If You Are a Medievalist in Your Mid- to Late Thirties, and/or Want to Save the World, This Is for You

Does the world terrify you? If not, it probably should.

We like to think of ourselves as the Rebecca Solnit of toilet blogs. Rebecca Solnit, as everyone knows who follows her on social media, is a voice of reason and a source of light in a very dark, very desolate wilderness. Her social media accounts also function as rallying points for people who want to do something to defend the values they believe in, but aren't sure what.

When you find yourself overcome with despair at the state of the world, have a lie-down on the chaise-longue for a bit, if it makes you feel better. Go on, clutch your head. Clutch it good. Roll your eyes and groan. Do not restrain yourself - groan good and loud! Good. Now get up, and make yourself a cup of tea. Or, if you fancy it, a good stiff whisky! Then stop despairing, and do one thing. If we all do just one thing, together we will have done many things, and it will really help!

In the spirit of Rebecca Solnit, we have compiled an officious list of things you can do to defend democracy, depending on where you live. Pick one, pick many - get roaringly drunk and do them all! You're welcome.

If you live in the US you can:

• Keep calling your representatives
• If you are able to, donate to the ACLU
• Support Black Lives Matter
• Resist racist abuse
• Keep marching!

If you live in Poland you can:

• Oh, bloody hell. Probably keep marching?

If you live in the UK you can:

• Write to Boots and tell them why you will be boycotting them
• If you are able to, support Jean Hatchet as she cycles for murdered women and fights against the closures of women's shelters
• If you are able to, support Sisters Uncut
• Resist racist abuse. Seriously, if you are in a public place and you see someone being abused, there are very simple steps you can take to help.
• Keep resisting Theresa May's proto-fascist government, for instance by donating, if you are able, to Jo Cox's fund
• You may have noticed that the number of homeless people in the UK has visibly risen since the Tories started decimating social services. If you are able to, support a homeless charity, for instance this one.
• Keep marching!

If you live in Australia you can:

• Keep supporting Rosie Batty
• Keep marching!

If you live in Scandiwegia you can:

• Keep an eye out for neo-Nazis and resist, resist, resist
• Support the Vi står inte ut movement, and protest the deportations of vulnerable young people to chaotic, dangerous countries
• Speak out against the anti-choice movement
• Keep marching!

Wherever you live:

• Note that women's health is under threat everywhere. Accept that reproductive rights are human rights. Understand that women in control of their fertility are better able to access education, care for their families, and build stable communities. Remember that girls' education is the key to building a better, safer world.

For more tips and resources, here is a really great site.


We reckon that's enough pontificating for now. How about some toilet pictures? We have some exciting pictures from Öland, a very pretty island in the Baltic, off the coast of Sweden. You may want to make sure you are sitting down - perhaps with a fortifying glass of whisky! - before reading any further, since we have some quite dirty pictures. Not dirty in the sense "depicting Jonny in the bath with only a toy battleship to cover his modesty", alas. We don't have any of those at the moment. However, we have to make do with what we've got, and we hope that you will enjoy our dirty pictures, despite the sad lack of Jonny-related nudity.


Let's start out in Gettlinge! This Iron Age burial site will be of interest to medievalists the world over, whether they are in their mid- to late thirties or even older, or (do they even exist?) younger. Kind people have helpfully installed a rudimentary public toilet in the vicinity of the burial site, so that one may satisfy one's soul and one's historical interest, and also, possibly simultaneously, heed one's physical needs.

A rude hut

Inside: a VERY rudimentary, and not very clean, toilet

The ceiling is also rudimentary

Ah, poetry! A festive piece of graffiti on the wall says:

Bovar och banditer
som kommer hit och skiter
Om ni något hjärta har
Lämna lite papper kvar

Our very rudimentary, non-rhyming translation goes as follows:

(Thieves and bandits
Who come here for a crap
If you have any heart
Leave some paper)

We can't remember exactly where we saw this festive flower pot, but it may have been in the village of Näsby. The sign says "Hundpiss - nej tack!" ("Dog piss - no thank you!").

