Panta, as someone in our near vicinity is fond of saying, rei. Everything flows; sometimes in the direction of the sewer, sometimes in the direction of your favourite intellectual toilet blog. Some rather exciting photos flowed our way recently from Tudor Friend, who says:
Hark! A creative urinal! Apparently in a Ford garage in Florida (friends are wintering there)
How delightful to a) be wintering in Florida and b) come across this amusing and innovative urinal!
Tudor Friend continues:
The sinks that go with the keg/barrel urinal.
We've made our views on airdryers clear and that view is not a vista of mountains on a sunny day with goats frolicking in the valley, but rather a postmodernist industrial hellscape with machines that can tell when you're feeling sad and report you to the authorities. However, these sinks and also taps - which we assume are mixer-taps - are to be applauded. At length. With a da capo.
We would also like to take this opportunity of alerting our readers to the existence of this article from CNN about a 2,700-year-old luxury toilet in Israel which Tudor Friend sent us with her usual intellectually stimulating kindness.
In an effort to expand our horizons we recently went to a Thai restaurant and, in an effort to save time while there, used the gents' toilet. Did we regret this decision? Reader, we did.
We lack the skills to read this sign, but are assuming that it is informative and helpful. We are also intrigued by what is either a mini radiator or a radiator cunningly hidden behind a wall. Unfortunately we were too horrified by the sticky spot on the floor to want to touch or explore anything in this loo, or we would most likely have investigated this for the benefit of our regular, and also less regular, readers.
Perhaps we were not in an ideal place, physically, intellectually, or alcoholically, to take useful and productive toilet pictures at this point, but it seems that we thought the hand-washing and -drying arrangements at least satisfactory.
It has been decreed by Privy Counsel headquarters that you deserve (the choice is yours whether to view this as benevolence or hostility) a super summer extravaganza blog post, and thus, whether you want it or not, and whether getting one is even in your best interests, you are getting a super summer extravaganza blog post!
We have a lot of photos of toilets to get through, so we'd better get started before the leaves fall from the trees and the bears (those mythical creatures who, according to a popular idiom, crap in the woods) go to hibernate, the lucky fuckers, while the rest of us have to continue getting the bus to work in darkness while trying not to freeze our toes or other extremities off, spend the day under fluorescent lights engaged in meetings with people who can't form coherent sentences, then go home in the dark only to find that the cheese has gone mouldy and women STILL don't count as humans.
Let us keep the darkness, metaphorical as well as literal, at bay, however, by focusing on metaphorical (and, in the case of the northern latitudes, unremittingly literal at this time of year, actually) sunlight: We have a special treat for you today! Regular readers will remember with fondness and admiration past posts by Intellectual Friend. Well, hold on to your hats and make sure your toilet roll is turned the right way around - here is a new contribution from that worthy intellectual! From Greenland, no less!
I thought I would show you this private toilet, which I saw (and wincingly made use of) in a forlorn settlement called Oqaatsut, latitude 69 N, population 40 not counting a couple hundred sleddogs.
It is I believe the cosiest loo I have encountered so far in such a context (the context being the lack of running water, no sewage system (the skybound pipe behind the seat merely serving as a mildly efficient vent and stench suppressor) and the undiggability of the frozen ground).
Black plastic bag in the toilet bowl/barrel. Suspicious yellow-tinted meltwater in the washbasin.
Helpful inscription on the wall above, "Uunga errorit", which can be interpreted as meaning "Wash here" (an injunction which I did not feel inclined to obey, especially as I had my hand sanitizer to hand), where -it is the imperative 2nd pers. sing. ending. There was no toilet paper; but if there had been any, I'd assume by analogy with other lavatories in the country that the roll would be lying on a mouldy windowsill or on the actual and clammy floor at the very foot of the toilet. Note however the ingeniously placed wooden soapholder (what passed for soap in there looked however very unattractive) and also the purple hook and festive handknitted towel.
I should add that I failed to obtain prior permission to take this sneaky photo, partly because our host, a venerable lady and oldest dweller in said settlement, could only speak Greenlandic (and some thick dialect of it at that), so that technically it might be a case of rape and abuse of one's privacy and private property, such as it is, although I'm no expert. But the brave old lady had cooked us lunch, bless her, and she sat and watched us eat it with great interest. [Name omitted], the only fluent speaker of Greenlandic among us, mostly declined to engage in conversation with the host, leaving the hyggelig/lagom atmosphere to thicken up to its natural slightly awkward density.
