Our Heart's Desire: For Nazis to Fuck Off, and for There to Be More Signed Pictures of Jonny

It is with unbridled joy that we prepare to present to you the winner of our New Year's competition! As all regular readers are aware, the competition was instigated by Jonny, and the prize is a signed photograph of that winsome young whippersnapper! All you had to do to enter was send in a photo of toilet graffiti.

The rules of the competition, announced in early November, were very simple:

1) Send pictures of toilet graffiti
2) Win a signed picture of Jonny
3) Live happily forever after, having gained your heart's desire

It is our rampant, unbridled pleasure to announce the winner of the Toilet Graffiti competition to be:

Drumroll...

LITHUANIAN FRIEND!

Lithuanian friend writes:

I had a spontaneous vacation in Gran Canaria and also remembered you, trying to find any good toilet graffiti. However, seems that there could be a campaign encouraging women to do more of that. I found only one in central station in Las Palmas. We should all remember that :)

THE WINNING CONTRIBUTION!
Transcription of the toilet graffiti:
"Don't forget I am learning to live." Quite philosophical, no?

Apparently, toilet graffiti is not as rampant as it once was. We remember seeing plenty of it in our youth, but for whatever reason, we rarely come across any these days. Whether this is because our social milieu has changed, from one fairly frequently incorporating dirty South London basements, to one radically more sedate (and clean), or because the advent of the digital revolution means that nobody carries pens with which to scrawl rude messages on toilet walls (as is the theory of our remarkably perceptive aunt) any more, remains to be determined (again, what are the social historians out there doing?).

Be that as it may, we hereby offer our wildest congratulations to Lithuanian Friend, who will be getting a signed copy of the below photograph in the post, and can thereafter get on with living happily ever after, having gained her heart's desire!

This is where we pass out from excitement, but not before uttering a strangled shout of HUBBA HUBBA!

We must not forget to view pictures from various toilets. Let us start with those at Heathrow Airport, shall we?

Traditionally, the first impressions to greet one on arriving at any British airport is the smell of air freshener and the sight of ancient wall-to-wall carpet that has been mended using duct tape. The newly spruced-up Heathrow Airport no longer sports carpets. The smell, however, is the same - indeed worse, if one travels round Christmas: a particularly revolting would-be cinnamon scent is sprayed with terrifying vigour in the toilets, while horrendously earnest Christmas music is channelled throughout the entire amenities. Ameliorating circumstances include the fact that the handwashing facilities are clean and feature a particularly soothing combination of hand sanitiser and hand lotion. Also, the taps are nice.

Wherein lies the difficulty of making toilet doors that go all the way down to the floor and all the way up to the ceiling? Wherein? Huh?

Look how many bags we managed to fit onto this admirably sturdy coat hook! Nothing had to be placed on the floor, and there was much joy.

We may have wandered into the disabled cubicle, which is why there is so much room. Also, a hygienically covered toilet roll holder, and a festive sign saying "Toilet duct access door"! Hurrah!

On the off-chance that you have the energy to view more pictures of toilets, have some from the Westfield shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush:

A TRULY EXEMPLARY DOOR! Note how there is a sturdy lock, no fewer than two sturdy coat hooks, and a helpful bar for those who have issues with mobility. And also, THE DOOR GOES ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE FLOOR AND ALL THE WAY UP TO THE CEILING!

The bin is overflowing, but to be fair, there was a cleaner arriving just as we were leaving. Also, the toilet roll is hygienically covered. Hurrah!
Let us by all means take a moment here to appreciate cleaners, who are often underpaid and undervalued. Perhaps ask yourself what would happen if the person who cleans the toilets at your office or local shopping centre went on strike? Well, quite.

We are going to end this blog post on a serious note. The Heathrow Airport toilets may have constituted a near-insurmountable olfactory challenge (why make air freshener that tries - and fails - to smell like something nice? Why?), but we still believe that travel is essential in order to promote international friendships, spread understanding, and combat hate and unfriendliness. (And also, crucially, to be able to drink with friends in different time zones.)

Nazis marched in our town yesterday. Or at any rate people who called themselves Nazis - unless they were those Zombie Nazis hiding behind Norwegian ski huts, we doubt they were actual, literal Nazis. Be that as it may, everything is absolutely fine, as long as they march right out again.

