Dirty Toilets and Dirtier Minds - A Nautical Theme

Intellectual Friend has, yet again, offered us a high-quality contribution. We frankly don't know what we would do without such a knowledgeable acquaintance - is there any topic this cerebral giant is not an expert on? Turns out naughty sailors' hygiene facilities are one of our expert's many favourite topics. (We've got more information on that lavoir as well, but frankly the depth of information left us exhausted and incapable of anything more strenuous than posting dirty pictures.)

Faced with such a staggering number of baffling photos, we at first meant to perform some kind of cull, in the interests of decency and intelligbility, but our mind was, frankly, boggled, and we were left incapacitated (spot a theme, anyone?). So here are all the pictures.

(Due to the peculiarities of Intellectual Friend's intellectual-but-not-very-practically-minded phone, or perhaps, dare we suggest, due to alcohol consumption, the photos are somewhat vertically challenged.)

Intellectual Friend says:

This is a place in Toruń, Poland, one risks ending up in when all pubs are packed with carousing Torunians on Christmas nights (yes, this is a stale, over 6 month old toilet report!). It's a spacious, fancy, locally renowned yet rather soulless, over-loud and wholly un-Christmassy bar. Despite a vaguely suggestive name - Lizard King - there are no dragons about; one surmises it's just some nerdy underground musical reference or whatever.

Nonetheless, it sports an armoured submarine bathroom, with bolts and portholes and metal and all! Which doesn't preclude the usual political and anatomical wall messages (here largely overlapping categories): one spots, for instance, the prominent word dupa ("arse") with its classic feminine ending in -a, or an address to Mr Tusk, the PM, metaphorically accused of being a highly disreputable woman via the equally feminine word kurwo whose ending -o indicates the vocative case.

However, for those less linguistically-minded, almost all the available walls also display eye-catching above-average toilet wall art. One would have liked to know what the ladies' bathroom had to offer in that respect, but due to the lack of female volunteer photographers in our party, one knows it not.

Lizard King

 ul. Kopernika 3 

87-100 Toruń

Poland

Many thanks for this informative contribution, Intellectual Friend. The toilets look clean, too, if not in a spiritual sense.

Related Reading
The Computer Says No, But Everyone Else Agrees on This Being an Excellent Toilet

We Stand Corrected

Readers, we have been reprimanded. You come to us for toilet information, expecting it to be well researched and accurate. Well, we got sloppy with our research. Turns out we were wrong on many counts regarding the city of Toruń. We apologise.

Intellectual Friend smacked our fingers and gave us a bit of a lecture. Here it is:

No doubt the bombing of 1703 was particularly destructive to the town. However, I think I might have to question and challenge several of the details coming from that Historien om Sverige, no doubt a useful and entertaining work but perhaps rather too, ahem, populärhistorisk.

For some reason probably involving money and madness, the Polish nobility had just elected as new king some Saxon prince, which would explain why the armies defending against the Swedes were both Polish and Saxon. So I guess the Poles were fighting too, having had by then a century of wars against Sweden behind them and one or two previous sieges of Toruń. Except that some Polish forces started to ally themselves with the Swedes, the better to oust the Saxon king once they realised he wasn't that much of a good idea.

As to the length of wall along the Vistula visible on that photo, they are in fact medieval (13-14th c. or something near), as are two ot three gates, one of which is visible on the photo. Actually this is a view from the south -- possibly and quite logically, maybe the Swedes were only attacking from the north? Some fortress towers and a number of houses, including the huge town hall, are also survivors from the late Middle Ages. Also there are bits and ruins of a medieval castle. Much of the destruction of castle and walls was apparently done way before, or way after, 1703, by Poles for whatever reasons probably involving madness and vodka.

Toruń: Ok fine, the walls date back from before 1703. Or after. Whatever.

I much more sympathise with the accounts of military hygiene and the use made of the vital virtues of vodka, which seem plausible enough and presumably are among the stronger aspects of the book! (If I can be allowed to indulge in such a review of a book (or whatever that is!!!) which I know nothing about!!)

