Important Public Information

Browsing the internet for plumbing research purposes, our attention was caught by an important public information film about hot water. Millions of tap-users are putting their lives at risk every day due to ignorance. Please watch this film and tell friends, neighbours and little old grannies about it. Remember, the hot water menace may strike at any moment!

Watch the film here:

 If you find projectile vomiting amusing and are irritated by the British obsession with separated (or non-integrated) taps, you may find this blog refreshing:

http://notfromaroundhere.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/a-real-reason-to-criticize-british-two-tap-sinks/

Picture from

http://geekadelphia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/employees-must-wash-hands.jpg

(Hygeia, needless to say, approves of careful handwashing, which is most effective with a mixer tap, with which you can adjust the temperature so that the water is pleasantly warm, yet not dangerously scalding. Hygeia recommends adhering to the NHS guidelines for handwashing; get instructions here.)

If you're not sure where to stand on the integrated/non-integrated tap divide, get some factual, un-biased information here.

If you found this entertaining and edifying, wait till you see all the other exciting things our internet trawl found - on the Privy Counsel tomorrow!

Picture from http://www.ukcpi.org/images/Hooray%20for%20Handwashing.jpg

Coming Soon: Celebrity Toilets!

We are dreadfully excited about a new development for our beloved bog blog.  We have persuaded a real, bona-fide celebrity (we won't tell you who yet) to show us their bathroom!  Expect glamour, expect drama, expect sparkling porcelain!   

We look forward to an update full of intrigue and heated emotions!  So get your fake eyelashes on, and keep your eyes peeled!

Two typical celebrities and a toilet
Image from moopy.

Related Reading:
Celebrity Toilet Premiere
Rejoice, for We Bring You Another Celebrity Crapper!

Coming Soon

Exciting times! Intellectual Friend returns soon, with a thrilling report from The Best Toilet in Iceland! You do not want to miss this - keep your eyes peeled!
Also, we are shortly to introduce Semi-Intellectual Friend, with some interesting pictures from a restaurant with a murky past!

Are You British? Does Tap Sanity Elude You?

Why visitors to Britain complain about taps

Most visitors to Britain end up, sooner or later, becoming enraged by the plumbing. If they settle in the country they usually end up complaining about it, sometimes going off on lengthy and even hostile rants. (If this happens in a pub after a few pints, the situation can get very embarrassing and uncomfortable for everyone involved.) Most Britons don’t understand the reasons behind the complaints, since, knowing no other type of plumbing, they consider British plumbing normal. They are therefore, understandably, hurt and offended by the criticism. Since this is a blog dedicated to critique of plumbing of various kinds, we thought we’d try to explain why British taps unleash so much aggression.

Mainly, it’s to do with water temperature. With separated taps, you get two temperatures: scalding hot and freezing cold. Since most people prefer their skin intact and free of dangerous burns, one ends up washing one’s hands and brushing one’s teeth using freezing cold water. This is, simply, unpleasant. Brits often argue that one can fill up the sink with tempered water. This is true, but is it practical, or even hygienic? Would you fill up the sink to wash your hands in a train station, for instance, where you don’t know when the sink was last cleaned, or what kind of bodily fluids have gone into it? And why go to the trouble of filling it up at all, when a mixer tap will instantly provide you with water at the temperature of your choice? (Unless, of course, it is one of those bizarre British mixer taps which separate the hot and cold water inside the water stream.) As to Boris Johnson’s comments regarding getting hand-washing “over and done with”, we consider them downright dangerous. Cf. the NHS guidelines to handwashing.

Image from mechanicaldesignforum

The author Judith Flanders, in her excellent book The Victorian House, (London: Harper Perennial, 2004) points out that when indoor plumbing was first introduced in Britain, the people who could afford it had servants, and thus didn’t need hot-water taps at all, since they could employ people to heat and carry water (for a factual and unbiased account of Victorian technical developments, see this blog post). When taps became more common, hot-water taps were often added as an afterthought, and thus it became standard practice to keep hot- and cold-water taps separated (for a brief history of British plumbing, have a look at these pictures from the Castle Museum in York).  James R. Hagerty, in his article “Old-Fashioned Faucets: Unique British Standard” in the Wall Street Journal (31 October 2002; we found it on another blog) also lists the desire to keep Victorian houses looking Victorian as one of the reason why Britons so strangely persist with their uncomfortable plumbing arrangements.