We spent all of last year ranting about how "2017 is the year when a shitstorm of racism, sexism, and every kind of -ism you can think of, including nazism, will be unleashed upon the world", and making our thoughts on Nazis very, very clear.

Whatever happens, we will be maintaining this bog blog, made possible thanks to an international community of intellectuals.

To that end, we have chosen today's Festive Video with the view of not pissing off Shewee Fiend Friend, who really, really despises our taste in music. Also, isn't it funny how anti-fascist punk rock from the height of the Cold War era is relevant again? Just saying.

Festive Video: Asta Kask, Oss hjältar emellan
(View the lyrics, if you so desire, here.)

Ach fuck it, let's have one last picture. Here's what we hope 2018 will contain: mixer taps, festive haircuts, and electric sockets. Happy new year!

Happy new year from your Privy Counsellor, steering you enthusiastically, though perhaps not always coherently, through a murky universe since 2010!

Related Reading

All posts featuring graffiti

Funnily enough, we felt the need for '80s Swedish punk rock at this time last year, too:
Rampant Murderous Nazis Are Taking Over the World, But Here Is a Picture of Jonny In a Toilet, for Your Convenience and Comfort

Our thoughts on Nazis:
À la Recherche du Temps Perdu

Another post featuring ranting about Nazis, and a fancy shopping centre:  
"God Jul" from Gothenburg!

All posts featuring Jonny

All posts featuring Lithuanian Friend

Nothing Is Certain But Death, Taxes, and Knees

Knees. You don't notice them till they stop working. Believe us, though - they are there, and they're not going anywhere, either literally or metaphorically. We spent a rather festive twenty-five minutes in the company of a physiotherapist today, for the purposes of improving our for the moment only semi-functioning left knee, and induce it to go somewhere, see the sights, and maybe strike up an interesting conversation with a stranger.

We have spent rather a lot of time with physios at the Privy Counsel, for various reasons. One time was when we had torn a ligament to bloody shreds while skiing, and tended to hang out at the physiotherapy department at York hospital quite often. (If you would like a full account of this dramatic injury, including a description of how we, after falling and feeling the actual ligament in the knee snap and, despite the excruciating pain, resolutely got up and bloody well skied down the mountain and proceeded, heroically, to use an allaturca toilet while wearing ski boots and navigating a wet floor; the lissom Swiss mountain guards who came to our aid; and the rather less lissom and rather more leering Italian mountain guards who gave us a snowmobile ride over the Italian border, we are happy to tell the tale over a beer or three any day.)

Skiing injuries are not to be sniffed at. Here is a still from the classic 1980s movie Sällskapsresan II, which, it has been universally agreed, is possibly the best film of all time.

Have we ever mentioned the fact that we love physiotherapists? We simply adore them! We are always urging our friends to go see a physiotherapist, whether they need to or not. This amazing breed of ligament-whisperers have the power to reduce pain and persuade one's joints and soft tissues to (metaphorically) knock back a stiff whisky and bloody well harden the fuck up! Woof!

Time whizzes past at an alarming rate, and age and decrepitude advance on us with firm, muscular strides. It's been five years since our injury, but we remember the excellence of the physiotherapists who treated us in York. Their patience was endless and their grip was firm, and they had our rattling bones fastened and our weakened muscles firmed in roughly the time it takes to write a BA thesis - a matter of mere months! The physio we saw today told us that she had seldom had the pleasure of coming across such a well-rehabilitated knee!

The Privy Counsel HQ is no longer situated in York (though we seem to be spending rather a lot of time drinking there lately, for instance on this occasion, and also this one), and we can unfortunately not remember the names of the physios who treated us. However, we are immensely grateful for their truly expert treatment. If any of our readers should happen to come across a physiotherapist who works at York Hospital, please give them our warmest regards!

