Let's Party Like It's World Toilet Day!

We think you should spend today in a haze of riotous champagne consumption. Why do we think you should spend today in a haze of riotous champagne consumption? Why, because it is World Toilet Day, of course!

Only two things in life are certain: death and taxes. When/if something pleasant does occur, therefore, one should seize the opportunity to celebrate! With, if at all possible, reckless abandon!

One thing that cheered us up recently was encountering a small boy who proclaimed his favourite colours to be pink and purple, and spent an inordinate amount of time making not only a mud pie, but a mud pear torte, and a darling mud vegetable soup with a blue plastic-cap garnish. This progressive small boy did all this while remaining totally un-harassed and un-bullied. Cred to his parents! Cred to his school! This brief, but by no means unimportant, encounter filled our heart with joy, and caused us to exclaim, jubilantly: "Take that, patriarchy! UP. YOUR. ASS."

The world is irrevocably fucked up in all manner of ways, but some things are becoming less fucked up, as illustrated by the parable about the small boy above. Another thing that is slowly improving is humanity's attitude to water and plumbing. More and more people are thinking about sanitation and water preservation. For instance, Feisty French Friend has promised us pictures of her soon-to-be-renovated bathrooms, which are going to incorporate water-saving sinks, and Bogsley Hansson Friend reports that the Arcola Theatre in London already has them!

Bogsley Hansson Friend writes:

The bog at the Arcola Theatre in London. Going to see The Rivals there in a bit. Had a nice DIY feel to it. And impressive curved combo bog / sink unit. Alas did not try it out in all its glory. Although have to have incredibly long arms to reach the bog roll. Or stand up. [Editor's note: You're not supposed to be standing up. You're supposed to be embracing riotous champagne-induced leglessness.]

Sturdy toilet roll holders also bring joy to our heart!

Woof! A water-saving sink! The water you wash your hands with is used to flush the toilet.

We just adore ventilation pipes, too.
This one is accompanied, Bogsley Hansson Friend insists, by mood lighting.
Let the dancing commence!

More than one person warmed our heart by sending us this link to a thought-provoking BBC article about toilets around the world. Billions of people don't have access to things that many of us take for granted - clean drinking water and somewhere safe to go to the toilet. Lack of sanitation holds economic development back, and causes untold suffering due to preventable, unnecessary diseases. However, lots of organisations are committed to improving sanitation around the world, for instance Oxfam, the Gates Foundation, Water Aid, and ToiletTwinning.
We think that's worth celebrating!

Let's have a riotously festive video! Yeahh!!

Festive video - Emmylou Harris, Two More Bottles of Wine

Related Reading
All previous Word Toilet Day posts:
World Toilet Day 2013 - Hurrah for Toilets, Even Crap Ones!
Why Today Is a Toiletally Important Day
World Toilet Day 2011 - Taking Our Baths and Our Women
It Finally Happened - World Toilet Day

A related story, incorporating the above-mentioned Feisty French Friend (who, by the way, is prone to literally forcing champagne down her friends' throats):
A Morally Improving Story for World Toilet Day

Another water-saving toilet at the Museum of Wine in Chinon, sent to us by Quasi-Intellectual Friend:
On the Nature of Academic Friendships

In other news:
CHRISTMAS IS COMING
Have you considered turning your back on mindless consumerism and instead benefiting mankind by spending a penny on Oxfam Unwrapped, WaterAid, or ToiletTwinning? Or why not donate to Amnesty International, or your local women's shelter?

A Morally Improving Story for World Toilet Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's have a festive video, shall we?



Festive video: Bobby Fuller, I Fought the Law

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

Graffiti in Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country

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

We Receive a Postcard

We received a postcard. The kind of postcard that reminds one that everyone has to accept the consequences of their actions. We write a blog about toilets. Ergo, we receive toilet-related postcards. Isn't that great!
This particular postcard depicts the Ireton bathroom at Packwood House, Warwickshire. Tudor Friend (for that's who the postcard was from) writes:

Greetings from the Land That Mixer-Taps Forgot! I've been out playing skulking tourist again and, for once, a place I visited had a postcard of the bathroom! It is quite a pretty bathroom; enough Delft tile to cover the Netherlands, for starters. The best part is that they'd put a disturbingly large, yet of a size to potentially be real, fake spider in the tub - I presume its purpose is to discourage marauding children from climbing in.