In the interest of recording public toilets next to sites of public interest, here is a similarly rudimentary toilet by the side of the road, next to the Möckelmossen bog (yes, really).

A very rudimentary interior...

...belies the absolutely magnificent exterior! Woof!

Next, let's check out the toilets at Hotell Skansen. They are pretty bog-standard hotel toilets, really, but Skansen has a special place in our heart and not only because they make their own whisky.

Feel free to adore this mixer tap and hygienic towel arrangement in an unhealthy, heathenish manner.

An exemplary arrangement

Next, let's check out some church toilets. It's been a while! As we may have mentioned before, we are red-hot, stark raving atheists at the Privy Counsel, but we do enjoy a visit to a historically significant church now and then, especially if it has a good toilet (as churches in Sweden often, helpfully, do). We start with Gärdslösa kyrka, which we have already reviewed in the past.

Alas, readers, we have reached the age where we repeat ourselves! We have already posted a review of this toilet, many moons ago. We should perhaps have contented ourselves with noting that this bog hasn't changed at all since 2012 and left it at that, but we just couldn't resist the temptation to publish more pictures of it, no doubt for self-aggrandizing reasons of our own.

The charming hut housing the toilet at Gärdslösa church.

Feel free to celebrate the holy trinity of this sturdy and most excellent coat-hook.

Exciting wall paintings inside the church

Some 13th-century runes that casually got left on the wall

Have we got energy for one more church? Haha, of course we do! Let us, without further ado, admire pictures from Algutsrums kyrka, whose roots go back to the 10th century.

A very exciting, though we say so ourselves, grave stone, commemorating a parson by the name of Erlend, who died in Algutsrum in 1345. If you crave more information you can get it here and perhaps here. Maybe even here. 

The best thing about the church in Algutsrum - even better than the Latin inscription! - is the toilet. Here is the charming little door, just to your left as you enter.

A most hygienic and virtuous arrangement!

We would never advocate keeping toilet rolls on the floor, but then again who are we to judge?

A charming and helpful sign advising the hapless visitor on how to work the lock

Let's do one more toilet on Öland, then we promise we will stop! Here is the toilet in the lovely little hipster café at Prästgården, Smedby.

Whatever happens to you in this toilet, rest assured that you will never be bored!

We cannot praise this charming and hygienic arrangement enough! It's even got our favourite Bliw soap!

Well done for reading this far! As a reward, here is a picture of cake. This cake was made by a very festive relative of ours. It is the best cake we have ever eaten, and we are never flippant about cake.

Now, it's Saturday night. Go out dancing and carousing! Immediately!

But first, let us have a Festive Video. This one is intended to reflect a conversation we had with Shewee Fiend Friend about female-only spaces. Turns out there's not enough of them. Sometimes, that's due to misogynistic abuse happening even in supposedly women-friendly environments. It could be due to people taking de Beauvoir's tenet that gender is something that is made, not something one is born with, and using it as a basis of further oppression.

Sometimes, a female-only space is more fun and friendly than a mixed space. Sometimes, a woman needs a women-only space to catch her breath and put her brave face back on. If you get invited to one: respect the rules and have fun! Sometimes, however, dudes who haven't been invited try to force their way into women-only spaces. To those dudes we would like to say: back the fuck off. If you find that you are encroaching on a safe space women have created for themselves, or find that you are spending your time shouting abuse at women, whether in real life or online,  here is a list of things you could be doing instead - including, but not limited to, starting a men's shelter, founding a support group to talk about football, and throwing yourself out the window.

Festive video: Jonathan Richman, I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar
(The studio version of this song, though less whimsical, is decidedly more audible.)



