Hungary: Dubious Shelf Life

You know how sometimes your workplace turns into a piece of surrealist theatre of the scary, nightmarish kind, with land mines hidden in a muddy field surrounded by barbed wire that you have to traverse at night in the rain while being jeered at by homicidal horror clowns churning out Excel documents with distressing mis-spellings and being forced to solve abstract maths problems with your hands and feet shackled while an orchestra of deformed, plague-infested children plays Andrew Lloyd Webber numbers on rusty brass instruments covered in slimy snails to the accompaniment of the anguished screams of amputees being forced to endure team-building exercises on a rail replacement bus, all the while being observed by a group of toothless sex offenders scratching their fungus-infested nails on a blackboard? Yep. That's been our work environment for the past two and a half months.

Luckily we went on a much-needed mini break to Budapest recently, to visit Lithuanian Friend, and are pleased to report that Hungarian plumbing appears to be entirely satisfactory; toilets are hygienic and well-equipped. Innocent tourists frolicking in the land of cabbage-rich food beware, however: Lithuanian Friend warned us that Hungarian toilets are prone to exhibiting the dreaded German-style toilet shelf!

[we pause briefly here to give everyone time to utter loud primal screams of fear]

We noted with interest when skiing some years ago that while you would find the Italian-style allaturca toilets in Italy, they would be absent just across the border in Switzerland. When skiing, in other words, one could encounter vastly different toilet cultures on the same day, in the same mountain range. Clearly in the Alps, culture trumps geography when it comes to porcelain design. Likewise in Hungary, though they don't speak a Germanic or even an Indo-European language, people apparently feel enough affinity with German culture, or at least the toilet-related parts, to embrace the toilet shelf enthusiastically. 

The history of the toilet shelf, meanwhile, is somewhat murky. From the various blog posts and articles that we could find in the shadier corners of the internet, it appears the toilet shelf is intended to either 

a) facilitate inspection of faeces in order to be able to discuss colour and consistency with one's physician (unless one suffers from colon cancer, why?), friends (why on Earth??) and family (WHY, IN GOD'S NAME, WHY?), or 

b) reduce splashback, which apparently fills Germans with bacteriophobic terror. Possibly a combination of a) and b) may account for this strange and off-putting phenomenon. Unfortunately not even Der Spiegel was able to illuminate this turbid aspect of German culture, and perhaps that is for the best. It seems, however, that the shelf toilet is rampant not only in Germany and Hungary but also in the Netherlands and parts of Poland. We are tempted to induce its prevalence in these parts to a vaguely defined shared cultural heritage, possibly to do with the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Let us swiftly move as far away from the image of the toilet shelf as possible, and instead enjoy some pleasant images of Hungarian toilets. We'll begin with the facilities at one of the Central European University buildings!

As we entered our friend's office, we noticed this on the door and were most impressed. A master sign-writing craftsman has been at work here! Note the exquisite politeness, constructive advice, and helpful illustration.

The outside of the toilet-stall door boasts an equally friendly and helpful sign. We were in signage heaven!

An overview of the stalls, with their helpful and instructive signs and doors that go all the way down to the floor. Could this toilet get any better?

An encouraging cleaning-supply corner with a sink, a mop and a bucket. Our friend told us that a family cleans this building, and that they are really friendly.

For some reason we don't seem to have a photo of the actual toilet. A strange and slightly disturbing oversight - but perhaps we were so overcome with the toilet's cleanliness and efficiency that we simply forgot to photograph it? In any case, we hope our inattention is made up for by this wonderful picture of the sink, with its special antibacterial soap and pedagogical instructions for how to disinfect one's hands!

One last wistful glance at yet another wonderful, friendly sign. To whoever wrote the signs in this office, you are our hero!

