Losing, Then Finding, One's a) Shewee and b) Mind

It is after the second or third hipster beer, in our experience, that the really tough questions make themselves known and demand to be taken into consideration. For instance, portaloos with a flush are obviously a game-changer, but where do they place on the grand scale of human endeavour? Are they on a par with fire and penicillin, or further down, more towards the level of Billy the Bass and duct tape? What would Abraham Maslow say? We predict that philosophers will be spending centuries hashing this one out.

We have many habits here at the Privy Counsel, some of which are healthy and many of which are downright deplorable. One habit of which we are not only particularly fond but which we like to think is positively edifying, is having beers with the friend we like to call Nerdy Beer-Obsessive Friend. We happened to be having beer and bewilderingly complex pizza with Nerdy Beer-Obsessive Friend the other day at a place called Benchwarmers, in Helsingborg, and were very pleased to come across this festive and also clean and coat-hook-enriched toilet, especially in light of the inevitable fatigue following upon a) a hard-hitting debate regarding the human condition in relation to portaloos, and b) pizza that requires an inordinate amount of cognitive effort just to figure out what the hell is on it, and why.

We're assuming that the flamingoes are ironic, but the thing about the modern age is that one can't tell the difference between even a joke and a bona fide news item. What chance do the flamingoes stand, in this climate, to signal the presence of irony, or lack thereof?

For those who enjoy almost seeing people, there is a special label just for you.

If you find this picture soothing, there may well be something wrong with you, but at least you're not the only one.

Attentive readers may remember our last post, even though it was published several days ago and nobody among our acquaintance has any memory left of anything occurring this side of 1994. Be that as it may, Shewee Fiend Friend, coming across the illuminative and edifying picture we were sent by Feisty French Friend, was moved to inform us of the changes that have recently occurred in her private life. She reported:

I sent [Male person in Shewee Fiend Friend's life] the beard/mullet toilet roll hanging model from your recent blog and he loved it

In the past year he has converted to full time beard-style hanging and his criticism of my hanging is so intense that I’ve now mostly given up and submit to your and his joint pressure

The funny part is, he believes he has always hung it this way. He has no memory of a time when chaos ruled his life and he did it differently every time, and when I tell him about that time, he claims I am lying

(Read more about this man's incomprehensible approach to bog roll here.)

Reader, this left us reeling. In a frightening and ever-changing universe, Shewee Fiend Friend's misguided stance on toilet paper is one of the few certainties keeping us grounded. What even happens, we asked ourselves, if she has started hanging her bog roll the right way round? As in, cosmically? Will the stars come loose from their sockets and wander about willy-nilly, will the oceans roil and roar to the rhythm of low-quality rockabilly, will the earth quake and maybe even spontaneously combust? Thankfully, Shewee Fiend Friend assured us that: 

[This] doesn’t mean my beliefs have changed. I just now deliberately hang the roll wrong.

After this emotional roller-coaster, we naturally needed a drink. Thus we let ourselves be persuaded to visit a beer festival in Malmö, against our better judgement. You may imagine our relief when we discovered that the hygiene facilities, despite the high concentration of hipsters at this event, were neither portaloos nor ironic toilets reminiscent of a cattle shed, but perfectly civilised facilities offering soap, coat-hooks and spare bog roll. (There was however a sink for filling one's water bottle which was, inevitably, constructed in the likeness of a cattle trough.)

There are actually two different kinds of soap here but as Nerdy Beer-Obsessed Friend pointed out, at least one of them smells terrible.

Normally we'd quibble with the placement of the hook (too near the toilet), but on this occasion we were just so grateful, among the onslaught of various hipster horrors, that there was one.

You can just about spot the spare bog roll, unhygienically placed on the floor. Again, we were just so grateful that there was one.

There is another heartwarming story we've been meaning to tell you about a thing that happened outside some portaloos in Helsingborg in probably 2017, but God only knows where the photos are and we can only promise to bring the subject up again in the unlikely event that - no, we can't even imagine what improbable occurrence might cause that story to be told. Let us swiftly move on to these lovely photos from Jonny, containing the message referenced in a previous post, regarding the Twelve Days of Cistern. The thought of this future event is the only thing currently enabling us to view the darkening days and approaching winter, with its attendant emotional carnage and horror clowns, with anything resembling equanimity.

What can one even do, except maybe sigh and possibly clutch one's throat? Well, quite.

In a clear parallel to Margaret Mitchell writing the last chapter of Gone with the Wind first, we constructed the title of this bog blog post before composing the actual post, and are now left with an obligation, however imaginary, to write something about the trauma we experienced the other day when we could find neither a) our Shewee nor b) our back-up Shewee. Reader, it was rough.

