Thai Toilet Chart

Phew. Things got quite intense in our last post, what with all the Roman history and Teutonic intellectualism. It's Sunday night: time for some rest and levity. The Privy Counsellor said, "Let there be levity", and lo, there was levity! Semi-Intellectual Friend sent us this interesting photo, so its frivolous credentials are well established. Semi-Intellectual Friend says:

It was taken in Jurassic Park Thailand, and there are more in support but they're quite mundane really. The picture itself is nothing you haven't seen before, but I love the glee with which some of the people seem to be dancing. And apparently soiling themselves?

One can apparently have endless amounts of prohibited fun in a Thai toilet

We do enjoy anything informative. We would, however, have appreciated a supplementary chart showing what one is allowed to do in a Thai toilet.

Related Reading
Toilet-Going for Dummies

Brownian Motion, or, Brownout, or, A Brown Study - Semi-Intellectual Friend's Shower

Yesterday was all about revolutionary tendencies and bringing down the bigoted bourgeoisie library toilet monopoly. As regular readers will know, however, we prefer to get our revolutionary activities over and done with during the week, so that we can relax on Sundays (historical precedence sanctions this approach), and maybe enjoy some cultural activity in the shape of a Toilet Song or two, or some interesting pictures. So we are devoting today, being Sunday, to mulled wine with a healthy dose of rum, and mulling over these provocative pictures of Semi-Intellectual Friend's shower in Thailand.

This is the common picture that any ordinary mug with internet access can view on Semi-Intellectual Friend's blog.

Artistically, this is a very interesting picture. Note the playful cascading of the water, and the subtle interplay between light and shade happening all over the delicately pink tiles, with their intricate floral pattern. The selection of toiletries doesn't live up to that of Mrs Smith, but perhaps that's all for the best.

The following pictures are exclusive to the Privy Counsel - you won't see these anywhere else, people!

Whoah! A very avant-garde angle! This is art history happening right in your face!

Water flowing upwards: pure surrealism.

Here we enter the dreamy hyper-realistic plains of post-post-modernism. Hypnotic!

Well, that was certainly thought-provoking, wasn't it? Enjoy this greenery-yallery hiatus while it lasts, and hold on to your hats - tomorrow is World Toilet Day, and we intend to get rabidly political again!

Further reading

If the literary is more your thing than the visual, get a description of Semi-Intellectual Friend's shower here:
It's Halloween - Time for Some Spine-Chilling Horror!
Revolting activities: Flush Tracker: A Revolting Activity

It's Halloween - Time for Some Spine-Chilling Horror!

As previously mentioned, nobody quite knows where Semi-Intellectual Friend is, geographically, intellectually, or spiritually. Having gone to a tropical country to find himself, he seems instead to have got lost in a hideous morass of odorous, horror-filled drains and incurable skin diseases. Since it's Halloween, we're sharing some of the horror with you, gentle reader. Behold, the description of Semi-Intellectual Friend's shower - a tale to freeze the blood and addle the brain (or what's left of it once the zombie apocalypse has kicked in).

There was an eggy smell coming from the water in our shower. I was grateful. It wasn’t even close to the worst thing that I’d smelled in the shower up until then, and I thought that it would go well with the smells I was about to slather on myself to cover up the fact that when I hosed myself off in that shower I spent most of my time trying not to get any of the damn Siberian water actually on me.
We had left Koh Samui a few showers before and joined up with two other guys at a collection of beach huts on Koh Tao called Saithong Resort. It had a number of selling points:

• Electricity is supplied to rooms between 6pm and 6am.
• No aircon.
• The rooms have holes in the walls and floor. Probably the roof too but you can’t always tell because in some a floral blanket is stapled to all four walls to cover the ceiling.
• It is inaccessible by car. Either a 25 minute trek from the pier is necessary or you can catch a boat taxi.
• Cold showers. So, when people are looking into your bathroom through your mostly-curtain- and completely-glass-free windows/the holes in your bathroom’s walls, you always look your best.
• No wifi. Obviously.
• It has bugs. Many, many bugs.
• It might be the best hotel-resort thing I’ve ever stayed at.

  This is not the authentic Thai experience, or even just an authentic Thai experience. Thai people have ipads and kindles, electricity, hot and cold running water, and houses without holes in the walls. It’s a country that has made remarkable strides in the last twenty years in terms of overcoming poverty, putting its children in education and offering healthcare, despite a number of natural disasters. And the 10% of the country who do remain in poverty don’t compensate for not having electricity by snorkelling or playing pool.

 What can one say, except "Haaarrrrrgghh"? Well, quite. Having one's brains eaten by zombies does tend to impede one's speech capacity.

Happy Halloween!

Monkey lost in an improving book. A hideous morass of images
from New Scientist, Anglopole, and Inriodulce

Further reading:

See photos of this shower here (if you dare):
Brownian Motion, or, Brownout, or, A Brown Study - Semi-Intellectual Friend's Shower
More general horror:
A Note on Desperate Measures
Are You British? Does Tap Sanity Elude You?
Tap into Pain
Oh! the horror! SCREAMING BLOODY HORROR HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: The British Workplace

Halloween Horror!

It's Halloween - Time for Some Spine-Chilling Horror!