It was a more or less planned stop we had on a little sailing trip which we took out of Ilulissat, a town to the north where we spent Easter. And here for the sake of variation are a few other pics from that Oqaatsut settlement and around: the [...] house of our host [omitted due to privacy concerns], a bleak view of the village, the worthy old vessel in which we were sailed thereto, and an icefell or two.
We've seen a lot of primitive toilets in our day (for instance, this one or why not ponder this one or indeed this one), and Intellectual Friend's bog description does not scare us; being situated, as it is, in a context of rugged wilderness and base survival. Continuing the theme of rugged wilderness, but in a location which offers no excuse not to offer hygiene and comfort, let's have a look at the toilets at Tugg, a hipster burger place in Lund, Sweden, where we went one sunny day with Australian Friend.
You'd think that Lund, this eminent university town, would produce nothing but civilised functionality, but you'd be wrong. Our main critique of Tugg has heretofore centred on the fact that whoever designed this eatery decided to put metal chairs on a cement floor. Why people choose to make the surroundings in which people are supposed to eat actively unpleasant and potentially damaging to one's hearing is beyond us. Then we went to check out the loos and are subsequently also wondering why anyone would choose to make a toilet unnecessarily difficult to use, due to an inexplicable urge to pander to the 19th-century farmyard aesthetic. Let's show you what we mean.
Here is the toilet. Note the bare walls (nothing wrong with bare walls as such), the minimalist loo (again, nothing wrong with this for now), the weird and flimsy curtain stopping people outside from being able to look in, and the toilet rolls which, albeit plentiful, have worryingly been put into a rustic wooden box. It's not necessarily unhygienic but it's not exactly indicative of cleanliness either.
There are no paper towels; instead, brown (why brown? Why? Does anybody actually like the colour brown?) cloth towels have been placed in another rustic wooden box, this time placed reassuringly high up on the wall.
There are two bins; one for the brown (whyyyy?) towels, another for other waste. This is all fine.
Now it's starting to get scary. The cistern for the toilet is an old-timey one on the wall, with a metal wire that needs to be pulled for flushing. Burlington is a Swedish brand with a nice-looking website that offers no information whatsoever about why one should use this type of cistern, whether it's in any way water-saving, or whether it's considered disability-friendly.
The tap offers so many different types of horror that the breadth and width of the sum total of the horror is hard for the human intellect to comprehend. It's situated over a cattle-trough-like sink (why, in God's name, do hipsters keep insisting on sinks that look like they might be full of cow drool and half-chewed clumps of grass?) and is literally composed of a water-valve lever handle. It is very much not disability friendly, or indeed friendly to anyone who didn't grow up on a farm in the 19th century and has strong, calloused hands the size of dustbin lids, being very hard to turn. Also, the pipe offers only cold water. Not sure how this conforms to health and safety regulations, if at all. Note the toilet roll placed by the sink, on a wooden surface that is extremely likely to absorb water and breed bacteria, helpfully supplied by the hands touching the toilet roll.
In the manner of people who insist on serving you coffee in a glass, as if they are
so far above material things that burn injuries are inconsequential (mugs
have handles for a reason?), the architect behind this horror ensemble says, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT WHETHER YOU CAN WASH YOUR HANDS YOU DIRTY PEASANT ALSO STOP STARING AT ME AND GO CLEAN OUT THE OUTDOOR PRIVY NO I DON'T CARE THAT YOU ARE DYING FROM CHOLERA YOU SCURVY MALINGERER".
The door has an old-timey handle and no coat-hook.
The water pipe has a pressure gauge. Personally, we'd have preferred a sane and hygienic tap.
We're grateful that we were in such charming company, or bad things might have happened to our mental state. Swiftly moving on before anyone develops tuberculosis or gangrene of the soul, let's contemplate these interesting pictures from New York, described in Shewee Fiend Friend's characteristically terse staccato style.
Ok I'm in a weird speakeasy
They only have whiskey
And all vegan food
The bathrooms
Are beautiful
But
No paper towel or soap
Not sure how they're supposed to do that without soap Our waiter left the bathroom before me Also
I knocked the toilet paper over
Afterwards we went to burp Castle
There are paintings of drunk monks everywhere The toilet was disappointing
The toilet per se may be disappointing, but we see much entertainment value in the graffiti, for instance the "PODCASTS???" scrawl (we don't see the point in them either - why listen to people breathing weirdly into a microphone when you can get the information much quicker by reading?). Also we enjoy, as ever, almost seeing people.