Festive Video: Tré Burt, Know Your Demons

 

Related reading

On the Nature of Academic Friendships

All posts featuring duct tape

All posts featuring Nerdy Beer-Obsessive Friend

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

Moving Heaven and Earth: Polarisation and Proto-Indo-Europeans

That time when Shewee Fiend Friend went about the countryside reclaiming her womanhood and urinating all over everything: SISTERS STANDING UP FOR THEMSELVES

All posts featuring Jonny 

All posts featuring pheasants 

Why do hipsters require sinks shaped like cattle troughs?

All posts featuring Shewees

Things That Are Better Than Elvis

We don't know what your neck of the woods is like, but round our way there has been vigorous galloping in many directions, and enthusiastic cries of tally-ho! have been heard all over the realm. There has been frantic activity, not all of it related to escaping homicidal horror-clowns. Amid all the confusion, Shewee Fiend Friend accidentally agreed with us on two things, one of which was music-related. We know. It was a shock for everyone involved. Right now we're having a metaphorical sit-down in the shade, panting feebly and guzzling reassuring amounts of gin.

Shewee Fiend Friend went to a diner in North America recently, and sent us pictures with helpful and enlightening captions. The toilets in the diner in question were reassuringly sex-segregated, meaning that Shewee Fiend Friend felt safe throughout her visit. We've talked quite a lot about the horror of forcing women to share intimate spaces with people who a) are on average significantly larger and stronger physically, and b) commit 98 % of all acts of sexual violence. However, we'd still like to take this opportunity to recommend this excellent summary on why mixed-sex toilets are awful for women by Woman's Place UK, and also this one by Holly Lawford Smith.

Allez, en piste! Shewee Fiend Friend writes:

Inside it was pretty cool. Lots of 50s shit

Every table had a personal jukebox
I played Video killed the radio star Not Elvis
The bathrooms. Phenomenal

You enter this little vestibule from which you can enter one of two toilets
 

If you look closely, you'll see women's is marked doubly
I like that

 Same for men's

 And in case it wasn't clear, the doors go to the floor

Very pleasant and reasonably clean. Above right was a sturdy coat hook

The joy of almost seeing people is present in this photo!

 The comforting reminder that employees must wash hands

(I don't know why Americans have these signs everywhere. I find it disquieting that employees need to be reminded)

And finally, just in case it wasn't clear

Wasn't that wonderful? We feel somehow safe and clean, which is how we like to be if at all possible.

A friend who we might refer to, for the sake of convenience and also accuracy, as Nerdy Beer Obsessive Friend, sent us this festive photo from a place in Helsingborg, Sweden, that provides culture for the people.

Mmm, let's have some more of that almost seeing people joy! Hurrah!

Now for a Jonny Babe Parade photo. For reasons to which we are not privy, Jonny is going through a Peaky Blinders phase. The result is most pleasing. We don't know where this photo was taken, and we also don't care.

Woof!

The thing about getting older is that one realises there are things that are better than Elvis. For instance, sex-segregated toilets. Also one realises that there are a fuckload of Elvis songs that other people did long before Elvis, and that are actually much better. Today's Festive Video is one example.

Festive Video: Big Mama Thornton, Hound Dog


Related Reading

An excellent summary of why mixed-sex toilets are awful for women, by Woman's Place UK:
Why Gender-Neutral Toilets Don't Work for Women 

Another excellent summary of the issue by Holly Lawford Smith:
Should Companies Install Gender Neutral Bathrooms?

Some previous Privy Counsel posts on the horror of mixed-sex toilets, which can be summarised with  the words a) NOBODY WANTS TO ELBOW THEIR WAY THROUGH A SEA OF BEARDED HIPSTERS TO GET TO THE SINK and also b) HARDEN THE FUCK UP AND GIVE THE WOMEN THEIR OWN FUCKING TOILET:

Divide [the Toilets] and Conquer [One of a Multitude of Aspects of Women's Subjugation to Male Violence]

"Let Them Eat Cake" - Could It Be Any More Obvious That a Man Designed These Toilets?
 
Stockholm Central Station: The Trauma Is So Great We Are Brought To Quoting Cicero

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

All posts featuring Jonny

A Wild International Toilet Journey, Possibly Incorporating Sacrilege

We described in our last post, with plenty of poetic expression but not a whisper of a scintilla of an iota of hyperbole, our work situation. Said work situation is the reason our oh! so intellectual yet firmly grounded in common sense bog-blogging, beloved by really quite a few people, not all of whom are imaginary, has regrettably been reduced to a sad, slow trickle, only faintly reminiscent of the mighty river that once roared through the barren badlands that comprise the sum total of factual yet humorous toilet blogs, vitalising the dry banks and causing the desert to bloom.