Related Reading

• How to resist and keep resisting - a guide for however long it takes
• Protest and persist: why giving up hope is not an option
• What to do if you are witnessing harassment

No Man (Or Woman) Is an Island

So, what's new? At our end, nothing much. The weather's still terrible. The UK still largely lacks functioning plumbing. Rampant murderous Nazis are still in charge of the White House.

Shit weather and crap British plumbing are normal phenomena. Rampant murderous Nazis lording it over Capitol Hill, however, is not normal. The journalist Sarah Kendzior exhorts us, in an article in The Correspondent, to keep a record of what things were like before the regime, to help us remember what normality is like. Kendzior says:

Write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others. Write about your dreams for the future and your hopes for your children. Write about the struggle of your ancestors and how the hardship they overcame shaped the person you are today.

Write your biography, write down your memories. Because if you do not do it now, you may forget.

Write a list of things you would never do. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will do them.

Write a list of things you would never believe. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will either believe them or be forced to say you believe them.

It is increasingly clear, as Donald Trump appoints his cabinet of white supremacists and war-mongers, as hate crimes rise, as the institutions that are supposed to protect us cower, as international norms are shattered, that his ascendency to power is not normal.

Here is our contribution to the record of normality: Jonny contacting us on social media to express his frustration with British plumbing.

Normality: Friends ranting about things that upset them in a semi-respectful manner.

Let us also write about the struggle of our ancestors, and how the hardship they overcame shaped the people we are today. The words "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" have been quoted a lot in recent times. We absolutely appreciate these words, as representing the principle of offering asylum to refugees. We are all either refugees or the descendants of refugees, and we need to remember that it is not that long ago since Europeans emigrated en masse to the United States, seeking security, religious freedom, employment, and the ability to walk down the street without being shot in the head or tortured. The immigrants and refugees arriving in Europe and North America today are emigrating for the same reasons, and there is frankly no excuse not to treat them humanely.

We also need to remember, however, that the reason so many people were able to settle in the United States a hundred years ago was that Native Americans were driven away from their lands. Native Americans' struggle for survival is still going on; The Standing Rock camp was razed just the other week, apparently clearing the way for the Dakota Access Pipeline. It behoves us to remember that the reason some people are able to live a life of liberty and in pursuit of happiness is that other people were stripped of their human rights.

Frankly, being a decent human being can be a difficult task, and require some pretty rampant multitasking. A good starting point, however, that makes everything relatively simple, is Caitlin Moran's definition of feminism: 

The five rules of feminism: 1) Women are equal to men. 2) Don't be a dick. 3) That's it.

Let's try not to be dicks, everyone! Can we do that?

We actually received a message, semi-recently, from Ellis Island, the starting point of many an American dream, nightmare, and feverish fantasy. Shewee Fiend Friend went there to visit. She writes:

Today we went to see the statue of liberty and Ellis Island
Here you enter the migration processing

Here a brave migrant approaches the loos
Pictures of successful loo operators line the walls
(I don't know who that dude is, btw)
(it wasn't even that busy, I just couldn't be bothered to wait)

Imagine this is your first pee in America
You'd think you'd be careful to leave it clean behind you, look after your new home
Unwashed Europeans ruin everything

This was the cleanest one
The hook is uselessly placed right in the corner

As you can see, these same sinks have been in use since the centre opened in 1890

It was not the worst experience of my life
For a New York loo it was above average even 

 The German journalist Günter Wallraff has the honour of giving name to investigative journalism in the Swedish language; wallraffande. However, a woman pioneered investigative journalism in Sweden half a century before Wallraff. Her name was Ester Blenda Nordström, and she kicked arse in no uncertain manner! In 1914 she took work as a maid of all work on a farm, and wrote a piercing and humorous piece of social critique. In 1922 she travelled third class to the United States, publishing her sharp, witty observations, which were recently republished as a book called Amerikanskt: Ester Blenda Nordströms resa i USA 1922 (Lund: Bakhåll förlag, 2015). Ester Blenda Nordström, when she got to New York, was harassed by a mansplaining piece of human garbage disguised as a customs officer, and was refused entry and locked up, until her friends got her out. Here's what she has to say about the detention centre at Ellis Island:

We can't be arsed translating all of this, but basically the customs officer is described as a mansplaining, jumped-up bully with dirty hands.

