HALLOWEEN HORROR!

 As you no doubt know, the moors are best avoided at moonlight, and at Halloween - shudder, scream and recoil - they are extra dangerous!
We came across this toilet in a car park in the little village of Goathland. As you can see, it is quite full enough of horrors without werewolves creeping about the place and howling at the moon! One particularly evil monster stalking the moors is the creature which, reportedly, has a retractable leg so it "can leap up at you better", has a tremendous fear of stamps, and has no mouth, but instead has four arses.

Very sad sinks, with objectionable separated taps. The sign says, quite reasonably, "Please do not clean muddy boots/shoes in the sinks or toilets".

A very scary air-dryer

A terrifying toilet

  These toilets get, on the Privy Counsel scale, exactly 0 points.


Beware the moon and stay on the path...

Monkey getting a Halloween thrill with separated taps

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

It's Halloween - Time for Some Spine-Chilling Horror!
Leaky Pipes - A Tale of Cold Weather and Incontinence

A Note on Desperate Measures

A Semi-Intellectual Treat

Semi-Intellectual Friend has been at it again, sending us light-hearted little blog tips that don't strain one's intellect too much. We're immensely grateful for this as we went to an academic event yesterday, and are simply exhausted from being on best behaviour and talking about proper academic subjects, as opposed to toilets. (There's something in it for you though: we received a hot tip about some kick-arse bogs, that we hope to be able to report on in a few days' time.) So today, instead of writing something, we're simply going to be showing this video clip which, we might mention, had Hygeia hopping with glee:




Hot air blowers are incubators and spewers of bacteria and pestilence. Frankly, dears, we couldn't have put it better ourselves.

Monkey, who also hates air-dryers, couldn't agree more about the plague-infested gibbon monkeys

Privy Counsel Pin-Up - Colin Firth

  Our recent dry, scholarly raid into monastic plumbing has given us an itch to contemplate something slightly more frivolous. Luckily, we had the happy notion of posting a Privy Counsel Pin-Up!

  A vicious and annoying cold has occasioned us to spend a disproportionately large amount of time on the Privy Counsel sofa, enjoying Pride and Prejudice. Mr Darcy, played by Colin Firth, displays an energetic passion for hygiene. The wet shirt scene is, of course, famous, but we happen to also quite enjoy the scene where Mr Darcy has a bath!

Mr Darcy is, it would seem, laudably hygienic. (Image from Austenprose.)

  From what we can conclude from a brief Google trawl, there is a lot to be said on the subject of Georgian hygiene. One woman, foraying into the world of Regency reality dating shows, "washes her hair with a sticky concoction of rum, eggs, and rose water. She brushes her teeth with an ineffective paste that tastes like chalk dust. She unsuccessfully fights body odor with lemon juice. And when it’s time to take a bath, everyone subservient to the highest ranking person in the house has to use cold, dirty bathwater".

  We gather some more information from the Cookit blog:

The Georgians did not have very good personal hygiene.
People started to wash more often by the Regency period. By this time cotton had also become a popular fabric, as it washed more easily than others. However, for most of the period, both rich and poor were much smellier than today, many had rotting teeth and unsanitary habits.

  There were few flushable indoor toilets. After a long dinner, at the point where the ladies withdrew, both sexes would make use of chamber pots, the gentlemen behind a screen in the dining room itself and the ladies behind a screen in the drawing room.  Hygiene was not a great priority for any of the social classes and ladies’ fans were not only to keep them cool. They were also to disperse the odours of their less than fragrant menfolk. George III introduced sea bathing to the gentry as a healthy and pleasurable diversion, but only for the men; it was not deemed suitable for women. Some men took to having a daily dip in a cold plunge pool. This was thought a healthy, rather than hygienic, activity.

  Mrs Bennet, it must be said, attempts to persuade her husband to take the family to Brighton, so that she can go sea-bathing - a most admirable notion. "A little sea-bathing," she tells Mr Bennet, "would set me up forever". He, however, proves unimpressed with the idea, retorting, "And yet, I am unmoved". We believe we can safely say, without giving away the plot, that they don't go to Brighton, and that nobody goes sea-bathing.

Related Reading
Lucy Worsley and Jane Austen: Historical  Toilet Etiquette 
Pride and Prejudice and Plumbing
Privy Counsel Pin-Up: Ablutions with Toby
It Is Tolerable, We Suppose: A Privy Counsel Pick-Me-Up

A Draining Matter

Continuing our efforts not to be unwashed barbarians, The Privy Counsel has been studying monastic drains this weekend, as part of our ceaseless efforts to edify and entertain you.
Monasteries tended to be built over a stream, so that the products of the privy could be carried away, and not linger to cause bad smells and disease. The two monasteries we happened to visit this weekend, Byland and Rievaulx, both in Yorkshire, sport magnificent drains. The art of building hygienic privies rather went downhill after the Reformation and, it could be argued, was not taken up again until well into the Victorian era.