 Our next view of the best of Budapest plumbing is from a delectable little patisserie called À table, on Arany János Utca. Lithuanian Friend had assured us that this gem of a café has the best pastries in town. Now, to be fair, we only visited one boulangerie on our sojourn in Budapest - this one - but we are convinced that our friend is right! Feast your eyes on the sight of the toilet in this delightful pastry-shop, before booking your tickets to Budapest:

The first thing we noticed was this beautiful yet sturdy coat-hook. We actually sighed from sheer delight.

Zappy prints brighten the wall

We can't conceive of a more cheerful and hygienic sight! There is a good bin and a toilet roll holder, and cleaning obviously takes place on a frequent basis.

To add to the whimsical cosiness, the walls are decorated with French newsprint.

We can't believe we are still having to mention the fact that paper towels should not, in the interests of hygiene, be uncovered, and especially not displayed in a dip-your-wet-hands-with-accompanying-germs-into-this-pile-of-towels-that-everyone-else-will-also-be-digging-their-hands-into manner, but on the other hand, check out the nice soap and festive mirror!

A sign on the door imparts a no doubt friendly and informative message. (We can't read it, but there is no doubt in our heart.)

Democracy in Hungary seems, sadly, to be going down the toilet, but in terms of hygiene facilities, Budapest is a city to be celebrated! We found the locals friendly and the city itself so beautiful we risked whiplash injuries from craning our neck wherever we went - we could not stop staring at the gorgeous belle époque architecture!


We have many wonderful toilet pictures in our archive, but we have to leave off here today. Not, however, before enjoying a Festive Video. Here's a song with a feminist message that features the word "plumbing". The video also has footage of an actual toilet. You're welcome!



Festive Video: Elizabeth Cook, Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman



Related Reading

All posts featuring Lithuanian Friend

The fascinating story of the time when we fell on our face on the face of the Matterhorn and had to be rescued by a strapping Swiss mountain guard, and some much less strapping and much more leering Italian mountain guards:
Italian Toilets: Mi Piace Servizi Igienici 

More fascinating information about the Italian allaturca toilets: On Her Majesty's Privy Service

All posts featuring cafés

All posts featuring signage

An excellent blog post on scary German toilets 

Another excellent blog post on scary German Toilets 

An article in Der Spiegel, disappointingly inconclusive, on the origin of the terrifying German toilet shelf

Yet another blog post on scary German toilets, that commends the Swedes for doing good toilet

Shewee Fiend Friend's favourite blog about German toilets (actually we found this one disappointing and crude, but we agree with Shewee Fiend Friend about almost literally everything else (except, at the last count: the merits of brunch, cats, and country music), so one small disagreement is probably healthy)

Do not forsake this chance to refresh your memory on the history of the Austro-Hungarian empire!

"The Best Thing About Football Is Seeing Grown Men Cry"

Reader, we're in a pub, ostensibly watching the Sweden-England football game. Spirits are high, the beer is plentiful, and the nationalism is loud and in places rather crude. The English contingent of our party is warily eyeing the emergency exits. 

Although supposedly here to watch the match, we are evidently in reality spending our time engaged in two of our favourite activities: necking beer and writing a bog blog post.

While we're at it, let us revisit our favourite Bridget Jones football moments, shall we? We'll start with the bit in The Edge of Reason (Helen Fielding, 1999) where there had been a misunderstanding between Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy, and Bridget had finally got Mark on the phone to sort things out.

'Got back to remorseful message from Mark saying he had tried to ring straight after the match but phone was permanently engaged and now I was out. Was just wondering whether to call him back when he rang.

"Sorry about earlier," he said. "I'm just really down about it, aren't you?"

"I know," I said tenderly, "I feel exactly the same."
"I just keep thinking: why?"
"Exactly!" I beamed, huge rush of love and relief washing over me.
"So stupid and unnecessary," he said, anguished. "A pointless outburst with devastating consequences."
"I know," I nodded, thinking, blimey, he's taking it even more dramatically than me.
"How can a man live with that?"
"Well, everyone is only human," I said thoughtfully. "People have to forgive each other and ... themselves."
"Chuh! It's easy to say that," he said. "But if he hadn't been sent off we'd never have been subjected to the tyranny of the penalty shoot-out. We fought like kings amongst lions, but it cost us the game!"