Thinking of York Hospital, of course, makes us think of the NHS, which, with the gruesome inevitability of death, taxes, and knee problems, reminds us of the bleary bastardliness of Brexit. If you enjoy this blog, please be aware that it is a direct result of the EU. Without the EU, we wouldn't have been able to go and study, once upon a time when our cheeks were still rosy and our hair shiny, in the UK. Without the EU, we wouldn't have stayed in Britain, and paid taxes there, for ten years. Without the EU, we would never have met the majority of the amazing Friends who send us weird toilet pictures, cheer us up on dark winter evenings, and get us roaringly drunk on prosecco, rum, and weird Canadian liqueurs.

Most of our Privy Counsel Friends are from outside the UK; many from outside the EU, but we have met nearly all of them while studying or working in the misty, mixer-tap-deprived British Isles. Only a few are still living there. Some have had their work visas bungled by a xenophobic government; many are yet facing the stark reality of being kicked out of the country for being foreign; several have been exposed to racist abuse. The idiocy of it all threatens to engulf one's sanity in a vortex of searing flame. It's like the Tory government wants to take the country back to the year 1930, when tweed was still widely worn, there was no cure for syphilis, and the gold standard kept everyone warm at night. But what do we know? We're just a woman.

We do know that the Brexit promise of more money for the NHS was a lie. We know that NHS staff are really struggling due to Tory cuts to the national health service. We know that brave battles are fought under impossible circumstances in hospitals across Britain every day. As far as we can tell, most health services have basically been sold off to Richard Branson. The mean-spirited, ham-fisted and mind-bogglingly short-sighted privatisation of the NHS is deplorable and shameful, and there is fuck-all that we personally can do about it. Let us just express our deep admiration for the heroic NHS staff, and then swiftly take our minds off the Tories and move on. Let's have some toilet pictures.

Conceptually, our archive is, as regular readers are aware, basically the crypt from The Monk, with pheasants. In actual, humdrum reality, however, it consists of a) a folder on an aged computer, backed up to the gills, b) unsorted photos on the Privy Counsel phone (henceforth to be known as the Bog Phone?), and c) a proliferation of messages and comments from the arse ends of social media.

An accurate representation of our archive. Gif from Readingtheend.com

We decided, in a moment of despair at the vast amount of photos and the minuscule amount of storage left on the Bog Phone, to try to use old pictures for blog posts. Hence here is, for your delight and edification, a couple of photos from what is highly likely to be the Eagle pub in Hoxton! We had, if memory serves, some delicious mulled cider in this excellent establishment with a very dear friend, round about the time of the legendary New Year's Shewee party in the year of our Lord 2013.

How lush and lovely is this! Woof!

The combination of mixer taps, cool square sinks and magnificent tiled floor boggles our mind and is at great risk of addling our brain!

Remember when we expressed a hope that there would be a frenzied battle between Jonny and Shewee Fiend Friend, based on increasingly forced photos of cannons? Well, believe it or not, but when, the other day, we were dragging the putrid swamp that is one of the arse ends of the internet that we occasionally frequent, this photo came floating up to the surface! It is Shewee Fiend Friend! With a cannon! Jonny, consider yourself challenged! (Also, don't forget the fruit.)

We don't know about you, but we're scared.

Before moving on to the Festive Video, let us contemplate this pair of happy, hygienic knees, thoughtfully contemplating R. W. Connell's Gender and Power.

For some reason, pictures of privy counsellors in the bath is a thing. See more pictures for instance here, here, here, and here.

We ranted the other day, rather splendidly we thought, about Theresa May's proto-fascist government. Fascism is, it seems, everywhere these days. It behoves us to resist, resist, resist, and again resist! One excellent way of puncturing the pneumatic boasts of would-be or actual fascists is, of course, the age-old method of pisstaking.

Today's Festive Video is a clip from the simply spiffing 1990s ITV dramatisation of the Jeeves and Wooster series by P.G. Wodehouse. It features Roderick Spode ranting about the "bony, angular knee of the so-called intellectual". (The horror!) The character of Roderick Spode, first Earl of Sidcup, is famously based on Oswald Mosley, leader of a fascist group called the Blackshorts. We won't endlessly eulogise P. G. Wodehouse and his comic genius, even though we would quite like to, as we fear boring our readers (we are aware, believe it or not, that not everyone shares our foibles and passions), but will content ourselves with reproducing Bertie Wooster's frank appraisal of Spode:

The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. You hear them shouting "Heil, Spode!" and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: "Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?"