Byland Abbey drain

Rievaulx Abbey: an intriguing drainage structure

A sink or tank of some description, with a hole and a drain underneath

More sink-and-hole action

The main monastic drain

If you happen to know what the large tank actually is, we could welcome an e-mail or a comment! Send us an edifying missive to theprivycounsellor@gmail.com!

Privy Counsel, Patrons of Art

Here at the Privy Counsel, we are enthusiastic patrons of the arts. Far from being unwashed barbarians, we are in fact highly cultured, and enjoy art at all sorts of eyebrow heights.
An enlightened friend recently went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. And lo and behold, here is what he beheld:

Trees, by Dennis Oppenheim. Or should that be "toilet trees", as someone wittily suggested?

Well, quite. This remarkable piece of art is called Trees and was created by Dennis Oppenheim. If you've already emptied the privy and cleaned all your chamber pots, and have got nothing better to do this weekend, we suggest you go and goggle at this inspiring piece of art.

Some German Toilet Paper Trivia

Today is one of those days when we shamelessly steal content from another website. We found this amusing titbit on a random blog. What can we say? We continue to be blessed with a lot of German readers, and we find ourselves irrevocably inspired!
Before you write us a fuming e-mail about the sanctity of international copyright, bear with us and you will see that this article is actually relevant to yesterday's toilet paper rant.

German toilet paper. Über-German, even!

Image from deutschland.

According to News.com.au, German soldiers use 800 million rolls of toilet paper a year. Former soldiers said the number is actually a lot higher. That equals to 10 rolls of toilet paper a day per soldier.

One blogger recalled that elite mountain troops are given a roll a day as part of the basic equipment, as are troops stationed in Afghanistan.

There is a historic precedent for such consumption. German corporals used to drum into their recruits: 

"Wohin und wieweit ich marschier'
ich geh' niemals ohne mein Klopapier".

("Wherever and however I march, I never go without my loo paper.")

Personal hygiene, a problem in the World War I trenches, was given a high priority when the Germans mounted the Blitzkrieg of World War II.
One soldier in an internet chat room revealed, "The grey recycled paper is the best way of cleaning small-calibre weapons - every soldier knows that."

More German toilet paper. For premium small-arms care.
Image from hamburgpapier.de.

A guaranteed happy end with German toilet paper!
Image from andrewhammel.typepad.com.

Related Reading
A Germane Issue

Toilet Paper - It's Time to HTFU!

   We have been waxing lyrical about the Forest Stewardship Council label on numerous occasions, even admitting that Andrex toilet paper might not be wholly evil, since it is allowed to carry this prestigious label.
  However, and this is bloody crucial, the FSC label is not the same thing as an eco-label.  In order to be branded with the FSC tick, a product must adhere to regulations governing forestry procedure,ensuring that recycled fibres are used, trees are replanted, and forests generally managed sensibly. So far, so laudable. But it is perfectly possible to fill all the criteria demanded by the Forest Stewardship Council, and then go and treat your toilet tissue with all kinds of horrible and unnecessary chemicals.

So if you insist on buying toilet paper that has been treated with shea butter, or aloe vera, or any other of the countless and evil ingredients that toilet paper companies try to convince you that you need (not that shea butter or aloe vera are evil in themselves, but you didn't seriously think that Andrex put pure, unadulterated-by-chemicals shea butter on their bog roll, did you?), you are contributing to some serious polluting of water and buggering-up of ecosystems.  

Your bum does not need shea butter toilet paper! The human arse has evolved for countless generations to cope just fine without aloe vera.

Image from

http://blogs.motivators.com/2008_10_01_archive.html

  British toilet paper is pretty pathetic, compared to other European brands. On http://www.eco-label.com you can search for products and brands, to see which ones have been awarded the EU eco-label. The only British tissue companies featured on the list are Waitrose (whose toilet tissue is made by Georgia-Pacific) and Disposables UK. The Swedish company SCA dominates the list, but other companies, like Celtex from Italy, Novatissue from France, and van Houtum, from the Netherlands, also feature impressively. Clearly, it is not impossible to make toilet paper that doesn't damage the environment. Tork, makers of tissue and hygiene  products, have the EU label on a significant amount of their products, and, what's more, make one of our featured toilet roll holders! Tork are owned by SCA.

The Green Swan is the Nordic eco label. Their criteria for tissue paper are published here. They look pretty hard-core - as they should do!

Image from

http://planetforward.ca/blog/tag/earth-friendly-toilet-paper/

  So come on - as Chopper Read would say: Get some unbleached toilet paper and Harden The Fuck Up! And if you're feeling really hardcore, go for some historical toilet paper!