toilet 

A blog post on the wonderful things that happen when men don't design fucking everything:
Caitlin Moran Really Does Make Everything Better

According to this post, we described the horror of recent times "with plenty of poetic expression but not a whisper of a scintilla of an iota of hyperbole", in this post:
Hungary: Dubious Shelf-Life

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

All posts featuring airports

All posts featuring Jonny
For the benefit of all the hipsters out there whose aesthetic and hygienic ideal is a 19th-century farm yard, we hereby remind our readers of the existence of the
CHOLERA BABE PARADE

Also another post featuring cholera

Also a toilet letter from the 19th century reminding us of the lack of public facilities, and wide variety of hygiene-related horrors that people endured until very recently

Another post in which we despair at the  possible conspiracy by hipsters to make everything look like 19th-century farm equipment:
Stockholm Central Station: The Trauma Is So Great We Are Brought To Quoting Cicero
 
All posts featuring Lithuanian Friend

A Wild International Toilet Journey, Possibly Incorporating Sacrilege

We described in our last post, with plenty of poetic expression but not a whisper of a scintilla of an iota of hyperbole, our work situation. Said work situation is the reason our oh! so intellectual yet firmly grounded in common sense bog-blogging, beloved by really quite a few people, not all of whom are imaginary, has regrettably been reduced to a sad, slow trickle, only faintly reminiscent of the mighty river that once roared through the barren badlands that comprise the sum total of factual yet humorous toilet blogs, vitalising the dry banks and causing the desert to bloom.

We are blessed in having many humorous yet intellectual friends to keep us, if not sane then at least functioning (to a greater or lesser degree, depending on time of day and level of sobriety). Said friends keep sending us amusing and/or horrifying toilet pictures, and currently we are at the point where we simply must use these pictures or be crushed under a thundering avalanche of porcelain imagery. Hence we are simply going to post the pictures currently languishing in our archive, without any thought as to coherence or even sanity.

First up are a wonderful collection of photos from a dear friend of ours who is a nearly finished physician. She asked if we are still blogging about toilets and hygiene, and continued to tell us about her travels to Malaysia and Singapore. The toilets there, she says, are always clean and nice. Our friend also reflects that it is important that toilets be easily accessible and clean. The first pictures are from Gardens by the Bay, in Singapore, which establishment, our friend assures us, sported "proper clean and nice toilets".

Next we are treated to pictures of a toilet in Malaysia, "probably from a karaoke bar". We are, as regular readers are aware, not fond of cubicles, but these cubicle doors at least have the grace and decency to be colourful.

Finally we are treated to these photos from the airport in Kuala Lumpur.

Our friend notes with approval that the bins have one of those lids with a flip chute, so that you are not forced to view the contents of the bin when discarding your sanitary product. We also approve of these, and have ranted in the past about the fact that so many toilet designers assume that one has the use of both - or even three, or more - hands when operating a bin, being blissfully ignorant of the fact that it is rather hard to flip a lid when one or both hands are covered in blood and you are crouched weirdly in an insane toilet stall CLEARLY DESIGNED BY A MAN, trying not to bleed on your clothes, your shoes, or the wall.

We observed once in Copenhagen that having a foot-operable bin makes it approximately 180 % easier to not smear blood on everything in one's vicinity, and concluded that letting women design things would vastly improve the world. (See also Caitlin Moran's "If" poem, based on the line "If you can change your tampon in the toilet of a moving train".) Note to male designers everywhere: WOMEN HAVE ONLY TWO HANDS.

Our friend concludes her very enjoyable toilet odyssey with the words "These were all the pictures I took before I left my phone in a taxi and never found it".

Next up, we have pictures of a beautiful yet mysterious toilet in Amsterdam!

A friend of ours who is a midwife and a rampant feminist explains that this toilet is in the old first-class waiting room at Amsterdam Central Station, which is now a bistro. She adds:

Den stora frågan är ju om det är en duva med kronan över - i så fall har jag ju kissat på den helige ande

[The main question is if this is a dove with a crown - in that case I weed on the holy spirit]

Tycker mer det liknar en papegoja

[I think it looks more like a parrot]

 We are inclined to agree that the bird in question is a parrot - perhaps an Indonesian one? It appears that parrots where a common motif in Dutch art from the 17th century. We have also found evidence of at least one porcelain cockatoo associated with the Netherlands - perhaps this emblem of luxury worked its way, over the centuries, onto the porcelain of a toilet bowl? Certainly parrots and other exotic animals were frequently used as decorative elements on Dutch tiles in the 17th century. Why the parrot should be graced with a - presumably royal - crown is still a mystery to us, however. According to the internet, the restaurant in question has an actual parrot living on the premises, though we wonder what came first - the parrot or the bog?

Finally, we offer these pictures from a toilet in Prague:

 We asked the friend who sent these pictures a simple, yet searingly relevant question:

WHY?

The reply? 

I don't know. That's just the way it is.

 And that, dear readers, summarises the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. Many thanks to our kind friends for sending us these pictures, which warmed our heart and lit up the darkness during very troubled times.

Let's have a Festive Video that not only continues the avian theme but soothes a troubled soul. We find this song comforting when things get too crazy. It was originally written and performed by Blaze Foley, but we find that we prefer this version by John Prine.

Festive Video: John Prine, Clay Pigeons


Related Reading

All posts featuring Singapore

Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend's rather fabulous report from Singapore, into which we managed to squeeze a not inconsiderable amount of feminist ranting: All Mouth and No Trousers - Sichuan Food in Singapore

All posts featuring Malaysia

A post featuring a really great bin: Caitlin Moran Really Does Make Everything Better

Another post in which we rant about things designed by men: "Let Them Eat Cake" - Could It Be Any More Obvious That a Man Designed These Toilets?

Caitlin Moran reading the poem "If" I Were a Woman

All posts featuring delftware

All posts featuring the Czech Republic

Another post featuring a song by Blaze Foley: Cuteness, Intellectual Solace, and a Correction