- P. G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

Festive Video - Roderick Spode's knee obsession

Related Reading

Another time when we were grateful:
Of Mixer-Taps and Spiritual Solace

That time when we asked deep, philosophical questions about the nature of our archive, and also enjoyed clearly signposted toilets in Italy:  
A Blog Post of Astonishing Clarity

The original account of our knee injury:
Italian Toilets: Mi Piace Servizi Igienici 

Another reference to our grievous knee injury, bravely born, can be found in
Shewees Are a Girl's Best Friend

Our review of 
The Disabled Toilet in the Physiotherapy Department at York Hospital

That time when we, in a brave feat of investigative journalism, pointed out that although the handwashing videos from the NHS feature mixer taps, their actual facilities - gasp! - don't: 

A Touch of OCD: NHS Toilets

For information on how to help save the NHS: the Keep Our NHS Public site

A post about the absinthe soap that gave us tremendous comfort when we were in great pain

Ketchup and Other Sauces, Real And Imaginary

We trust that all our readers are familiar with the ketchup effect, whereby a desired quantity of something fails to appear for a long time, only to overwhelm one in abundance when one least expects it. We won't go into tedious details of the various ways in which toilet pictures have landed in our archive. Let's just say that there is a scientific shit-ton of stuff.

We are writing this on a train, believe it or not, which is a lot less exciting than it sounds. There is for instance no whisky in our immediate vicinity. Nor are there balloons, or attractive film stars, or any of the other things one would expect to find on a train on which one is writing a post for a high-quality bog blog.

Those of you who follow us on social media will be aware that we suffered a terrible calamity the other week: we lost the wifi connection at Privy Counsel HQ for an entire week! Luckily it came back, but we have not quite recovered from the shock, and are still having to restrain ourselves from shaking our fists maniacally, and putting pencils up our nose.

Tudor Friend sent us a message saying:

To celebrate your return to wifi: have some toilet photos. I took them when I was at Kensington Palace for a lecture back in December.

And the last one, my favourite, the sign for the ladies'!

We actually received a postcard from Tudor Friend some time ago, which looked like this:

Kensington Palace with Victoria in all her glory, on her throne

The postcard read:

Dear favourite Privy Counsellor, 

I'm sat in the entry to Kensington, which smells beautifully of greenery and orange peels from holiday swag. As I cannot attach them to a postcard, photos must be sent later, but I've photographed the bogs here for you. 

Though Victoria's actual ass ne'er sat upon today's "thrones", one can still imagine bad plumbing, the stink of sewage and cholera (although the loos here are quite fiercely clean). On the down side - no hook for one's bag. But the bathrooms give you rooms, proper privacy, and they're big enough to swing the cat (right into the toilet bowl, where it belongs). And you know it's royal, because there is actual sanitizer available to clean the seat!!! 

Both the taps - MIXED!! - and soap are on sensors and require no touch. Victoria's home it may be - Victoria's era hygiene standards it is not!! Four and a half stars - down half a point for the hook and slight paint-shabbiness on the room doors. But the way they distinguish ladies' and gents' is pretty cute. 

 Woof! What a refreshing epistle! These toilets seem to reach a royal standard - though not quite the Privy Counsel standard, considering the lack of a coat hook.
And yes, Tudor Friend italicizes words when writing postcards - our friends are that awesome. (Read our thoughts on the word cute, by the way, here.)

Before we break to run a meat skewer through the annoying man opposite us speaking loudly on his phone, let us have a gander at this photo a friend sent us, featuring two of our favourite people in the entire world.

Why these people are allowed out unsupervised
is as much of a mystery to us as it is to you.

We've got a special festive video today, to celebrate our return to wifi and the imminent demise of men on trains with no appreciation of social codes regarding noise levels, or personal space: an Elvis cover featuring Pete Whitelock! Also known as Pistol Pete! A legend in York, and the world! 

Festive video - Pete Whitelock, One Night

Related Reading

Remember when Kate Middleton stayed in a hotel, that had a toilet?
All posts featuring Tudor Friend
All posts featuring cholera
The Cholera Babe Parade

More posts featuring experiences on trains:
Finally! An Italian Train!
Trains, Sweat, and Fears
Trainspotting

Wishing All Our Readers a Towering Great New Year!