We asked whether Burp Castle was a typo, but learned that it wasn't:
Nope that's what it's called
It's a monastery esque place
You're not allowed to speak above a whisper
We suggested that you then "can't get drunk as there would be a great risk of laughing raucously?", and the following pithy exchange took place:
Shewee Fiend Friend: I guess? Unless you are good at getting drunk quietly
Privy Counsel: You might as well just inject yourself with melatonin and go quietly to sleep
Jonny has been no slouch this summer, sending us many excellent contributions with messages which, readers of this long and pontificating post will be delighted to know, are short to the point of abruptness.
The conversation for this one went as follows:
Privy Counsellor: So many things going on. Care to make any comment?
Jonny: Not at this time.
Privy Counsellor: You have the right to remain silent.
According to the diploma this urinal is located at the Flying Duck in Ilkley, and has been twinned with another toilet somewhere.
This sink, thankfully, does not resemble a cattle-trough, though the taps are that worrying breed of subjunctive mixer taps.
Semi-Intellectual Friend has also been in touch, offering this commentary on our ongoing Jonny Babe Parade:
Johnny
looks shit hot. Shit hotter every time I see him on there in fact. I
reckon he's one of those Paul Rudd types that just grows increasingly
into their own good looks.
Yes, we naturally asked Semi-Intellectual Friend's permission to share these words, and got the following response:
If
you ever want to share my compliments about Jonny on the blog (or any
mutual friend (that I've just not met yet)), totally go for it. He's got
Hollywood magnetism and the world needs to know about it.
Finally, in a triumph of 19th-century farmyard romanticism, we offer this picture of Jonny, dressed as a cowboy, in front of a sink shaped like a cattle-trough.
WE HAVE ONLY ONE THING TO SAY AND THAT IS "GIDDY-UP!!!"
For today's Festive Video, let's have something that evokes the midnight sun and the hope of good plumbing, as well as offering a mild dose of 19th-century barnyard aestheticism (hopefully a mild dose may ensure a vaccinating effect, like cowpox).
Festive Video: Maxida Märak and Downhill Bluegrass Band, Nikesunnas Jojk
It is important, in these dark times, to remember the things that bring light and joy: decent plumbing, handwashing, human rights, wine, babe parades. We reminisced recently, on our Facebook page, about that time when we realised that Father Ted is kind of a babe! The Jonny Babe Parade is obviously immensely fulfilling, but we reckon the more babes that are highlighted, the merrier!
The post in which we weirdly perv on poor Ted happens to contain an example of unwelcome creatures that infest Australian toilets. We are grateful that our friend Maureen took the opportunity of mentioning many more critters that lurk in the dunnies Down Under:
The Privy Counsel
What a pity you forgot other unwanted guests in Australian toilets:
frogs, gekkos, (little lizards with pads on their feet) snakes and cane
toads appear with regularity in the north of Australia. As a young woman
I shared toilets with many quokkas
(marsupials) at Rottnest Island (just off the coast near Perth in
Western Australia). Sadly for the quokkas, toilets moved inside the
cottages where they can no longer go.
We never thought we'd find cause to regret the advent of indoor plumbing, but clearly a quokka would be a delightful companion to have in one's outhouse!
Speaking of outhouses, a very dear friend of ours was kind enough to take us along to this one, which is charmingly situated on an islet in lake Orsasjön.
How charming! And how reassuring to know that one can heed the call of nature in a hygienic manner when having one's barbecue in the middle of a lake.
On opening the door, one finds these beautiful prints featuring views of the lake.
How charming - everything you need! Except, wait. THERE IS NO HAND SANITIZER. WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU NOT PUT HAND SANITIZER IN AN OUTHOUSE YOU ANIMALS???
(According to a reliable source, if hand sanitizer - which consists of at least 60 per cent alcohol - was left here it would be drunk by the people frequenting the bog quicker than you could say "twenty boozehounds on an island in the rain".)
All present and correct: It is traditional, in Sweden, to put pictures of the royal family in the outdoors bog (you can interpret this any way you want. Also, you can view more royal privy pictures here).
Another interesting bog we've come across recently is at the Falu Fängelse youth hostel in Falun. This friendly hostel, located in a 19th-century prison, offers cool (the walls are very thick), noise-insulated (the doors are very thick) rooms; a friendly atmosphere; and a museum in the basement! We've rarely come across a more festive lodging! The toilets are simple yet satisfying.
Plenty of reliable coat hooks.