Let's finish with a Festive Video about everything being just the same as usual.

Festive Video - Reba McEntire, The Day She Got Divorced

Related Reading
Are You British? Does Tap Sanity Elude You? 
A Note on Desperate Measures

Masha Gessen, Autocracy: Rules for Survival 

Alexey Kovalev, A Message to My Doomed Colleagues in the American Media
Sarah Kendzior, We’re heading into dark times. This is how to be your own light in the Age of Trump

In Which We Express Our Gratitude to Electricians Springing Into Action

YES! That is right - that is indeed the scent of bird cherry in full bloom!

As regular readers are aware, we have a thing about bird cherry. We would even go so far as to claim that the brief period when the delightful Prunus padus is in bloom is the best time of the year!

All the signs that summer might return and that we might - at least on a philosophical plane - not be completely fucked, have been making themselves manifest in a joyfully unrestrained manner! After many days of rain (of both the physical and the metaphorical kind) the sun has been making up for all the bullshit by burning our skin until it really hurts, blackbirds have been tooting and doing rude things to each other in the shrubberies in order to ensure the continuation of the species, and the big creepy wasps have started worming their way in through the ventilation system and buzzing angrily around while we have been trying to work. (As anyone who knows us is aware, we are only too happy to get an excuse to procrastinate, even if it means running the risk of getting a wasp sting in the neck and slowly suffocating to death.)

In short, spring is definitely here! Let us celebrate by pondering some light-hearted pictures!

First out is a hope-inspiring message from Shewee Fiend Friend, who writes:

Public message on New York subway.

The message reads:

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze
• Cough or sneeze into the bend of your arm if you don't have a tissue
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer
• If you think you have the flu, stay home until your fever is gone at least 24 hours without a fever reducer 

We of course have some criticism to offer here, the main thrust of which is this:
As demonstrated by Mythbusters, sneezing into a tissue is basically no better than sneezing directly into your hand. (Please, for the love of God, don't sneeze into your hand. Thank you.) SNEEZE INTO YOUR GODDAMN ELBOW.

That ended up not being very light-hearted. Let's try these delightful pictures from Bogsley Hansson Friend.

WE WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH THIS MESSAGE.

Is this a sign pointing out where the spare loo roll is kept? If so, we approve!

For anyone who finds the intersection between toilet-related matters and feminism as fascinating as we do, there is this article on the 1970s fight against pay toilets, sent to us by Tudor Friend, to ponder in a haze of happiness this weekend.

We also received a link to a fantastic article from Australian Friend called Fantastic invention stops men weeing in the streets. It's a toilet. Really, the title says it all.

Speaking of feminism, we had a situation recently which set us thinking. We have been pondering fuse boxes, and wondering why we have never been forced to take a crash course in fuse box management. We like to think that we are reasonably competent, at the Privy Counsel, when it comes to practical things - changing a blown fuse, reversing accidental use of Caps Lock, persuading a reluctant horse to take the bit into its mouth - things like that. However, nobody ever told us how to identify a circuit breaker in a really old building. And, though we like to think that we are experts at finding things on the internet, this is rather challenging when your computer is slowly dying of old age and can only handle 20 minutes without electricity, and your phone is also caving in to dementia, and refuses to show you pictures of fuse boxes or in any other way communicate with you. We won't bore you with the details, but we would like to thank the friendly electrician who drove 40 kilometres on his night off just to flick our circuit breaker (not a euphemism).

We would also like to thank the friends who reassured us that just because you don't know something about a traditional male field doesn't make you a bad woman/feminist. On that note, let us have a festive video! Today's festive video comes to us courtesy of Tudor Friend, and we have no idea if it is ironic or not. What do you think?