Happy New Year!

We shall keep this brief, to give you all more time for drunken revelry and orgiastic carousing, and also because sickness and ill health plague us like syphilis plagues a Romantic poet. Actually we suffer a vast deal, and have done for some time - though of course with the greatest patience in the world, which is always the way with us, for we have, without exception, the sweetest temper anyone ever met with. People often tell their other girls they are nothing to us. 

Be that as it may, we want to get back to drinking vast quantities of tea and watching old episodes of Poirot.

We have a greeting from Dragon-Hunting Friend, who says:

Happy new year from the "loo with a view" (as the lift attendant called it) - floor 68 of the Shard!

We've had some quite worrying conversations recently with Australian Friend about the Shard, and thus find this sight a trifle uncomfortable. But we hope you enjoy it!

That is quite some toilet! And with a mixer tap, too!

We don't have any new year's resolutions, though we do have two mottoes for 2016. And we mean to stick to them. They are:

FEMINISM NEEDS TO BE MORE MILITANT

and

PEOPLE SHOULD FUCK OFF MORE

We don't have a hell of a lot else to say. We meant to do a review of the year's twelve best posts, like we did last year to great acclaim. But we have the kind of headache that feels like you drank a bottle of Bailey's all by yourself, except unfortunately we didn't, or at least not recently. Also only three people have voted in the poll which we announced in our last post, with the intention of defining the twelve best posts of 2015. Clearly our readers are even more depraved than we thought they were, and don't appreciate democracy, or bog blog polls.

So that's it. Happy fucking new year!

Today's festive video is Miranda Lambert at the Grammy awards, because it is our ambition to kick one tenth of the arse she does during the year to come.

Festive video - Miranda Lambert, Little Red Wagon (57th GRAMMYs)


Now fuck off.


Related Reading

All posts featuring New Year's Eve
Feast your eyes on another loo with a view here: All Mouth and No Trousers - Sichuan Food in Singapore

A Very Wet Blog Post

We trust that everyone has had their annual Christmas bath and is now comfortable, clean, and drunk.

Now that Christmas is to all intents and purposes over and done with in all sane and normal parts of the world, we can sit back and reflect on what we have learned. If your Christmas has been anything like ours, you have been worrying about people not washing their hands properly. Insufficient handwashing, as every educated person knows, leads to the spread of cholera, typhoid, and salmonella left, right and centre. Possibly even herpes!

(By no means do we want to make our readers paranoid, of course, or hector anyone. We just wish people would stop doing things like rinsing their hands briefly (what good do they imagine that does?), and bloody well wash properly. There is a range of entertaining and informative instructional videos out there: damn well watch them.)

We received an illuminating Christmas parable from Shewee Fiend Friend yesterday. Here it is, via Shewee Fiend Friend's phone:

Yesterday I went to a Christmas fair at an English major horse [we're pretty sure that's supposed to read manor house, but the typo is too amusing to correct]
Waiting for a toilet, I see and hear a boy say to his mom, I'm just not going to wash my hands
I'm standing one foot away from both of them
Mom says ok
I say ew
No effect
In their defence, these were the most irritating taps ever
The next conversation I overheard at same sink was a little girl who definitely did want to wash her hands
Anyway girl tries to use these taps

We have no idea what is going on here. Is Shewee Fiend Friend photographing someone else washing their hands? Or did she somehow photograph her own hands? Or did she persuade someone else to take a photo of her washing her hands? And in that case, who?

Whatever is going on here, one has to admire Shewee Fiend Friend's dedication.

They only stay on when you hold them, require a lot of pressure, and are either burning hot or freezing cold
So girl suggests to mom, mom holds the tap while girl washes hands, and then girl will hold the tap while mom washes her hands
And mom says to girl, we forget we're so spoiled with our nice mixer taps at home

What a simultaneously heartwarming and spine-chilling story!

And now for something completely different. As we all know, voting is a serious business. One must never accidentally vote for a political candidate who wants to limit women's reproductive rights, cut down on support for schools, or go bananas with fossil fuels. It is thus important, when voting, to stay sober and pay attention.
But here's some good news: we've got a thing you can vote on where it's an advantage to be drunk! So have some more whisky, have a look through all of this year's 60 (so far) posts, and vote for your favourite!