[...] Despite the very sort of Edwardian bathroom, the house is actually more Tudor - the sort where its core is authentic, and much of its furnishing is of the period but scrounged from other properties being demolished in the '30s and '40s (ed's note: heinous, heinous crimes!). Funny how no-one ever feels the need to harmonize the loo by recycling an old Tudor bog... (At the other house I saw today, they'd converted the medieval toilet and shit-chute into a priest's hole for hiding during the messy days of Reformation. They were not 100 % sure it had actually ceased to be used as a loo at the time, but I sincerely hope, for the guys who were down there, that it had!)

The Ireton bathroom, Packwood House.
Apparently Cromwell's general Henry Ireton spent the night at Packwood House
before the Battle of Edgehill in 1642. We trust he had a pleasant stay.

We are simultaneously delighted and bemused by this spout.
Is it a lion-shaped mixer-tap?
Image from katyboo1.

Close-up of the pretty Delft tiles.
Image from flickr.

Does this bathroom remind us of anything? Of course it does! It reminds us of Christian IV's bathroom at Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen!

In other news, Tudor Friend has been busy making plans for World Toilet Day. This auspicious day, in case you didn't know, has been made official by the UN. If ever there was a cause to rejoice, this is it! World Toilet Day was created to highlight the fact that millions of people worldwide suffer from diseases that are easily preventable by simple hygiene measures, like access to clean water and safe toilets. Tudor Friend suggests making "Toilet Day greeting cards to send to friends, and cake toppers for our celebratory cupcakes". A smashing good idea, as far as we're concerned! To see suggestions for Toilet Day card designs, check out our Facebook or Twitter page.

Related Reading

World Toilet Day-Related
The Gates Foundation (funds projects for better water, sanitation and hygiene)
Toilet Twinning
WaterAid
Oxfam Unwrapped: Safe Water for Ten People (a hot Christmas gift tip!)
Related Privy Counsel Posts
Blogging Something Rotten
The Historic Toilet Tour of York

Det lille Apotek: Big Beers and Small Toilets in Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country
On the Tiles

Taking a Gander at Greatness

As all our regular readers know, toilets are extremely useful for many things, especially when clean and functional. What not many people appreciate, however, is the potential of your average bog to serve as catwalk, artistic venue or simply a place to dream of past or future glory! (For instance, Australian Friend tells us that toilets usually offer great acoustics and so lend themselves to being used as studios for the impecunious artist.) We thought we'd celebrate, in this post, the capacity of the toilet to inspire greatness! As we've had occasion to remember of late, greatness often goes hand in hand with insanity, and indeed three more or less demented friends of ours have shared pictures of themselves looking great in a toilet recently.

Let's start with Jonny! Jonny is an infamous toilet photographer, as many people recollect, to their chagrin. No-one can deny, however, that he is a cool dude and looks really good in a toilet!

Actually, Jonny doesn't usually look this cool.

Another notoriously demented friend of ours offered this glimpse of greatness. Lots of points for the stylish tiles and ever-so-cool boot!

What kind of idiot takes this kind of picture of themselves anyway?

Finally, we have this vision of fabulousness from a very dear and Very Brave Friend. Word!

Please note, this is by no means the first time
this particular toilet has acted as background to fantastic fashion.

There's no denying that the peculiar décor of toilets makes them the ideal venue for taking flattering photos. The lighting is usually purposely flattering (except on transport, as we've had occasion to complain of recently - but more on that another time), the tiles tend to show off one's figure to advantage, and one can, if one should happen to suffer from mild to life-threatening OCD, wash one's hands endlessly. You can't help but achieve greatness in a toilet!

If you are of the opinion that everyone should have access to adequate sanitation (even if you don't perhaps feel inclined to encourage people to lounge idly in toilets, taking pictures of themselves), why not spend a penny, if you have one to spare, at Oxfam Unwrapped, Water Aid or Toilet Twinning?