A gratifyingly prison-like light fixture.
There is nothing lacking here.
We adore clear signage!
An old-fashioned Swedish mixer tap, good soap, and recycled paper towels. All thoroughly fulfilling.
Speaking of prisons we've had occasion to note, recently, that there are too many dudes out there being arseheads on Twitter. If you are guilty of having spent your time being insolent to, for example, a young woman who is fighting for her own life, and the lives of other people, we have one word for you: FUCKING WELL DESIST. Obviously all our readers are highly civilised and would never dream of doing such a thing, but nonetheless, we would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of the importance of politeness. As Caitlin Moran so wisely says,
Being polite is possibly the greatest daily contribution everyone can make to life on Earth.
All you achieve, when being deliberately rude, is revealing your own insecurity. You don't like immigrants / women having rights / amusing pictures of ducks? Fine. That's no reason to act boorishly to someone trying to help people in a difficult situation. Instead of sitting around on your arse on Twitter, get the fuck out there and do something constructive. Volunteer for a women's shelter. Help the neighbours paint the fence. Plant sunflowers. Get your tools out and build a bird house, or a beehive. LITERALLY ANYTHING. And when voicing your opinions, do so in a constructive and civilised manner.
Naturally, not everyone being abusive, online or in real life, is a man. Women are rude, too. But it is a statistically proven fact that most violent crimes and most acts of aggression are committed by men. And you need only do a quick scan of rude messages on Twitter to conclude that most of them are from males with apparently nothing better to do than shout abuse at strangers. If you don't like us saying that, fine. It's still true. Here are some facts to ponder before you start shouting, and/or beating your chest like a drum, causing chest-hair to fly in all directions (we hope you get the hoover out occasionally).
We found an amusing sticker on a bog-standard, half-arsed train toilet that said, simply, "Leif!" We thought it illustrated rather nicely the fact that not only most of the violence in this world, but also most of the urine on toilet seats, emanates from men. Most of you are all right - great, even - but dudes. As a sex, you've got some work to do. Leif! Whether that's your name or not! Fucking well remember to aim!
PLEASE. FUCKING WELL AIM.
During a trying and difficult time in our life recently, Shewee Fiend Friend, showing true solidarity and sisterhood, sent us this glittery toilet the minute she finished taking 1) the piss and 2) obvious delight in her rather vibrant schadenfreude. We are forever grateful.
These are, to quote Shewee Fiend Friend's actual words, "Hideous taps in my [English] hotel room". The noise you heard just then was caused by the vast amount of air molecules that were displaced on us shuddering massively. (Note how these taps are eerily reminiscent of the ones in our Toilet Tale Terminator Toilet?)
In order not to lose our minds completely, what with all the fascism being dished out left, right, and centre, lets have not one but TWO Jonny Babe Parade toilet selfies! The first one was accompanied, fitting rather nicely into our earlier prison theme, by the words "Fighting criminals in the urinals":
"It's not who I am underneath, but what I do, that defines me" - let's bloody well hope, dudes, that what you are doing is not piddling on toilet seats!
On receiving the second picture, one fairly average Sunday at 00:03 am, we asked, reasonably we thought, what was in the many pictures on the wall. The reply the next day read, "Not sure. Was very drunk". You can't say fairer than that!
HUBBA HUBBA WOOF!
Today's Festive Video comes from a charming gentleman we happened to run into at the eminent musical event Orsayran. It's called "Kvinnor är smartast", which translates as "Women are the smartest". We are rather inclined to agree.
The inexorable juggernaut of Christmas draws ever closer. Today, all reputable news outlets assure us, is the second of Advent. We are, to be honest, not greatly in favour of Christmas at the Privy Counsel, what with our headquarters being already overflowing with paraphernalia, trinkets, and nuts. Also we find religion a creepy concept, though we don't have a problem with the more pagan aspects of Christmas, like unrestrained gluttony, and drinking.
We have received lots of fan mail over the past year, but due to our frantic procrastination, drinking, and - believe it or not - occasional engagement in actual work, we have not been able to display all the missives we have received. Consequently, all correspondence has been shoved into the Privy Counsel archive which, as all regular readers know, is a dark and dreary place, spookily reminiscent of a crypt out of The Monk, and containing mentally unhinged pheasants. (Or are they actually peasants? Nobody has ever dared stay long enough to check properly.)
However, in consequence of us remarking, last Sunday, that the Privy Counsel is "rather more fragrant and attractively lit than usual, being resplendent with various lights and varieties of pine needles", an attentive reader wrote to us to ask,
How fragrant, exactly?