Tudor Friend says:

TOILET PAPER and MOCKING OF HIPSTERS.
This is hilarious, brilliant, and I bet at least ten eejits out there fall for it and go out to find this product. May they experience all the joy of bum-splinters!

Festive video - Quilted Northern Rustic Weave, Artisanal Toilet Paper


Related Reading

Previous posts featuring bird cherry:
In Which We Indulge in Poetry and Out-of-Context French Expressions
Cracking Some Suds in Kreuzberg

Jezebel pictorial on the 1970s feminist fight against pay toilets:
The 1970s Feminist Fight Against Pay Toilets

An excellent article on the fantastic invention that stops men weeing in the streets:
Fantastic invention stops men weeing in the streets. It's a toilet.

Another message that started with an enthusiastic "yes"

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend
All posts featuring Bogsley Hansson Friend
All posts featuring Tudor Friend
All posts featuring Australian Friend

Don't miss our most popular Friend Quote ever, Semi-Intellectual Friend's take on the concept of irony - available in the post Foul Play, also Fowl Issues.

Also, everyone keeps telling us to Get Yer Bags Together, Channing Tatum Has Announced a Live Magic Mike Show in Vegas, so we might as well share it here, too.

Educational Cake

Tally-ho, gentle readers, and congratulations - you are reading another post from your favourite bog blog!

Sexism is thick on the ground as ever, and the world continues to be plumbing-challenged, but here at the Privy Counsel, we keep fighting the good fight to bring you rampant gender equality, quality pipes, and amusing bloggery.

As our fans and friends know to their chagrin, a toilet blogger's life is filled with many, many non-toilet-related activities. Life and limb must be kept together, and bread for the day must be procured through toil and trouble and through much sweating of one's brow. Nonetheless, every now and then, when one is in the middle of procuring bread and wiping sweat from one's toiling brow, something amazing and plumbing-related happens. Like when this cake, to celebrate World Plumbing Day, suddenly turned up in our workplace, for example. That's right. A CAKE. TO CELEBRATE WORLD PLUMBING DAY! We didn't even know there was such a thing, but luckily, others did!

Cake! WORLD PLUMBING DAY CAKE! We didn't even know there was such a thing as World Plumbing Day, and then we found out through CAKE!

We have Tudor Friend to thank, as so many times before, for the following bog pictures. Let us get cracking without further ado! Tudor friend writes:

The tragic toilets at the Derby Indoor (Down-market) Market... Getting the loo roll from that place works best if you happen to be a contortionist. Not sure what the logic was there.

One could write a kick-arse country song about this, called "(I Am Not a) Contortionist Blues".

Meanwhile, in the Derby local history centre... That is not a filter, that's what happens when you walk in. Blue ultraviolet light. It's either pretending to be disinfectant, or they have raves often.

As far as we know, this kind of blue light generally indicates
a wish to prevent people from injecting intravenous drugs.

Tudor Friend has been very active in her toilet-informational activities lately - here is another gem from that delightful procurer of plumbing lore: Bathroom For Service Dogs Opens In Chicago Airport.

We don't know about you, but we feel an urgent need for a Festive Video featuring non-racist, non-homophobic, non-sexist and non-ageist sentiments. These kinds of sentiments are, in our world, the hallmarks of sane and normal people, but seem to be under threat all over the place.

The Brothers Osborne have been criticised for doing a music video featuring non-heteronormative love. Social media resounded, when the video was released, with the unstructured rantings of homophobes and haters. Rolling Stone magazine, indulging in more covert criticism, called the video "unorthodox". What they meant, of course, was "normal" - white, young, heterosexual love not being the only type of love that exists in this world.

So let's have a taste of an actual non-heteronormative country song, and rejoice in the possibility of sanity and normality. And rum, of course. We think that non-racism, non-homophobia, non-sexism and non-ageism should be celebrated, preferably often and preferably while consuming rum. AND CAKE.
Also we totally fancy the pants off the Brothers Osborne.