I gave a strangled cry, mind reeling. Surely it cannot be true that men have football instead of emotions? Realize football is exciting and binds nations together with common goals and hatreds but surely wholesale anguish, depression and mourning hours later is taking ...

"Bridget, what's the matter? It's only a game. Even I can see that. When you called me during the match I was so caught up in my own feelings that ... But it's only a game."

"Right, right," I said, staring around the room crazily.'

Next, let's fondly remember the time, in Bridget Jones' s Diary (Helen Fielding, 1996), when Bridget was watching a football match with her best friends Sharon and Jude. 

'"That's exactly why the whole thing is so objectionable. Now come on, we're supposed to be watching the match."

"Mmm. They've got lovely big thighs, haven't they?" said Jude.

"Mmmm," I agreed, distractedly wondering if Shaz would go mad if brought up Rebecca during the match.
"I knew someone who slept with a Turk once," said Jude. "And he had a penis that was so enormous he couldn't sleep with anyone."

"What? I thought you said she slept with him," said Shazzer, keeping one eye on the television.

"She slept with him but she didn't do it," explained Jude.

"Because she couldn't because his thing was too big," I said supportively of Jude's anecdote. "What a terrible thing. Do you think it goes by nationality? I mean do you think the Turks ... ?"

"Look, shut up," said Shazzer.

For a while we all fell silent, imagining the many penises tucked neatly into shorts and thinking of all the games of many different nationalities in the past. Was just about to open my mouth, but then Jude, who seemed to have become rather fixated for some reason, piped up, "It must be very weird having a penis."

"Yes," I agreed, "very weird to have an active appendage. If I had one I would think about it all the time."

"Well, yes, you'd worry about what it would do next," said Jude.

"Well, exactly," I agreed. "You might suddenly get a gigantic erection in the middle of a football match."

"Oh for God's sake!" yelled Sharon.

"OK, keep your hair on," said Jude. "Bridge? Are you all right? You seem a bit down about something."

After this delightful burst of reminiscence, let us quickly look at some toilets. Below are pictures taken in the café at the copper mine in Falun, Sweden. The café was charming and so was the toilet, enriched with not just a hygienic toilet roll holder but a piece of metallic rock from the mine.

Reader, Sweden isn't doing well in this football game. Let us perhaps enjoy some pictures that Jonny sent us ages ago, in order to promote Anglo-Swedish friendship and understanding.

 

You may revisit the Keira Knightley spa toilets, if you wish, here.

Whatever happens, we are serene in the knowledge that, though England may have beat Sweden in the football, they also have to spend their lives on a damp island that doesn't have functioning heating or mixer taps. Also, remember that time they got their arses kicked by Iceland?

Let's have a Festive Video to cheer ourselves up, shall we?

Festive Video: Kasey Tyndall, Bar That's Open

In Which the Privy Counsel Goes Ballistic

In moments of being hungover, fatigued, or simply unable to find anything worth watching on Netflix, it is - though we say so ourselves - extremely refreshing to browse through old posts of this bog blog. Not only does one get the chance to chortle at some particularly outraged rant or clever turn of phrase, one may also reflect on the awesomeness of the various members of the Privy Counsel. As we once so very eloquently put it, sneakily referencing Bridget Jones, we like to think that we manage to keep on keeping on thanks to a network of friends, connected by social media (telephony is just, like, so nineties).

We particularly enjoy it when we can combine friends from different contexts, making for a richer, more nuanced experience. The most rampant example of this was of course the infamous Shewee new year's party in Shoreditch in the year of our Lord 2013, which became almost like a seminar or a panel debate, with Australian Friend, Shewee Fiend Friend, Very Brave Friend, and some dude called David discussing different aspects of public urination. There have been other instances. In April this year we managed to go to the pub with Tudor Friend and Jonny (who counts as a friend for administrative reasons) in York, a not inconsiderable feat of social engineering.