How many men end up with burns due to shaving using scalding hot water? How many people with sensitive teeth end up in severe discomfort after rinsing their mouth with icy cold water? How often do you scald your left foot topping up the bath water?  One of the people interviewed in the Wall Street Journal article opines that she likes twiddling the bath taps with her toes. You can still do this with a mixer tap. So many of life’s little unpleasantnesses could be done away with if mixer taps were installed!

There are many other irritating aspects of British plumbing, like the unwieldy, disability-hostile toilet flush handles, the instalment of pipes outside which causes them to freeze in winter (for an unpleasant example and downright scary pictures, see our previous blog post on this subject), and the lack of drains in bathroom floors, causing leaking water to permeate the entire building and making it even damper than it already was, but we fear that contemplating them for too long would have a negative effect on our health and mental wellbeing, and so we believe it safer to leave them for another day and another blog post.

Apparently Jamie Oliver has had to weld the toilet handles to the toilets in his restaurants, since guests habitually steal them. Why someone would steal such an annoying, impractical contraption is beyond us. Image from ifood.

As a counter-argument to the reasons for complaint stated above, let us present the views of a friend of a friend, resident in Sweden:

I've been trying to develop a system to SEPARATE your hot and cold since I came here.
I mean seriously, what kind of country is this with no extremes on a day-to-day basis? You've got summer and winter at opposite sides of the year - we get it every day! Scotland and Wales get it 4 or 5 times a day! Then you develop safe cars, and safe taps, and double glazing (probably not Swedish, but triple glazing has to be!). Everything's so bloody LAGOM!
Great Britain became great through urgency, fear and panic... Daily doses of it! We NEED to be unsure if we can handle the temperature of the water.... How do you think we motivate ourselves to go to war so often? Even if there is no enemy, we can always rely on the French for a fight!.... And as for driving on the wrong side of the road - you guys had it right... then changed! How do you develop xenophobia in liberal people that travel? That's right, force them to drive on the wrong side of the road in the countries they travel to.... Now that's a base-level of fear that can motivate middle-class intellectuals to fight anything foreign.... Sooner we get the empire up-and-running again the better.... Where's my G&T and mogadon?

Does this blog post enrage you? Do you have opinions on British plumbing? Do not hesitate to e-mail us at theprivycounsellor [at ] gmail.com. 

Related Reading
Alien vs. Predator: Blood, Gore and Mixer-Taps
Terminator Toilet
Mixer Taps - The Great Controversy, or, When Will Britain Enter the 21st Century?, or, You Are Not Alone!  

Gettin' Vengeful with Gandhi

Dear blog readers,

Having survived our Lake District trip and brought you pictures of the best toilet in England (know a better one? E-mail us at theprivycounsellor@gmail.com!), we embark on our next adventure, which will take us away from the damp, plumbing-challenged British isles for some considerable time. Internet access may be patchy, but don't despair - we anticipate feeling the effects of Gandhi's Revenge, also known as the Delhi Belly, to a not inconsiderable extent, and look forward to bringing you updates on this subject. Also, we are sure to come across some amusing and bizarre toilets to post pictures of.

In the meantime, check your pipes regularly!

A Message from Your Privy Counsellor

Dear fellow toilet-obsessives,

The blog will be silent for a little while as we're going away, first on a small adventure, then on quite a big adventure that will take us to a land far, far away. However, fear not! We employ ceaseless toilet-related vigilance, and our efforts to bring you moderately amusing toilet information will continue to be unrelenting. What's more, our first adventure will take us to what we remember as the best toilet in England, and our second adventure likewise promises to provide a few bog-related eye-openers!

In the meantime, here's a quote from Absolutely Fabulous to keep you amused:

Eddie: Why do you have to pick on everything I do? Darling, all I want is a few little things, a few little pleasures, a few little crutches to help me get through life, darling.

Saffy: Get through? Mum, you've absolved yourself of responsibility. You live from self-induced crisis to self-induced crisis. Someone does your hair, someone chooses what you wear, someone does your brain, someone tells you what to eat, and, three times a week, someone sticks a hose up your bum and flushes it all out of you.