Festive video - Brothers Osborne, Stay A Little Longer

Related Reading
All posts featuring Tudor Friend

Two posts featuring our favourite Brothers Osborne song ever, Rum:
A Moderately Cheerful Update
Five Fabulous (And Frightening) Years: The Story of the Privy Counsel

Ask Not for Whom the Bog Rolls

We know, we know. We go on and on about our friends, and shamelessly steal words that they have written and post them on our toilet blog, as if that were an honour. Well, the truth is that without our various cronies, there would be no bog blog. Our comrades send us photos from all over the globe, offer us advice on moral dilemmas, and keep us amused with the stories of their fuck-ups and debacles. Many of them are also good, honest people. The other day we were pondering the lives and deeds of our various bosom buddies, and feeling very smug about what a favourable light their endeavours shine on us.

There is the friend who gets incessant promotions at work, the one who is going off to work on a reproductive rights expedition, the one who used to volunteer at Planned Parenthood, the one who campaigns tirelessly for the rights of her people, the ones who have had to flee their homeland and are pursuing their dreams in a foreign country with a new language, all the ones who are rampantly intellectual in a wide variety of fields - we could go on all day. 

It is our ambition, however, not to bore our readers to death, and so we content ourselves with saying that we hugely enjoy basking in this nuclear-meltdown-strength reflected glory. Keep up the good work, everyone!

We also enjoy receiving messages and photos from all the various chums who make up the Privy Counsel Collective. Indeed, there has recently been, to borrow a plumbing metaphor, a veritable flood of communications, and we have acquired more toilet photos than we know what to safely do with. Since our archive is prone to becoming crammed, unnavigable and downright dangerous, our legal advisory team has instructed us to get a few of the recent ones published before they, too, disappear into the vast cavern that is the Privy Counsel Archive.

Lo, a contribution from Bogsley Hansson Friend:

We've said it before and we'll say it again: HUNKA-HUNKA!

Read more amusing toilet signs here.

Bogsley Hansson Friend says, on our asking (needlessly, you might think), whether the photos are from a toilet: 

[The Elvis picture is] near by. All in a restaurant had lunch at in Cannon beach [read all about it here]. Where sent the previous pics from. The sign was in the actual toilet though.

Bogsley Hansson Friend has rather a talent for having lunch in interesting places, and finding fascinating toilets. (He is also hugely well-read and very generous, but his flair for toilet photography is what mostly benefits our regular readers.)

This delightful trawl through our personal correspondence does not end there! Behold, an almost painfully intellectual epistle from Uncle Sean:

We were recently in Key West, where, in a span of 10 years Ernest Hemingway wrote 70% of his literary output. His output of a different sort would have occurred here in his studio's loo.

*tries to think of Hemingway-related pun, fails*
If you enjoy celebrity toilets, have a gander at our  Celebrity Toilets label.
Or check out Johann Sebastian Bach's bog!

Uncle Sean continues: 

This one is from Seattle in a now defunct hotel in Chinatown (now an exhibit in the Wing Luke Museum) where over 100 years ago there was one loo per floor - crammed in the closet like a metaphor for the Chinese-American experience in the U.S. during the long lasting and racist era leading up to and spanning the Chinese Exclusion Act.

See what we mean about the rampant intellectualism and learning of our friends?

According to the internet, Hemingway "once took a urinal home from his favorite bar and moved it into his home, arguing that he had 'pissed away' so much of his money into the urinal that he owned it".

On that inspiring note, let's acknowledge the fact that we've been busy as fuck lately by eating anti-social amounts of garlic, and fantasising about going on a Thelma and Louise-style road-trip to the south of France, by no means excluding the possibility of involving Richard Armitage in our doom-filled quest for freedom.

Today's festive video is a contribution from Norwegian Friend. It's from the very first Norwegian TV broadcast ever, in 1960, and is possibly the most festive thing we have ever seen! You're welcome.