You may imagine our delight when, last week, we returned to York and managed to fit Jonny, Shewee Fiend Friend, our Italian friend whose toilet we reviewed back in 2012, Jonny's friend who finds cool coins in the ground, and some random medievalist we came across lurking in the Yorkshire Museum gardens, into the same house and get them all drunk at the same time! Sometimes, when sitting back to contemplate our own competence, we just baulk at it. Positively baulk, we tell you. (Or is that bark? Sometimes we get confused.)

For reasons of public decency we are unfortunately unable to show you pictures from this impromptu meeting of the minds, but we have - thank God - toilet photos! Let us take the many exciting bog pictures from our most recent sojourn to the beautiful city of York in no particular order, and start with The Habit.

This popular café bar in York is where the friendship between us and Shewee Fiend Friend really started to blossom, or perhaps more appropriately to ferment, so many years ago we'd rather not think about it, after we lurched to the bar and ordered the second cheapest whisky. We appreciate Shewee Fiend Friend for many reasons, not least her capacity to call bullshit when we find ourselves in the grips of self-delusion (this happens more often than even our regular readers would perhaps believe), and are immensely grateful for this whisky-fuelled blossoming, or fermentation.

A useful and informative toilet sign

Next, a gander at the toilets in the Yorkshire Museum. As readers who have been with us since the beginning will be aware, this excellent museum toilet was one of the first bogs we ever reviewed, back in the autumn of 2010! Bog blog fans wishing to revisit the original review may do so here. We'd venture to claim that the only thing that's changed in the past seven years is the toilet roll dispenser, which is now of the Tork Smart One variety. (For really rampant readers, we wrote a review of this toilet roll dispenser here. You can also read about another example of a museum wielding a Smart One here, in a post making many interesting remarks about male nudity.)

Things could be much, much worse

We don't actually like this sort of coat hook, but it will do

This type of lock breaks very easily, as we discovered to our chagrin when trying to lock the door of another cubicle. This lock was possibly even worse - though the smell definitely was not - than the one in the airport in Istanbul, where we once waxed poetical and ate a poppy-seed pastry in the hope of achieving a mild narcotic effect, only to be sorely disappointed (though we did at least get to wash our hands).

We heartily recommend a visit to the Yorkshire Museum, though we would like to point out that inspecting the Viking exhibition in the company of medievalists - some of whom may or may not be in their mid- to late thirties - is a slow and sometimes painful process, particularly when one is already halfway drunk and becoming increasingly bewildered.

At this point we must share some very sad news with you. Although we enjoyed a thoroughly festive visit to an old favourite haunt of ours, the Brigantes pub in York, our hungover fumbling caused us to delete the pictures! Doooom! Let us reassure you by stating that, although the toilets have been renovated, the smell (and, intriguingly, the soap dispenser) remains the same. If you are so inclined, you may peruse our October 2010 review here.

Perhaps this may cheer us all up: the toilet in a bike shop slash café called Bicis y más! We have seldom come across a toilet in the British Isles that we appreciated more! It may be mostly due to relief at our hangover finally lifting, but we thoroughly enjoyed our sunny visit to this place, and would argue that the loo is easily a contender for the title Best Toilet in England! No mean feat considering the crown has been held unchallenged since 2011 by Café Treff in Ambleside. (The competition, to be fair, has not been exactly fierce.)

This is not the best kind of mixer tap, but the friendly décor and helpful maps on the wall make up for it

A useful cork board

A reassuring amount of spare toilet rolls

Let us have one more picture before moving on to the Festive Video. Please make sure that you are sitting down, and have a cooling drink at hand, for things are about to get rather exciting. Are you ready? Behold - a photo of Jonny's ankle! Woof!