Eddie: It's called colonic irrigation, darling. It's not to be sniffed at.

Saffy: Why can't you just go to the toilet like normal people?

Eddie: Is that what you really want me to be, darling? Normal? Some boring, old, normal, old toilet-goer, huh? Hmm? "Where's mummy?" "She's on the toilet." "But I want to go somewhere interesting and meet exciting people." "Well, she can't take you because she's on the bloody toilet." Well, anybody can go to the toilet, darling, these days.

Saffy: Well, they obviously haven't seen you drunk.

(From series 1, Episode 1, Fashion. Written by Jennifer Saunders.)

More public toilets!

A toilet-obsessed friend lent us a scanner, and we meant to finally enter the 21st century by scanning a reader’s letter from our local newspaper.  However, technical problems got in the way, and we will have to do without it!  Here follows, instead, a transcription:

A costly call

As a former York resident who returns from time to time to shop or visit family and friends, I recently discovered the new toilets in Silver Street.

While they are an improvement in some ways, and I do not object to paying some charge for this service, I feel 40p was a bit steep, considering there was no hook to hang things from inside the cubicles (standard in most loos), which meant having to put my bag on a floor which was wet.

To add insult to injury, the hot air dryer did not work properly so I ended up having to dry my hands on my scarf.

(From The Press, 24 November 2010).

Personally, we find airdryers disgusting, and habitually dry our hands on items of clothing rather than risk exposing ourselves to other people's intestinal bacteria, so the airdryers being broken does not make us want to whip out a violin and play a sad tune.  However, the lack of a coat hook is nothing short of scandalous, and will of course be investigated: expect a review shortly!

The Silver Street toilets replace the old ones in Parliament Street.
Image from York Press.

Meanwhile, more exciting news from Sweden (my, my, how those busy Swedes do network!): according to Sydsvenskan, the council in Malmö is considering expanding their stock of public toilets! 50 million kronor (roughly £ 4 million) will be spent on building bogs across the city.  What is revolutionary is that the city is planning staffed toilets.  Unmanned public toilets are a popular, relatively warm hang-out for drug addicts, and this is to be discouraged. Sydsvenskan ends with noting that heeding the call of nature in a public place is likely to end in a fine of up to 1000 kronor (about £80).

For the full article AND PICTURES, see

 http://www.sydsvenskan.se/malmo/article1303336/Femtio-miljoner-satsas-pa-nodlosning.html

For information on Malmö, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malm%C3%B6

Related Reading
AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! AIR-DRYERS!

Venting Our Spleen (Right Down the Drain)

What Would Freud Say? Toilet Fear: More Common Than You Think

Today we return to the theme of the workplace toilet. A friend of ours in far-off, hygienically sound Sweden drew our attention to this little news titbit.  It seems that there is a wonderful phenomenon called the Toilet Barometer, which finds out all kinds of thrilling facts about people's thoughts on toilets.  Apparently, 55% of Polish people are afraid of being infected by disease when going to the toilet at work!  Either Poles are more than averagely paranoid, or we have reason to be grateful that we have never visited Poland.  The French are little better; 39% of Frenchmen are scared of their work toilets (and they have never even seen the toilet featured in our Screaming Horror Halloween Special!).  Furthermore, and this is intriguing, 19% of French workers claim to use their workplace facilities seldom or never.  Maybe they have super-strong, reinforced bladders?  Or maybe their shorter-than-the-European-average working week means that they can comfortably wait until they get home?  Swedish people, as would be expected, are the least worried about their workplace bogs; only 8% harbour paranoia in that department.

In case you're starting to feel sleepy at your desk, here's a refreshing image to wake you up!

To revisit our workplace toilet reviews, see

The Privy Counsel: Oh! the horror! SCREAMING BLOODY HORROR HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: The British Workplace

 and

The Privy Counsel: More Dark, Dark Horrors: An Outwardly Reputable Employer with a Dark and Filthy Secret
 

If you have Scandinavian leanings, read the entire Toilet Barometer article at: http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/toaskrack-vanligt-pa-jobbet-1.1210186

SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN: World Toilet Day 19 November

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

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

Here are some facts to improve your mind:

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

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

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

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

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