Related Reading
Jonny and a Public Toilet - A Treat for Single Ladies
Fair Play in Melbourne
Toilet-Twinning: Worcester Cathedral
Toilet Song: Soda Soap

Toilet Song: Soda Soap

An invigorating Toilet Song seems to be in order! The one we've chosen for today is one that's close to Hygeia's heart, being about hygiene.
Sierra Leone's Refugee Allstars were formed in a refugee camp in Guinea in 2004, during Sierra Leone's civil war. The band toured refugee camps to keep everyone's spirits up, and when the war was over, their album Living Like a Refugee was released. As far as we understand, soda soap is a simple, home-made soap, which people tend to avoid in times of affluence, but which comes in handy when one is stuck in a refugee camp with limited hygiene facilities.

There don't appear to be any lyrics available in all the wide expanse of the inter-ma-net, but we found something even better: this lovely explanation by the singer himself.

Sierra Leone's Refugee Allstars. Image from kginsberg.de.

Related Reading
UNHCR
Oxfam Unwrapped

Toilet-Twinning - Worcester Cathedral

Oh dear, oh dear. We've got so many inspirational bog blog ideas that we literally don't know in which end to start. There are some thrilling linguistic musings from Intellectual Friend, random wordless weirdness from Semi-Intellectual Friend, continued greatness from German Friend, and more Privy Counsel Pin-Ups than you can shake a glory stick at!
Still, we believe we'll start with toilet-twinning. Don't worry, we didn't know what it was, either. But Tudor Friend sent us this picture, from Worcester Cathedral!

Worcester Cathedral lavatory.
(Because cathedral conveniences are always lavatories, never toilets.)

Toilet-twinning apparently funds projects that improve sanitation in developing countries. We heartily cheer this on because - as we have memorably observed on a previous occasion - if there is one thing worse than coming across a bad bog, it's not having one at all! (For more information on similar projects, see our Good Deeds, Oxfam Build a Bog and World Toilet Day labels.)

Tudor Friend says:

Toilet twinning... who'd've thought of such things? In case it comes through funny, I believe the website is toilettwinning.org. And apparently Worcester Cathedral's counterpart loo is in Burundi. I wonder if anyone goes there on some sort of friendly visit, to see the... sister bog? Did someone from Burundi come to Worcester for a grand opening? Is it all ceremonial and shit? (Pun intended, of course.)

Tudor Friend also hopes to be able to bring us photos from the actual lavatories in Worcester Cathedral! We can barely contain our excitement! (2012 was full of shit, but 2013 has been kicking some serious arse so far - we hope this trend continues!)

Related Reading:
Durham Semantics
Pure of Heart and Hand: Lund Cathedral

Privy Counsel Pin-Up: James Purefoy

Although we just did a Privy Counsel Pin-Up post, and hesitate to repeat ourselves, we have decided to award the world at large a present, and publish one more. The previous posts were, you see, received with raucous acclaim, and it appears that Privy Counsel readers the world over are united in a cry of "More! More!" Who are we to deny them their simple pleasures? Here you go: pictures of James Purefoy in the bath! You're welcome. Pretend it's your birthday, or something.

Let's start with a picture where the man is fully dressed,
gradually moving on to the more depraved ones as we go along.
Image from mynewplaidpants.

As Mark Antony in Rome, bathing Roman fashion: being scraped with olive oil
and a strigil by a slave. This is also our own personal favourite method of bathing.
There are much ruder pictures than this one available online, for those so inclined.
Image from mynewplaidpants.

We're not entirely sure what's going on here or where this is from, and don't particularly care.
It might be a scene from Rome.
Image from mamakittyreviews.

Bath-tub festivity. Image from starlists.

Oh, go on, then. Let's have another one! It is so very festive!
Image from phoebefay.

For a serious thrill, contemplate this: Privy Counsel HQ was, once upon a time, located near James Purefoy HQ in Hammersmith!