As we have remarked on a previous occasion, we've seen many pictures of Jonny's naked legs over the years. We hadn't previously seen this splendid sock, though! Note, also, the rugged and manly scar - a souvenir from when Jonny did stupid things with a bike. As it turns out, both the Privy Counsellor and Shewee Fiend Friend have also done stupid things with bikes, but we were too drunk at the time of discussion to remember if we reached a definite conclusion about whose bike-related antics were the stupidest. Certainly Shewee Fiend Friend lost the most teeth, but there are other parameters to be taken into account, none of which we can now recall.

Actually, we have another very exciting picture up our sleeve! Remember when a picture of Jonny on a cannon very nearly caused the internet to suffer a collective apoplexy? We reproduce the image here, for your delight and edification:

Rrrrrrr

Actually, Shewee Fiend Friend, who is prone to competitiveness, found a similar picture of herself! We feel obliged, here, to provide you with some context before showing it, and have copy-pasted an unabridged section from a conversation we had about the upcoming picture. We apologise in advance for any offence caused.

Shewee Fiend Friend: 

I can't find my other cannon picture

Actually it's a cannonball picture 

The Privy Counsellor:
Awesommmmmme

SFF:
They're piled in a big heap 

TPC:
A heap of balls
*salivates* 

SFF:
And I stood on top and squatted like I was pooing them out 

TPC:
eurgh

SFF:
I was pretty pleased with myself
Stopped that salivation dead in its tracks  

TPC:
DEAD IN ITS TRACKS

The infamous picture of Shewee Fiend Friend and a heap of cannon balls

We are confident that you share our hope that this becomes a battle between Jonny and Shewee Fiend Friend, with increasingly competitive cannon-related pictures filling up the internet.

You have waited patiently, and it is with endless delight and a defiant smirk that we prepare to present today's Festive Video. Since it turns out that everyone, especially Shewee Fiend Friend, hates and despises our taste in music, we thought we might as well give up on trying to maintain even a veneer of coolness, and just use the cheesiest video we could think of. If Shewee Fiend Friend had a favourite country song, we're pretty sure this would be it.

Festive Video - Shania Twain, Up!

Related Reading

A summary of the best posts of 2014 - a great year at the Privy Counsel, for many reasons:
"Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time" - A Review of 2014 at the Privy Counsel
(Sample quote: "A new year, in which we haven't yet mortally offended anyone, or got way too drunk and spent a whole day quietly leaking bodily fluids and wishing for death, or burned the pasta")

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

Shewee Fiend Friend's very first post on this blog, the by-now classic
SISTERS STANDING UP FOR THEMSELVES

That time when we and Shewee Fiend Friend indulged in a thorough analysis of the state of male nudity:
Stark Raving Nudity

All posts featuring Jonny

All posts featuring pictures of Jonny's naked legs:
What Goes Around, Comes Around

The Comfort of the Familiar - Life, Jonny, and Everything

One Battle Won, But the War Ain't Over

Another post featuring balls of various kinds, and an almost unbearably exciting picture of Jonny:
Balls! It's Christmas

All posts featuring Australian Friend

All posts featuring Very Brave Friend

All posts featuring Tudor Friend

The rampant Shewee new year's eve party in Shoreditch

That time when we met up with Tudor Friend and Jonny in the pub

A Rare Bit of Welsh Welcome, Intermingled with Screaming Bloody Horror

Our efforts to educate the world at large and make it harden the fuck up are, as regular readers know to their chagrin, more or less ceaseless. This educational zeal goes further, believe it or not, than ranting about non-mixer taps and taking photos of exemplary plumbing. For instance, we've been making our students watch the movie Pride a lot lately, because a) it is awesome, and b) it teaches us about human rights and solidarity. Also, we love a healthy Welsh accent as much as the next person, and thinking about Wales reminded us of the toilet photos Audiologist Friend sent us back in August!

Audiologist Friend writes (as usual, an English translation of the original Swedish follows for the linguistically challenged):

Bara Menyn Bakehouse Café i Cardigan, Wales

Äntligen ett ställe där vattenkranarna sitter så pass nära varandra så att man kan blanda till ljummet vatten! Köpte även lunch härifrån och deras smörgåsar var fantastiskt goda - detta ställe är en gömd pärla i staden Cardigan i södra Wales.