If you are viewing the web version of this blog, you can see all of 2015's posts listed under "Down the pan: Blog archive", below the labels (quite far down the page).

We have helpfully listed some alternatives, but do add your own favourite post!

CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

Shewee Fiend Friend says: Christmas dinner and breakfast and every meal sorted!

Now, if you should peradventure not have access to a thick history book with many rude stories, unlike Australian Friend, who just sent us an amusing quote about the pox from Peter Ackroyd's London, don't worry! THERE IS NO NEED TO DESPAIR. We've got some holiday reading for you!

Our mysteries are generally very popular, and are especially relatable at Christmas. Moreover, this one is simultaneously a cautionary tale about what happens when you don't wash your hands properly:

A Christmas Mystery: The Mysterious Case of the Curse at Crapper Castle; or; Put a Lid on It; or; No Shit, Sherlock

Then we have, of course, our classic Poirot mystery from 2011:

The Body in the Bathtub: A Poirot Mystery

Enjoy!

Now, time for a festive video! This one comes to us from German Friend, who is busy celebrating the holidays on a southern shore.

German Friend says:

And here is your Christmas present! I can't listen to it now, I would wake up dogs and people, but I'm sure it's good. The audio is, as far as I remember, an ode to shit or something played in a loop in the Hundertwasser toilets in the Hundertwasser Haus in Vienna. Recorded July 2015. I'm sorry about the sketchy information. It's Christmas Eve 7 am, I have a hangover (from the day before yesterday) and 8,000 errands to run before starting the celebrations.

(Remember, by the way, German Friend's hectic New Year's Eve the other year?)

Festive video: German Friend, Hundertwasser Loo

All we have to add is, woof!

Related Reading

Our most hectoring handwashing post ever:
Handwashing Extravaganza

By the way, this post is from 2015 and it's pretty good:
"Drunken Routs, in Which More Things Were Broken Than Heads and Furniture, Sister!"

This one was good too:

All Mouth and No Trousers - Sichuan Food in Singapore

This one wasn't bad, either:
Cheese and Worcester

By the way, here is a summary of our main rants about non-mixer taps. You're welcome:

A Note on Desperate Measures
Are You British? Does Tap Sanity Elude You?
Let's Get Medieval: King's Manor, York
Mixer Taps - The Great Controversy, or, When Will Britain Enter the 21st Century?, or, You Are Not Alone!
More Dark, Dark Horrors: An Outwardly Reputable Employer with a Dark and Filthy Secret
More Uzbek Toilets
Oh! the horror! SCREAMING BLOODY HORROR HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: The British Workplace
On the Eighth Day God Created Paratroopers, But He Forgot the Soap
Right Up Our Alley
Safety at Work

Regency Trousers - A Not Entirely Toilet-Related Post

The main topic of discussion at the Privy Counsel right now is Regency trousers. Specifically, Regency trousers as related to embarrassing erections. (It probably surprises nobody to learn that this discussion was occasioned by an overdose of Austen adaptations.) You may find this hard to believe, but there is no information on the entire internet about what Regency gentlemen did if they accidentally got an unwelcome erection in the drawing room. None at all!

Buckskin breeches - which have been compared to a pair of Levi's - were appropriate morning attire in the country. They were supposed to be skin-tight, but would become baggy with time. However, whether helpfully tight or comfortably loose, you couldn't wear them to the drawing room, and so they would be of no use in hiding RREs (Rampant Regency Erections) except maybe when pottering round the stables or the kennels, and frankly, that's a train of thought we would rather not follow.
Image from janeaustensworld.

As anyone who has ever studied Austen adaptations in way too much detail knows, the distinguishing characteristic of a pair of gentlemen's breeches is that they are very, very tight. Also, the coats are designed to cut away from the front, leaving the crotch area abandoned and forlorn. What happened, one wonders, when one of the ladies accidentally flashed too much ankle and the gentlemen's blood was inflamed by a fiery passion?
Fictional Friend speculated that "I think that's the response Ms Bingley was trying to elicit by insisting upon perambulating the room". Was this, in fact, what the endless cups of tea were for? To place over the front of one's trousers, thus hiding any embarrassing physical response to bewitching beauty? As Tudor Friend mused, "Given the lighting conditions in most houses of the period, unless it's a very bright day, it might well work".