Related reading
Privy Counsel Pin-Up: Colin Firth
Privy Counsel Pin-Up: Toby Stephens
For the sake of gender equality we naturally have a girl pin-up, too
The Roman Bath Museum - Crap on a Stick
Roaring Good Roman Fun

Sing If You're Glad to Be a Dane

Do you live in Denmark? If you do, you are very, very lucky! An enterprising woman by the name of Tine Müller has created a function for finding your nearest public toilet! The service is completely free and includes information on whether the toilet you are contemplating using is disability-friendly, a pissoir, unisex, or has a changing table. Pretty splendid, ikke?
Check it out at http://beta.findtoilet.dk/!

In other, Denmark-related, news, here are photos from the toilets at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.

As you know, we'd love to think of something to complain of,
but we can't think of anything specific

Covered bog-roll holder: check

Sturdy coat-hook: check

To make up for the toilets not being very exciting, here's a picture of Australian Friend having a blast at the Tivoli Gardens!

Australian Friend enjoying herself at the Tivoli!
(Face obscured to avoid harassment by pervs, toilet obsessives, OCD maniacs, etc

Related Reading
Cowering in Copenhagen
Waltzing Around Amalienborg

Tivoli A/S
Vesterbrogade 3
P.O.Box 233
1630 Copenhagen 
Denmark
http://www.tivoli.dk/

Who Gives a Crap - Because Shit Happens

One of our many trawls through the murkier ends (also known as the arse ends) of the internet yielded interesting results. We learned that there is a charity toilet paper called Who Gives a Crap! Far from being a bog-standard toilet paper company, this one gives half the proceeds to Wateraid, a charity which we have mentioned once or twice before. The social entrepreneurs behind the project have so far raised AU$ 50,000. Long-term goals include convincing Australian supermarkets to stock the product, and developing a Who Gives A Cr-app for mobile sales.

Taking a seat for sanitation

So far so good. But what of the ecological properties of the product itself? It is advertised as being recycled, and has been described as "environmentally sustainable". But, trawl as we might, we can find no information regarding chemicals and carbon dioxide emissions related to production - the squelching bog that is Google offers not even a whiff of information! We think Who Gives a Crap should get their shit together and publish some information on their eco credentials.

Related reading:

The Ghanasan sanitation project in Ghana.
Toilet Paper - It's Time to HTFU!
If you live in the EU, find out how environmentally friendly your bog roll is.
And, last but not least, an amusing comic about toilet paper.

Dirty Little Secret: Toilets in Liberia as Reported by the Guardian

We received a tip about a most interesting article in The Guardian. (We don't normally read The Guardian. You should hear us ranting about how annoying we find it. It really, really riles us. Not for political reasons - to be perfectly frank, we find most newspapers annoying. But there's something extra irritating about The Guardian. One really must ask oneself - should a newspaper be so smug?) It's about toilets and hygiene in Liberia. Read all about it here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/feb/03/liberia-sanitation-johnson-sirleaf-toilets?fb=optOut

Hygeia says "Hurrah, and bloody good luck to you, dears!"

Photograph: Aubrey Wade for The Guardian

How a Green Fairy Soap May Alleviate the Pain Caused by a Black-and-Blue Knee

A sports-related accident which has put one or possibly two (or perhaps more - nobody seems sure!) ligaments in one of our knees out of action has regrettably prevented us from blogging for a little while. (Actually, the injury has no impact on our ability to edify and amuse our loyal readers at all, but we're sure you agree that blaming a dramatic and crippling fall sounds ever so much more glamorous than "We've been busy at work".)
However, a very dear friend sent us this fantastic absinthe soap! How can one fail to recover with the Green Fairy hovering over one's bath?!

We can't wait to get a good scrub from the Green Fairy!

"Absinthe-scented" - oooh, heady, heady scent!

Related Reading
All posts about soap
More absinthe action: An Ideal Standard Husband

Safe Water for Ten People

We are working on a rather exciting blog update today, for you edification and delight, but in the meantime, let us just boast that Canadian Friend kindly gave us Safe water for ten people for Christmas! Thank you, Canadian friend!

The Privy Counsel Helpfully Sort Out Christmas!

The end of November is approaching way, way, way too fast. December is hurtling towards us at an alarming speed, and will soon hit us smack in the face with enforced jollity, family members we'd rather avoid, and alarming weight gain. Bet you're sitting there wishing you could just hibernate, or at least emigrate to the Bahamas for the winter, and wondering what in the name of all that is saintly you're going to give Uncle Darren and Auntie Ruth for Christmas!