In defense of the author of Historien om Sverige, Herman Lindqvist, we would like to say that he, despite not being a historian, writes entertaining and accessible history books, although we would personally desire a more frequent use of semicolons, and a more observant proofreader.

What's this to do with toilets, anyway, you may well ask. Let us, for the sake of hard-hitting academic research, revisit Intellectual Friend's reviews of Toruń toilets:

There's this one.

And this one.

Also, and here's where this post finally gets exciting, there is another Toruń toilet review coming soon!!!

War in the Time of Primitive Hygiene

As observant readers with good memories may recall, we have, thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Intellectual Friend, written once or twice about toilets in the Polish city of Toruń. Toruń seems like a very nice place; we wouldn't mind brandishing a pitcher of beer while shouting "Na zdrowie!" and generally making asses of ourselves there one day. You may thus imagine our horror when reading an account of the wars of the Swedish king Charles XII, and learning that the Swedish army more or less levelled this fair city with the ground in 1703!

Charles XII. Very particular about hygiene. Disliked Russians.

 Our source tells us that those marauding Swedes took several thousand prisoners of war (mainly Saxons; the Poles weren't fighting at this point), and made them tear down the city walls and towers. These were then sent to Sweden, where presumably they still stand. The army further got their hands on 140 cannon, 8,000 muskets, and a fat load of cash. To add insult to injury, they took all the church bells and sold them back to the good burghers of Toruń for a fortune.

Toruń: None of the city walls date from before 1703

Before we submit to despair and anguish on behalf of the poor people of Toruń, however, we should consider the Swedish army's hygiene regimen. Each army camp had proper latrine pits at a sanitary distance. Every soldier had to shave at least once a week, and officers had to make sure that everyone combed their hair and washed themselves and their clothes. Nobody was allowed - on pain of harsh punishment - to drink water from any well without first boiling it and adding large quantities of vodka. (This seems like a sensible precaution and one that we intend to implement ourselves.)

Charles XII's army also had highly progressive medical services. The sawbones didn't just hack people's limbs off, but was highly skilled at removing bullets and trepanning, and had a large supply of various medicines, mainly vodka, although a certain amount of opium was also available. "Those who couldn't either live or die I cut," the humane junior officer Robert Petre wrote.

"Harumph," says Hygeia, and goes off in search of her hand sanitizer.

"Your army smells. Please go in that direction."

More Polish Plumbing: Pierogarnia Stary Toruń

Our groundbreaking research into Eastern European (well, Polish, anyway) toilets continues! Today we take a look at the toilets in an establishment called Pierogarnia Stary Toruń. Intellectual Friend says:

Apart from serving an impressive range of pierogi dishes (those traditional dough dumplings stuffed with pretty much anything one can dream of), best of which are those stuffed with mountain ewe cheese, oven baked and served with cranberry sauce (by an alluring Polish beauty of course), and sporting interesting wooden furniture and decoration among which barrels and buckets are prominent, this surprisingly pleasant establishment also boasts a legendary bog!

We take our hats off to Intellectual Friend for his daring and dedication in taking these pictures. 

 Firstly, we've got the toilet itself - note the cleanness, the covered bin and the water-saver flush! Hygeia isn't sure about wooden toilet seats, but we bet it's kept extremely clean, and that germs are discouraged from breeding in between the cracks and ridges of the wood. She's also generally prone to excessive frowning and tutting when she sees toilet rolls lying loose, but these ones appear to be fairly guarded from any germs being spread around with the water spray generated when flushing.

Yes, it's possible to worry
about absolutely everything

Intellectual Friend: However you rotate this
picture it's still patent that I had to climb up the wall
to take it (and get the feet marks and all).
You do have to be a long-legged giant
to reach those footprints while seated by the way.

We like this attractive frosting pattern on the window. Functional and aesthetically pleasing at the same time!