A fascinating close-up of the technical workings of the Regency fly.
How helpful, if at all, would this have been in hiding an RRE (Rampant Regency Erection)?
Image from janeaustensworld.

According to Lucy Worsley, one of our favourite historians, it was socially acceptable to relieve oneself when in company in the Georgian/Regency era, at least among gentlemen. Was it likewise socially acceptable to display an erection left, right and centre? Tudor Friend here argued that "it's post-Puritan England, so I'd be surprised if even the lascivious Regency crowd were THAT down with open sexuality". Fictional Friend added, "True. Just trying to figure out how to read between the lines and find a euphemistic reference to it". There was also a strong suspicion that standards may have differed between social classes; as Fictional Friend argued, "that farmer guy in Emma might have had different standards for this than Mr. Knightley".

A resolution was voiced to "go through every Jane Austen story and wonder which of her heroes suffers from RREs (Rampant Regency Erections)", and it was agreed that there is "nothing like a good smutty-minded paradigm shift"!

A gratuitous image of Alan Rickman wearing trousers in Sense and Sensibility.
Image from thepenofawdur.

The discussion ended with the Regency costume website we were studying being declared to be "PURE CRACK" (i.e. highly addictive). There were then some jokes in very poor taste about the Pump Room, and the whole thing deteriorated into a very unscientific conversation.

Seriously, though, why has there been no scholarly inquiry into this topic? As Tudor Friend ranted, "I'm genuinely surprised no one has written about this. Because there is NO WAY that trousers that skin-tight didn't have SOME sexual overtones intentionally". What are the social historians out there doing?

In order to salvage what is left of our self-proclaimed intellectualism, we feel the need to post some seriously classy toilet pictures. These are from the National Gallery - bog photos can hardly get more respectable than that! So there.

This is a functional and aesthetically pleasing motion-sensor tap,
with a functional soap-dispenser dispensing pleasant soap.

Well, strike us pink with a pair of buckskin trousers if that ain't a revolving towel! Huzzah!

There is only one possible festive video for this post. As we all know, thanks to Bridget Jones, the scene where Elizabeth Bennet walks to Netherfield to check on her sister Jane is one for which Andrew Davies, the director of the 1995 BBC adaptation, wrote in the stage directions that Darcy had a giant erection.

Says Bridget (who is interviewing Colin Firth):

BJ Oh. Do you think Mr Darcy would have slept with Elizabeth Bennet before the wedding?
CF Yes, I do think he might have.
BJ Do you?
CF Yes. I think it's entirely possible. Yes.
BJ (BREATHLESSLY) Really?
CF I think it's possible, yes.
BJ How would it be possible?
CF Don't know if Jane Austen would agree with me on this, but...
BJ We can't know because she's dead.
CF No, we can't... but I think Andrew Davies's Mr Darcy would have done.
BJ Why do you think that, though? Why? Why?
CF Because I think it was very important to Andrew Davies that Mr Darcy had the most enormous sex drive.
BJ (GASPS)
CF And, um...
BJ I think that came across, really, really well with the acting. I really think it did.
CF Thank you. At one point, Andrew even wrote as a stage direction: "Imagine that Darcy has an erection".
(V. LARGE CRASHING NOISE)
BJ Which bit was that?
CF It's when she's been walking across the country and bumps into him in the grounds in the early stages.
BJ The bit where she's all muddy?
CF...and dishevelled
BJ...and sweaty?
CF Exactly.
BJ Was that a difficult bit to act?
CF You mean the erection?
BJ (AWED WHISPER) Yes.
CF Um, well, Andrew also wrote that I don't propose that we should focus on it, and, therefore, no acting required in that department at least.
BJ Mmm.
(LONG PAUSE)
CF Yes.
(MORE PAUSE)
BJ Mmm.

You're welcome.