Well, you needn't worry any more - we at the Privy Counsel are friendly, benevolent sort of people, and have helpfully sorted out Christmas for you! Here's how:

World Toilet Day inspired us! We got quite carried away reading the Oxfam Unwrapped leaflet, and thought we'd share som good deeds and happy news with you, in anticipation of Christmas.
If you're from York you can pat yourself on the back and award yourself a biscuit, since the good burghers of this town are among the top ten cities in the UK for buying Unwrapped gifts. Plenty of bogs have been built thanks to York - well done! (Read all about it, and see the dudes in the fancy chains, in The Press.)

We're all for hygiene, and thought the story of Kolisara in Nepal was inspiring!

Read more about Kolisara here

 As we mentioned yesterday, clean water and hygienic toilets really are crucial in the fight against poverty. An easy way to give both the planet and a plumbing-less person a helping hand is to eschew buying that bubble-bath giftbox and reindeer tie, and give somebody an Unwrapped gift for Christmas instead. As we may have mentioned already, our favourites include the Build a Bog and the Safe Water for Ten People gifts, but we thought we'd highlight a few more today, for you to mull over!

We may have posted one or two rants about toilet paper in the past. To make up for all that environmentally hostile, bleached, scented bog roll, why not Save Trees!

Hygeia keeps butting in, wringing her hands about handwashing. To help her struggle, buy someone a Hygiene Kit, or Hygiene Hints!

What good is a hygiene kit when you have no water to wash in? Fix a Well or Drill a Borehole and give someone the gift of safe water!

Last but not least, if you have so much money you just don't know what to do with it, buy a Water Tank! A bargain at £3,214.

There you go, Christmas sorted!

Plumbing: Blessed, Blessed Plumbing

We have had critique directed in our general direction to the effect that all we do is complain. While this could of course not be further from the truth, we have still decided to make the subject of today's blog update gratitude. Gratitude for plumbing. While it's true that most of this country's plumbing at best puzzles and, at worst, horrifies us, today we acknowledge that we are grateful to be living without fear of cholera, typhus and other unpleasant plumbing-related afflictions.

People in this country are off their rocker but sometimes they get it right despite themselves

 We mentioned John Snow the other day, and here take the opportunity to stuff your ears with some more information about this remarkable man. (We hereby also acknowledge our gratitude to Wikipedia for making it possible for us to appear as though we know what we're talking about.)

John Snow was born in the blessed city of York but, like many other unfortunate people, ended up living in London. Imagine his dismay when, in 1854, he found himself in the middle of a cholera outbreak - as if life in London wasn't already bad enough! There was no wide-ranging sewerage system in London yet (the main sewers, which are still working well-ish, were constructed from 1859 onwards), and most people had a cesspit under their house. If you have any pretence to education you will know that one of the sources of cholera on this occasion was a pump in Broadwick Street. Turns out that the nappies of a baby who died of cholera had been discarded into a leaking cesspit in the vicinity of the pump.
John Snow's investigations and statistical calculations, although at first ignored, proved to be the first step towards the acceptance of germ theory as opposed to the miasma theory (though personally we find the idea of miasmically transmitted chlamydia much more amusing), and eventually led to safe drinking water in Britain.

Hard to believe that something so pretty can be so unhygienic

Prince Albert died from typhoid, another plumbing-related disease, in 1861, and thus unwittingly became the cause of some unhealthy Victorian customs, as well as setting off a fashion for Whitby jet. We learn from http://www.theplumber.com/plague.html that, "Ten years later, Victoria's son, Edward, almost died from the disease. A plumber traced the contamination to the lines of a newly-installed water closet and fixed the problem. Edward, the Prince of Wales, was very grateful to the plumber. Word spread of this episode and is thought to have hastened the acceptance of the indoor water closet in England".

If you're feeling the gratitude, buy some Oxfam Unwrapped gifts and help people who still have no plumbing and risk contracting a lethal disease every time they drink water!