(Bara Menyn Bakehouse Café in Cardigan, Wales.

Finally a place where the taps are close enough together for one to be able to mix oneself lukewarm water! Bought lunch from here and their sandwiches were fantastic - this place is a hidden gem in Cardigan, South Wales.)

A rustic, hearty door, beckoning one closer and bidding one welcome! Just what you'd expect of a Welsh bakehouse!

This looks like a cosy and hygienic arrangement.

AAARGH. Just looking at these taps, however, gives us high blood pressure and makes that tense muscle in our neck tie itself into knots. Where did we put the diclofenac?

Moving on to a different toilet, Audiologist Friend continues:

Ett café i universitetsstaden Aberyswidh (oklar över såväl stavning som uttal [editor's note: it's spelled Aberystwyth, and pronounced thus]) hade denna varmvattenslösning: kunde ej klura ut hur den fungerade. Frustrerande.

(A café in the university town Aberyswidh (unsure of spelling as well as pronunciation [editor's note: it's spelled Aberystwyth, and pronounced thus]) had this hot water solution: was unable to figure out how it worked. Frustrating.)

THIS KIND OF CONTRAPTION MAKES US FOAM AT THE MOUTH

Samma stad men nytt café/restaurang/butik! Allt ekologiskt och fantastiskt gott. Älskar [walesiskan], se så vackert ordet toalett blir. 

(Same town but a new café/restaurant/shop! Everything organic and terrifically tasty. Love the Welsh language; look how beautiful the word toilet becomes.)

This is indeed beautiful, and makes our heart beat faster, though that could just be the effect of all the rage occasioned by the tap above.

Let us lose no time in educating Audiologist Friend about the tap in Aberystwyth that nearly gave us apoplexy! This kind of tap is one that produces boiling hot water, which is no doubt useful if one has the leisure and inclination to fill up a sink with part ragingly hot water, part cold water from the cold water tap. This is not what one wants in a public establishment, however; what one desires is a proper mixer tap in order to be able to wash one's hands satisfactorily. Also the sink tends to be extra small wherever this type of tap is in use, no doubt for sane and normal reasons. The "burn, baby, burn" type tap is known to scald the actual skin off people's hands. It is rampant in the British Isles and can be found, among other places:

In the typical British workplace

In another typical British workplace which brings the level of horror to dizzying new heights

In the 1940s kitchen at the Castle Museum in York

In an outhouse in Orkney

We shall end here, for fear of giving our readers nightmares. The world is bloody well nightmarish enough, what with all the fascism, racism, and screaming misogyny, without dwelling on these tap-related terrors.

In order to lower our pulse and becalm the cold sweat running down our neck, let us contemplate something pleasant. We note to our delight, for example, that "bara menyn" means "bread and butter" in Welsh. Woof!

Let us have a soothing Festive Video. Here's a song that's been playing at Privy Counsel HQ a lot lately, and which we find highly fitting in a non-mixer-tap context.

Festive Video - Ashley Monroe, I'm Good at Leavin'

Related Reading

All posts featuring Audiologist Friend
Read an intellectually satisfying meta-narrative about dangerous and awful British taps here
All posts featuring Wales

More posts featuring dangerous taps:
A Note On Desperate Measures
Are You British? Does Tap Sanity Elude You?
Tap Into Pain

A Friendly French Toilet - Bordering on the Boisterous in Bordeaux

You know when you start the weekend with a breakfast of the strongest painkillers you can lay your hands on, and all of the leftover nachos from last night, because what the hell - we're all fucked anyway. The most powerful nation in the world decided it couldn't handle the idea of a woman for president, and instead elected a racist, sexist, hate-mongering horror clown. The way things are looking, we're all going to hell in a handcart.