Festive video - Pride and Prejudice BBC 1995 walking to Netherfield scene

Related Reading

The by now classic post about Lucy Worsley and Regency toilet habits:

Lucy Worsley and Jane Austen: Historical Toilet Etiquette

Another classic post, which shamelessly objectifies Mr Darcy, but which is also surprisingly informative on the subject of Regency hygiene:

Privy Counsel Pin-Up - Colin Firth

Some more objectification of Mr Darcy:

It Is Tolerable, We Suppose: A Privy Counsel Pick-Me-Up

Our festive abridged version of Pride and Prejudice:

Pride and Prejudice and Plumbing

If you wish to read more about tight trousers:

All Mouth and No Trousers - Sichuan Food in Singapore

Here's what happens when you go to Tudor Friend's house with the specific purpose of overdosing on Jane Austen costume dramas:
Failing to Be Disappointed: Tudor Friend's Tudor-Era House

A Pub Near the British Library

Back in roughly August we hit a productive streak which led Semi-Intellectual Friend to suggest, rudely (and unwisely - we will most likely never cease giving him shit about this), that we were writing too many blog posts. (Right? Preposterous!) We performed some simple statistical calculations, pointing out to Semi-Intellectual Friend, in an insufferably pompous manner, that we were nowhere near reaching the same number of posts as in for instance that prolific toilet-blogging year 2012, or even 2010, our first year of Counselling, when we produced a staggering 46 posts in three short months.

Considering that we published a post only yesterday, we imagine that Semi-Intellectual Friend might be feeling a little nervous right now, and not only due to his upcoming viva. However, dear Semi-Intellectual Friend, there is really no need to worry about this. If you knew how much rum-drinking dissipation we've got planned for 2015, you would be reassured that we will be far too fragile both mentally and physically to generate a staggering abundance of bog blog posts.

On that note, let's have some photos that Shewee Fiend Friend sent us recently! The message accompanying the pictures said, cryptically:

Purple and pink. The whole bathroom was these crazily aggressive pastel colours

Yuck

Our reply went along the lines of, "But the graffiti - YES! YES! YES!", to which Shewee Fiend Friend replied, in a less exuberant vein, "In a pink bathroom! So incongruous!". On us asking where the photos are from, we were told they were "by the British Library".

We conjectured - correctly, as it turns out - that the photographs were from a pub. However, we like to have a bit more information to give our readers, so we asked if she might remember the name of the pub. Shewee Fiend Friend is a helpful, caring person, and accommodatingly sent us the following information:

Rising Sun
http://goo.gl/maps/QxMJY


Might be that pub


Definitely a pub


I hoped the pictures would have GPS data


I was too drunk to know where we were


*am

We reckon that's as much sense as we're going to get out of Shewee Fiend Friend for the moment.

These colours are emphatically not approved by Shewee Fiend Friend.

At Privy Counsel HQ, however, we find these colours agreeable, though the non-mixer taps, of course,
make us froth at the mouth and shout obscenities.

FUCK THE PATRIARCHY!
We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

Actually, we find this quite sweet - someone has actually made an effort with the décor,
even if it doesn't incorporate crazy dolls' eyes glued to the ceiling.

In other news, more than one person has alerted us to the fact that Bill Gates recently drank water extracted from human waste. (Impressive - but we will restrain our applause until the technology produces rum.) One of our informants chose to phrase the news thus: "Here is a droll story about a programmer who's gone all funny from sitting in front of a computer all day." Couldn't have put it better ourselves!

Let's have a festive video! We're pretty sure this one incorporates a lady using a Shewee:

Festive video - Toby Keith, I Love this Bar

Related Reading

This is what happened last time we went to the pub with Shewee Fiend Friend: An Annoyingly Long, But Brilliantly Clever, Post, Including Shewees, Beer, and Some Other Stuff

In light of the British Museum's laudable initiative to host an exhibition centred on Greek nudity, we find this a good moment to revisit this post, about when we had a long discussion with Shewee Fiend Friend about how there should totally be more male nudity everywhere: Stark Raving Nudity

Last year's festschrift to Shewee Fiend Friend, on the occasion of her gaining her PhD title: Kicking Anglo-Saxon Arse: Festschrift to Shewee Fiend Friend

Benefit from Shewee Fiend Friend's advice on how (not) to drink rum: Exuberant Archaeologist Friend Is Not Impressed with Italian Toilets Again

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?