We are blessed in having many humorous yet intellectual friends to keep us, if not sane then at least functioning (to a greater or lesser degree, depending on time of day and level of sobriety). Said friends keep sending us amusing and/or horrifying toilet pictures, and currently we are at the point where we simply must use these pictures or be crushed under a thundering avalanche of porcelain imagery. Hence we are simply going to post the pictures currently languishing in our archive, without any thought as to coherence or even sanity.

First up are a wonderful collection of photos from a dear friend of ours who is a nearly finished physician. She asked if we are still blogging about toilets and hygiene, and continued to tell us about her travels to Malaysia and Singapore. The toilets there, she says, are always clean and nice. Our friend also reflects that it is important that toilets be easily accessible and clean. The first pictures are from Gardens by the Bay, in Singapore, which establishment, our friend assures us, sported "proper clean and nice toilets".

Next we are treated to pictures of a toilet in Malaysia, "probably from a karaoke bar". We are, as regular readers are aware, not fond of cubicles, but these cubicle doors at least have the grace and decency to be colourful.

Finally we are treated to these photos from the airport in Kuala Lumpur.

Our friend notes with approval that the bins have one of those lids with a flip chute, so that you are not forced to view the contents of the bin when discarding your sanitary product. We also approve of these, and have ranted in the past about the fact that so many toilet designers assume that one has the use of both - or even three, or more - hands when operating a bin, being blissfully ignorant of the fact that it is rather hard to flip a lid when one or both hands are covered in blood and you are crouched weirdly in an insane toilet stall CLEARLY DESIGNED BY A MAN, trying not to bleed on your clothes, your shoes, or the wall.

We observed once in Copenhagen that having a foot-operable bin makes it approximately 180 % easier to not smear blood on everything in one's vicinity, and concluded that letting women design things would vastly improve the world. (See also Caitlin Moran's "If" poem, based on the line "If you can change your tampon in the toilet of a moving train".) Note to male designers everywhere: WOMEN HAVE ONLY TWO HANDS.

Our friend concludes her very enjoyable toilet odyssey with the words "These were all the pictures I took before I left my phone in a taxi and never found it".

Next up, we have pictures of a beautiful yet mysterious toilet in Amsterdam!

A friend of ours who is a midwife and a rampant feminist explains that this toilet is in the old first-class waiting room at Amsterdam Central Station, which is now a bistro. She adds:

Den stora frågan är ju om det är en duva med kronan över - i så fall har jag ju kissat på den helige ande

[The main question is if this is a dove with a crown - in that case I weed on the holy spirit]

Tycker mer det liknar en papegoja

[I think it looks more like a parrot]

 We are inclined to agree that the bird in question is a parrot - perhaps an Indonesian one? It appears that parrots where a common motif in Dutch art from the 17th century. We have also found evidence of at least one porcelain cockatoo associated with the Netherlands - perhaps this emblem of luxury worked its way, over the centuries, onto the porcelain of a toilet bowl? Certainly parrots and other exotic animals were frequently used as decorative elements on Dutch tiles in the 17th century. Why the parrot should be graced with a - presumably royal - crown is still a mystery to us, however. According to the internet, the restaurant in question has an actual parrot living on the premises, though we wonder what came first - the parrot or the bog?

Finally, we offer these pictures from a toilet in Prague:

 We asked the friend who sent these pictures a simple, yet searingly relevant question:

WHY?

The reply? 

I don't know. That's just the way it is.

 And that, dear readers, summarises the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything. Many thanks to our kind friends for sending us these pictures, which warmed our heart and lit up the darkness during very troubled times.

Let's have a Festive Video that not only continues the avian theme but soothes a troubled soul. We find this song comforting when things get too crazy. It was originally written and performed by Blaze Foley, but we find that we prefer this version by John Prine.

Festive Video: John Prine, Clay Pigeons


Related Reading

All posts featuring Singapore

Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend's rather fabulous report from Singapore, into which we managed to squeeze a not inconsiderable amount of feminist ranting: All Mouth and No Trousers - Sichuan Food in Singapore

All posts featuring Malaysia

A post featuring a really great bin: Caitlin Moran Really Does Make Everything Better

Another post in which we rant about things designed by men: "Let Them Eat Cake" - Could It Be Any More Obvious That a Man Designed These Toilets?

Caitlin Moran reading the poem "If" I Were a Woman

All posts featuring delftware

All posts featuring the Czech Republic

Another post featuring a song by Blaze Foley: Cuteness, Intellectual Solace, and a Correction