Festive video - Nora Brockstedt and Deep River Boys, Voi Voi


Related Reading
All posts featuring Bogsley Hansson Friend
All posts featuring Uncle Sean
All posts featuring celebrity toilets

When a Voice Behind Me Whispered Low, “That Fellow's Got to Swing” - Australian Friend Visits Beechworth Gaol

Sometimes the suffocating angst of existence gets too much, and one has to remind oneself that it could, actually, be worse. Personally we like to perform this philosophical exercise while banging our head on the table and/or consuming alcohol, but other methods reportedly work just as well. If one happens not to be in jail, for instance, one may meditate on the joys of comparative freedom. Likewise, if one has access to plumbing, that is one mega reason for being grateful. Truth be told, if you are blessed with adequate sanitation, you're pretty damn lucky.

Australian Friend visited Beechworth Gaol some time ago, and kindly sent us pictures, along with this rousing description:

A selection of toilets from Beechworth Gaol! Toilets were only installed at the prison in 1993. Prior to that, there was no plumbing whatsoever, and prisoners had a bucket for a toilet, a bucket for washing, and a bucket for drinking (per prisoner). It was pitch black at night, and cells were overcrowded. You can imagine the state of the buckets. 

Now, this gaol was one of the toughest prisons in Victoria, and was colloquially known as the Beechworth Breaker (prisoners were often sent here to have their spirits broken). It was the site of eight hangings (one of whom sounded like an innocent man). Our beloved Ned Kelly was imprisoned here, as was his mother (they were an Irish Catholic working class family bullied by the English Protestant police force, after one of the coppers tried to rape Ned's 13 year-old sister and his mother tried to protect her daughter by hitting the cop with a cast iron frying pan... it's a long story). 

Ok so the OTHER thing you will like to hear is that our beloved Chopper Read spent time in the Beechworth Breaker, and his best friend was the prisoner in charge of the gaol kitchen. There have been ghost sightings and hearings (seems to be an 1800s prison guard who never clocked off) but sadly I didn't manage to capture anything paranormal in my photos. 

 The toilet that is a hole in the ground is the one from solitary confinement.

This would have been an excellent opportunity for the zealous 19th-century prison guard to appear in the mirror. Alas.
Australian Friend says: "This was the nicest, most spacious bathroom in the prison."

Does one's eye spy a dual flush? 

One notes the toilet roll holder with approval

Australian Friend: "Solitary confinement: at least you get your own toilet!"

Australian Friend: "A typical cell and its accoutrements"
Privy Counsellor: "MIXER TAP."

Let us feast our eyes on the prison mixer tap.

Actually, these toilets seem pretty damn adequate in terms of being functional. Since Beechworth Gaol is now a museum, one has of course no inkling of any smells which may have once haunted the place along with the various ghosts, but at least each cell has its own crapper. If you've seen Orange is the New Black, you will know that having one's own toilet is a luxury, and further that hygienic conditions at Riverhead correctional facility in Suffolk County, New York, are appalling.

However, let us stay with Beechworth Gaol a bit longer. This is where we once again stray into the territory of the epistolary novel (see previous epistolary posts here and here): below is an extract from a communicative online exchange between us and Australian Friend. (Please not that it has been heavily censored and edited and may therefore come across as more incoherent even than it was to begin with.)

Privy Counsellor: [Australian Friend] my gal, you are a true friend. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.

Australian Friend: I risked attack by ghost!

it was so sad we saw the gallows

and this prisoner (he was quite handsome) chose his last words to be "As god is my witness I am an innocent man". I wanted to send him a supernatural hug. 

Ned Kelly didn't say that! 

he said "Such is life" 

they were such arseholes to Ned 

THEY ONLY JUST GAVE HIM A PROPER BURIAL, LAST WEEK 

he died over a hundred years ago 

and someone stole his head from the Old Melbourne Gaol, and nobody knows who's got it.