What a good question! Unfortunately we cannot convey to you the scent of pine needles and gingerbread currently permeating our headquarters, but let us at least demonstrate what said pine needles look like.
A nauseatingly decorative and cosiness-inducing arrangement
Another missive reads:
Dear Privy Counsellor,
This morning I had a rather unsettling experience. In the ladies' room, in the stall next to me, a mobile phone went off - and then it was answered! They had an entire conversation, including the information that the woman was on the toilet! Is this proper bathroom etiquette - answering the phone mid-pee? Said woman also left without washing her hands, so I'm inclined to think all her behaviour a bit suspect, and I'd like your opinion to make sure I'm not being prejudiced!
Thanks,
Don't Flush While Dialling
Dear Don't Flush While Dialling, our response is to note that perhaps religion has a useful function after all. Observing that theocratic societies often implement punishments like the cutting off of body parts corresponding to the crime committed, we think that perhaps lopping off the hands of people who don't wash them after going to the toilet would be a suitable consequence of that atrocity.
The first known law code advocating retributive justice is that of Hammurabi, written around 1754 BC. Funny, how often this dude has cropped up in our correspondence lately.
Another missive reads,
Dear Privy Counsellors,
When my family takes road trips, my parents don't like to stop much. If we get out to go to the bathroom it takes too much time. Mom, my sister and I carry old mayonnaise jars to pee in while we drive. This was always a bit awkward, until the Counsellors told me about shewees! Now I can totally aim into my mayo jar! And our car smells a lot better, too! Please let me know the best way to get old wee smells out of an old car. I turn 16 soon and Mom says I can have our old pre-Shewee station waggon!
[heart symbol], Teenybopper Shewee Fan
Suspecting that we know who this message is from, we contacted a fellow counsellor, who confirmed that,
[A certain man] was a total dick and would not let them out of the car on road trips [...] He was an asshole of the first order [...] Of course, she went all Southern Republican, so in the end maybe they deserved one another [...]That was a classic case of "if you marry for money you earn every penny". I don't even know HOW you'd pee in a mayo jar. In a moving vehicle.
We don't, either, and we hope we never find out.
This shit literally has to be seen to be believed.
A third epistle is more philosophical/political in nature, and leads us towards our Festive Video.
Dear [Privy Counsellor],
Today's theme is Partygoing Undergrads Must Die! I was wringing out my hair after a shower when a gaggle of girls getting ready for a night out came barrelling in, which was, well, loud and obnoxious, but survivable - I was young once too! It was when I heard one say, "Oh my god, is my eyeliner right? I just have to have the right eyeliner to even have a hope of looking acceptable!"*
Now, I'm sure it was hyperbole, and you know I love me some eyeliner, but it just hit every feminist fibre of my being and I wanted to run out and start shrieking, even as my own eyeliner was running down my face (waterproof my ass**). Thank gods I'm not 21 anymore...but I do wonder who they'll grow up to be, and what sort of lessons they'll impart to future girls. On the up side, you'll approve of the fact that the public library [in Edinburgh] has one of Caitlin Moran's books displayed for their book club!
*may we dare suggest that the girl in question didn't actually express herself in those exact words, but that our correspondent's extensive and Austenesque literary habits coloured this sentence? But no matter.
**Hear, hear.
We believe it was Helen Fielding who coined the term "Alice Cooper eyes". This is what happens when one's eyeliner fraudulently purports to be waterproof, but isn't. Image from caratulas.
In possibly related news, we suspect there may be a Counsel-wide outbreak of tertiary syphilis. We haven't noticed anyone displaying the symptoms of either primary or secondary syphilis (the one Privy Counsel member - who shall remain anonymous - who did suffer from a sudden onset of distressing symptoms turned out to have herpes [incidentally, the internet informs us that, in order to avoid spreading herpes to others, it is important to wash your hands after going to the bog], not syphilis), but it seems the indications of tertiary syphilis are widespread. Symptoms include:
Fatigue; headaches; insomnia; dizziness; social inhibitions; asocial behaviour; gradual impairment of judgement, concentration and short-term memory; euphoria; mania; depression; apathy; and delusions of grandeur.
We don't know about you, baby, but we tick every single one of those boxes. Better get on with the Festive Video.
Festive Video - The Doubleclicks, Sexist Bullshit (Christmas Song)
All parts of this song's lyrics are awesome: check them out.