Here's a bright spot, though: According to Australian Friend, monosodium glutamate turned out not to be so dangerous after all! Apparently, the whole scare originated with the fear of the Asian "other" in the 1980s. There is now no impediment to eating sickening amounts of supermarket-own-brand nachos - yay! (We have no verifiable source on this factoid about monosodium glutamate, but we are happy to take Australian Friend's word for it. We have been taking this amazonean antipodean's advice since about 2007, and she has never steered us wrong yet!)

If there is one thing that makes us feel marginally less bewildered in a dark and terrifying world full of bigots and non-mixer taps, it is looking at toilet pictures from happier times. Here are Australian Friend's photos from her roadtrip through Europe this summer!

Australian Friend writes:

L'Autre Petit Bois in Bordeaux

 Excuse the blurriness but I was acting fast!

This picture reminds us of a favourite quote from Caitlin Moran:
"Just resolve to shine, constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in the corner, and people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy, and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux, and this will save you the anxiety of other, ultimately less satisfying things like ‘being cool’, ‘being more successful than everyone else’ and ‘being very thin’."

We might as well continue with the CatMo quotes. Because we can (almost) see one of our best friends in this picture, this one feels relevant:
"Choose your friends because you feel most like yourself around them, because the jokes are easy and you feel like you’re in your best outfit when you’re with them, even though you’re just in a T-shirt. Never love someone whom you think you need to mend – or who makes you feel like you should be mended. There are boys out there who look for shining girls; they will stand next to you and say quiet things in your ear that only you can hear and that will slowly drain the joy out of your heart. The books about vampires are true, baby. Drive a stake through their hearts and run away."

This picture in particular makes us feel safe and loved.

This is also very comforting.

We're not sure about the gunk on this tap. But, come the zombie apocalypse, we will all be grateful just to have running water at all!

Caitlin Moran:
"Babyiest, see as many sunrises and sunsets as you can. Run across roads to smell fat roses. Always believe you can change the world – even if it’s only a tiny bit, because every tiny bit needed someone who changed it."

Caitlin Moran again:
"Think of yourself as a silver rocket – use loud music as your fuel; books like maps and co-ordinates for how to get there."

More Caitlin Moran:
"Life divides into AMAZING ENJOYABLE TIMES and APPALLING EXPERIENCES THAT WILL MAKE FUTURE AMAZING ANECDOTES. However awful, you can get through any experience if you imagine yourself, in the future, telling your friends about it as they scream, with increasing disbelief, ‘NO! NO!’"

Another lamp in a corner! And our last CatMo quote for today:
"Always remember that, nine times out of ten, you probably aren’t having a full-on nervous breakdown – you just need a cup of tea and a biscuit. You’d be amazed how easily and repeatedly you can confuse the two. Get a big biscuit tin."

I think you can see the key points
Surplus pink toilet paper
Mixer taps
A chandelier

At this point we replied:

These are what we would call the themes of the toilet #englishteacheroverload

After making the appropriate chortling noises, Australian Friend continued:

The pic with the candles is outside the door
There was only one toilet and due to etiquette I had to move fast so as not to hold any other patrons up
Also note the magazines
The food was good!
I had a Sicilian tartine

I had to visit twice
(8 hours in the car)

 

Many, many thanks to Australian Friend! Friends really are amazing. It's when you have the kind of friends who message you, just as you are tearing your hair trying to think what to make for dessert, saying "Shall we bring dessert?", that you know that, although the road may be long and weary, full of sharp rocks and occasionally bordered by insane horror clowns, you will ultimately be alright.


Let's finish with a Festive Video.

Festive Video - Kacey Musgraves, Silver Lining

Related Reading
All posts featuring Australian Friend
All posts featuring France
All posts featuring Caitlin Moran

Some useful advice from the always excellent Bust magazine:
Here's how you can help someone who is being subjected to racist or sexist abuse 
Six rules for dealing with an autocrat
Why you should start wearing a safety pin 
Ten ways to use your anger against Donald Trump 
And finally:
If you see a swastika, turn it into a friendly old-school Windows logo