Monday 16 August 2021

Ennui; or, A New Ease from Now On

 Quoth the poet: No retreat, baby, no surrender! We don't know what your coffee table looks like, but ours has a pile of books intended for summer reading the thickness of roughly three paper editions of the OED, of which we have read about one finger's breadth since June; every time we try to peruse a page we fall asleep. Writing, under these conditions, is a challenge to say the least. Still, this is not an apology, nor even an explanation, for our perhaps paltry bog blog post production of late. It is merely a preamble to the main business, which is -

- well hell, we don't know. Ennui? As Morrissey said, "I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and heaven knows I'm miserable now", or as Al Swearengen put it with perhaps rather more force, "Many times that's what the fuck life is: One vile fucking task after another". What with our current consumption of coffee and opioids, not to mention our customary preoccupation with syphilis, one would be hard pressed to say whether we are at risk of turning into a Romantic poet. Time will, no doubt, tell.

Be that as it may, we have some rather competent original content to delight and enlighten you with today. Shewee Fiend Friend, that intrepid straddler of time zones, has been to Amsterdam Airport again. Has she, in fact, blessed this international travel hub with her presence more times than any human now living? The regularity and vigour, indeed, with which Shewee Fiend Friend visits the main airport of the Netherlands is spectacular to the point of being worrying. It's almost as if she is gripped by some sort of fit, or seizure, exclaiming, "I'm going to Amsterdam Airport!" and then, as P. G. Wodehouse would arguably put it, sort of goes to Amsterdam Airport. Medical science will possibly never advance far enough to give us the answer; we'll have to content ourselves with drinking more coffee, and perusing these pictures. Here is Shewee Fiend Friend's review of what she argues is the best public toilet she has ever experienced.


I excitedly told the wrong audience ([Person whose apathy [was] so severe he didn’t even have critique]) that the Amsterdam airport’s toilet was the best public toilet I had experienced

Now I shall correct that error, at 4:30am because I’m jet lagged and can’t sleep of course

 

So lovely to enter a clean room with clearly marked doors that extend from floor to relatively high ceiling




The stall has these 5 wood coathooks of varying sizes

Honestly most were too big to be of any use with a backpack but they are very aesthetically pleasing. But you just need one. And if you’ve got a purse they’d be great

 

This device was chock full of paper and I love the seat sanitizer


 

Look at this bin placement. By the door. Amazing. My thigh did not press uncomfortably against it


 

So much space. Fun flush



Totally fine sinks

Nothing too fancy, just all very very efficient and comfortable

There is no limit, it seems, to the energetic antics of our friends. Jonny (who counts as a friend for administrative reasons) has an important contribution to make to the debate (is it still a debate if it has been settled that there is a wrong and a right way of doing things and the right way has been established and described at length?) on toilet roll orientation.

Schrödinger's bog roll?

One for your next correct hanging position debate

We note that whether this roll is hung correctly depends on the position of Jonny. If he is to the right of the roll it is hung correctly, but if he moves to the left, a large neon sign will, morally, erect itself, so to speak, over the latrine trench and scream, in large, frantic lettering, "ERROR! ERROR! FLEE!". Also, we would like to take this opportunity of informing Jonny that, whatever one's views on toilet roll orientation, one should never position oneself under the roots of an uprooted tree as it, we have been informed by a reliable source, may turn over again and crush one, under its root system, into clumps of soil. This is not a fate that we would wish on this bog blog's main contributor of toilet selfies. Or, arguably, anyone else.

Jonny has also excelled himself in the "rugged handsomeness with rustic hand-dryer and grit on the floor" genre of toilet photography, and submitted what might be the hottest bog selfie of 2021!

Is your mind boggled? Ours is!

Some random bar last night!

As regular readers will be all too aware, we are fans of clear signage at the Privy Counsel. If you, too, enjoy a) clear signage and b) men in rugged lumberjack shirts using authoritative body language, then brace yourself!

In a Thai restaurant I can't spell the name of

Chaophraya

There was a sign


Lovely bin

Poorly used

"Lovely bin - poorly used" might be the first line of a really great haiku about hygiene and the futility of human endeavour, if anyone felt like writing it. We would, but we are rather busy at the moment with the kind of crazy, overcompensatory coping mechanisms that you develop when you, for complicated reasons, can't walk, sit, or sleep. So fuck off, darlings, and leave us alone.

Oh yes, the Festive Video. We were possibly rather hasty, there, with our exhortation to our audience to fuck off. If you'd like, you can postpone the off-fucking for a couple of minutes and listen to this great song. It's a funny fact, we have observed, that even as you become increasingly conservative with age, you also become more of a hippy. Thus we have, with advancing years, developed a fascination with the moon, going so far as to stand outside staring at it, boring our friends with remarks about its whereabouts, sometimes even going so far as to comment on its colour and size, and downloading an app. Yes, it's that bad. Anyway, the app helpfully informed us yesterday, or if it was the day before, that there is now a quarter moon. Enjoy.



 Festive Video: Emmylou Harris, Easy From Now On. (You may also enjoy this version from the Netherlands.)


Related Reading

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

All posts featuring Jonny 

The original post explaining the science of toilet roll orientation







 

 

 

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