Intellectual Friend: The book's title translates as "The Little Mole and the Little Hares' Mum" (you'll of course have noticed the Indo-European diminutive ending "-k-"!)
The Privy Counsellor: Naturally. "There's the Indo-European diminutive ending '-k-'", we said to ourselves.

A mangle. We're assuming its purpose is to be decorative and interesting, and hope it fills no more sinister function.

Intellectual Friend: Although it says "Chevalier Brand", below it also does say "DRAGON BRAND CLOTHES WRINGERS - BEST IN THE WORLD - Warranted 5 years for family use"!

The very rustic sink is equipped with a mixer tap and a presumably well-filled soap dispenser.

Intellectual Friend: Note there's a hook (not necessarily sturdy though) on the toilet door

This attractive birdhouse apparently houses an air-dryer. Hygeia shudders, and not just because of the unhygienic aspects.

 

Pierogarnia Stary Toruń (“Old Torun Dumpling Factory”)

Most Pauliński 2
Toruń, Poland
+48 56 621 10 46

Intellectual Friend: Open daily from 11.03 to 22.56 sharp!

Further Adventures of Intellectual Friend: Polish Plumbing

Intellectual Friend has been travelling again! This time to Poland! (If you missed Intellectual Friend's excursion to Iceland, you can read about it here and here.)

Our first picture is of a toilet in the bar Jadwiga, in the town of Toruń, at 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve. It looks reasonably clean for such a time on such a day, but if you look closely (which we have, of course, done), the toilet brush is pretty grotty, and there seems to be stubborn dirt encrusted on the toilet roll holder and on the underside of the toilet seat.

There is an air-dryer, rendering Hygeia sneering and haughty, BUT there is also a paper-towel dispenser, albeit empty.

Here is our next stop on our Polish adventure: the pub Togun.  Looks pretty picturesque, doesn't it?

Let's look at what Intellectual Friend has to say about this eminent pub:

Togun, one of the pubs that nestle in what used to be cellars under the old buildings (medieval to 17th century). Togun used to have much wood panelling with weird things sculpted or carved, including fake manuscript pages written in pseudo-Latin, and runes too; there were runes even on the doors to the toilet (text probably fake as well, I think, but the runes seemed true, in Younger Futhark style, and I think I have a transcript somewhere). Also there was a huge dragon creeping on the ceiling. Unfortunately there was a change of management recently and they did away with such intellectual curiosities, and replaced the wooden furniture with those blue armchairs which are as deliciously comfy as they are horribly jarring. However, they left the massive doors be.

The narrative continues:

As one looks at the two toilet doors, it is unclear whether ladies/gents segregation is intended. Customers seem not to bother. I usually go to the slightly larger one, partly in order to enjoy some more room, but it was occupied and I ventured into the other one, on the left.
Note the PEEPHOLE under the brass lion head! It is old and visibility is poor, making it uncertain which peeping direction was meant; nevertheless, and no doubt for some unconscious bastard-male-chauvinistic reason, I always assumed it must have been designed for peeping into the toilet from the outside, as a means of innocent entertainment offered to the predominantly male clientele, and I therefore always inferred it was the ladies' toilet.

Ladies' toilet (?) with peephole

Brave the peephole-enriched toilet, and you will discover a delightfully cross-gender-friendly arrangement: a toilet and a pissoir! Intellectual Friend ponders the possibility of sociable toilet-going being intended (if you remember, the same theory was broached to explain a similar arrangement in Reykjavík).

At the risk of being crude, we wonder if this might be
an opportunity to multi-task?

There's a mixer tap, which Hygeia approves of, but we can't spot any soap,
which makes her very pissed off indeed

The door from the inside

Ladies and gents, there's more Polish Plumbing coming in our next update!

If you'd like instructions on how to get to Toruń, or the transcript of those fake runes, don't hesitate to e-mail us on theprivycounsellor@gmail.com.


Jadwiga
Rynek Staromiejski 1
87-100 Toruń
Poland
+48 56 621 02 17 ‎

 Togun
Żeglarska 24
87-100 Toruń
Poland
+48 56 621 02 89    

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