Related Reading:
Hurrah for World Toilet Day!
Oxfam Unwrapped: Build a Bog!
Historical toilets
Viking toilets
After all this, can you believe that there are still people who don't wash their hands after they've been to the toilet?
Victorian Servants Have Taken over the Book Club

Good Deeds Galore! Oxfam Unwrapped: Build a Bog

Today we find an excuse to start with our favourite Bridget Jones quote:

Dread the exchange of presents with friends as, unlike with the family, there is no way of knowing who is and isn’t going to give and whether gifts should be tokens of affection or proper presents, so all becomes like hideous exchange of sealed bids.  Two years ago I bought Magda lovely Dinny Hall earrings, rendering her embarrassed and miserable because she hadn’t bought me anything.  Last year, therefore, I didn’t get her anything and she bought me an expensive bottle of Coco Chanel.  This year I bought her a big bottle of Saffron Oil with Champagne and a distressed wire soap dish, and she went into a complete grump muttering obvious lies about not having done her Christmas shopping yet.

(Bridget Jones’s Diary, Fielding 1996, 293)

It has recently come to our attention that there are worse privations in life than having to use a toilet with a cumbersome horizontal lever flush, or opening doors with your elbow to avoid touching door handles after the OCD voices in your head have made you wash your hands three times.  These privations, our sources tell us, include not having a toilet at all, or not having clean water to drink, never mind wash your hands with.  Luckily, however, there are clever people working night and day to overcome these privations, building toilets and doing good deeds left, right and centre!  And not only do these good and clever people build toilets, they can also help you reduce stress this Christmas!

If you're struggling to think of what to give loved ones for Christmas, Oxfam will sort it for you!  Buy their “Build a Bog” card (£50), and someone you love gets a lovely card and a warm fuzzy feeling inside, and a toilet-deprived person receives a toilet!  How's that for multitasking!  If your finances don't quite stretch to building a bog, the Oxfam Unwrapped gifts give you many other options, for instance “Safe Water” (£9), “Hygiene Kit” (£14),  “Rainwater Collection” (£18), and “Fix a Well” (£22). We are all guilty of buying presents just for the sake of it, thus perpetuating the guilt-fuelled cycle of giving away unwanted presents. This wastes energy and increases landfill. But with Oxfam Unwrapped, you don't generate any plastic!

Isn't it fantastic!  You can now stop worrying about Christmas presents, and instead walk around with that smug, serene feeling of having done a good deed!  So practise your Princess Diana smile, give a friend a lovely card and a warm feeling inside, and give Hygeia, the goddess of health, sanitation and hygiene, a helping hand!

Build a Bog: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-unwrapped-diy/OU5008WS

Oxfam unwrapped: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-unwrapped

Also, remember that Friday is World Toilet Day! For more information, and a luscious quote by Stephen Fry, see the Wateraid website: http://www.wateraid.org/uk/get_involved/world_toilet_day/default.asp

Christmas is coming, but there's no need to panic!

Bridget Jones quote:

Fielding, Helen. Bridget Jones’s Diary. London: Picador, 1996.

SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN: World Toilet Day 19 November

Despite the mixer tap at the City Art Gallery, those dark moments have been pretty damn opaque lately.  However, it has come to our attention that Friday the 19th of November is World Toilet Day!  Can you contain your excitement?  We can.  Just.

The clever people who have invented this exciting day are Wateraid - apparently, there are people who have no toilets at all, and thus suffer more than we do, from having to use crap ones.

Here are some facts to improve your mind:

2.6 billion people do not have somewhere safe, private or hygienic to go to the toilet.

The simple act of washing hands with soap and water after going to the toilet can reduce diarrhoeal diseases by over 40%.
Anyone REALLY concerned about such matters should pop along to Oxfam Micklegate and buy one of their wonderful "unwrapped" gifts....specifically the "build a bog" one, as it is clearly the most appropriate!

Check out some more wild facts at the Wateraid website: http://www.wateraid.org/uk/get_involved/world_toilet_day/default.asp

 It's even got a quote by Stephen Fry!  This has certainly brightened our day.

HONK IF YOU LIKE TOILET DAY! (Monkey does).