[...] oh my gosh! I'm looking at a paranormal website and they're talking about how a lot of people have been fainting on the tours through Beechworth Gaol, and it's been at the gallows 

"We have had a spate of people fainting or near fainting at or near the gallows where 8 were hanged. I thought initially it was the heat, but the gaol was only about 25 degrees inside. Today inside the gaol just 16 degrees and yet another went down.  Just a few steps from the gallows and a girl about 20 went out like a light, with no warning whatsoever. This makes 9 people since Sunday. Is this just a pure coincidence, or is something going on here. Your thoughts please."

 *just registering with paranormal chat room so I can comment*

[...] I stumbled through the town, as one might stumble through the Australian landscape, when one's untied horse has absconded 

and at one point found myself in a B-grade museum, where I saw many badly taxidermied animals. 

many of which were endangered and/or extinct species 

*fuck you, English colonists*

On that rebellious note of anti-colonial sentiment, let's finish with a festive video.

You knew what was coming, didn't you?



Festive video: Elvis Presley, Jailhouse Rock

Related Reading

All previous posts in which we mention Chopper Read or the mantra Harden the Fuck Up:
A Festive Update
HTFU, Melbourne City Council!
Pushing for Cultural Diversity (Australian Friend was instrumental in creating this post - thank you, Australian Friend!)
HTFU - Wipe for Wildlife
Toilet Paper - It's Time to HTFU

Random rad stuff from Australia:
Why Today Is a Toiletally Important Day
Happy Birthday, Australian Friend!

Another instance of our lackadaisical quotation from dead English poets:
Ah! well-a-day!

To Be Or Not to Be - A Loo So Existential It Doesn't Even Exist

Our habit of posting pictures of persons tending to their hygiene in a positive, informative way has rendered us susceptible to piques. On our insisting that the Privy-Counsel Pin-Ups are "TASTEFULLY semi-naked [men in bathrooms]", Tudor Friend replied, sardonically, "We all tell ourselves what we need to, in order to sleep at night".

Following up on this, we thought we'd post something a) philosophical, and b) scientific, just to prove our academic credibility, to those who may doubt it. Let's start with the philosophical item, to establish our rampant cultivation. German Friend, ever philosophical, ever vigilant, spotted an exciting sign in Covent Garden saying "Loo of the year". Our intrepid Teutonic friend naturally strode forth to investigate, only to discover that the loo was not.

I had a rather solo-festive (festive!) weekend here, mainly treating myself. Ahoi!

I mingled with the touristy masses in Central London. And as I needed to see a man about a dog I found a potential entry to the vault of lavatories.

"Loo of the year"!! I mean, "Loo of the year"!!!!

And then it doesn't even exist... How can I ever bring my self to urinate again when it can't be done on the "Loo of the year"!?

You tell me.

An inciting sign to get one's blood up:
"Loo of the Year"

Promising!
But actually, avoid Jubilee Market if you need to see a man about a dog!

Disappointing!
Sign says: "There are no public toilets in this market.
The nearest are next door to St Paul's Church in the Piazza."

In toilet-related news from the science world, behold, the colonoscopy-replacing camera!

Ain't it a beaut!
Image from news.discovery.com

This nifty gadget can, when swallowed, take high-quality pictures of your insides, allowing doctors to analyse what's troubling them. "Patients will neither get shafted in the rear end nor their wallets", according to an article that a close acquaintance sent us.

For more high-quality images (not of someone's innards), see tomorrow's exuberantly romantic post!

Finally, let's have a festive video!

Festive video: Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper, (619) 239-KING. "Call me, Elvis!"

Related Reading
The Existentialist Toilet Is, Perhaps, Here
Privy Counsel Pin-Up - Now with 50 % Less Creepiness
Dread, Rage, and Out-of-Order Urinals
The Spirit of Christmas: Urinals, Mixer-Taps, Relief
Privy Counsel Pin-Up: James Purefoy