Toilet Song: Pain Pills

Many readers have noticed that we haven't posted any Toilet Songs recently. We keep receiving frantic e-mails saying "Please do another Toilet Song or I simply cannot go on living".* There's a simple reason for this sorry state of affairs: We've run out! You'd think there'd be an unlimited number of hit songs about toilets, but for some reason this is an unexplored topic for many artists. However, we came across a song by Angaleena Presley, one of the Pistol Annies, which mentions the word "bathroom", and were simply unable to contain our excitement!

Angaleena Presley, a.k.a. GuitarLeena. Image from this site.

Listen to this excellent song here:



Or, should the embedded song function not work, here.

We couldn't find the lyrics online, but have transcribed them to the best of our ability:

Pain Pills by Angaleena Presley

When Neddy dropped dead
the papers said he was a football hero
The kids all cried and the rumours died
And before he was in the ground
Jimmy was up on the strip job, sucking another one down

When Brookie got out it took about
a week to catch the fever
She run across town to doctor Brown
Begging for some...

Pain pills, pain pills
A little bit of hurt ain't surely gonna kill
A lot of good people in these here hills
Lord, won't you save us from these old pain pills

When Hazel-Jean died her mother tried 
to say it was pneumonia
The minister's wife told a bold-faced lie 
to protect her daughter's name
When half of the congregation 
was hooked on the very same thing

When Tommy caught wind that his uncle Tim
was about to die from cancer
He went to his house and broke the door down
and tried to steal some...

Pain pills, pain pills
A little bit of hurt ain't surely gonna kill
A lot of good people in these here hills
Lord, won't you save us from these old pain pills

The girl next door's on the bathroom floor
thinking about taking her a little bit more
It ain't never been this bad before

Pain pills, pain pills
A little bit of hurt ain't surely gonna kill
A lot of good people in these here hills
Lord, won't you save us from these old...

Pain pills, pain pills
A little bit of hurt ain't surely gonna kill
A lot of good people in these here hills
Lord, won't you save us from these old pain pills

Related Reading
Handwashing with Elvis
Toilet Song: Dirty, Dirty Feeling
Toilet Song: Johnny Cash
Toilet Song: Swooning with Brad
Toilet Song: Harlem River Blues

*May be a slight exaggeration

Art and Cleaning Tips

Did you hear that? That was the sound of the Privy Counsel's various members rushing around having fun with hurricane force! Love has been budding at the Counsel, and two of our Friends actually went and got hitched last week! We will most certainly be updating on the state of the toilets at this happy event, but for now our knackered, partied-out state requires something soothing, not too intellectually strenuous. How about some art? We've got toilet art for you!

Image from Art Ephemere

 This charming work of art was created using a toilet (obviously), chocolate and brown paint. We think it's fabulous! (We also enjoyed the picture of Elvis.)

If you, like us, have been on the road and not replenished the household supplies for a while, it may be useful to know that you can get rid of lime-scale in the toilet using Coca Cola.

Image from Wiki How

 You can follow the instructions, or just do what we did last time we were hungover: drink Coke; regurgitate into toilet bowl, ensuring even distribution; leave for a bit; flush. Your toilet has never been so shiny.

HTFU, Melbourne City Council!

"A wee piece of Melbourne history is disappearing," according to an article in The Age, sent to us by Australian Friend. It appears the council (really, what is it with political bodies in Victoria?), whose coffers just aren't flush enough to maintain the city's historic toilets, is pulling the plug on them. Several old underground toilets have been filled with concrete, in a move that stinks of arrogance and contempt for the city's history. Many Melbournians are distraught to see their cultural heritage going down the drain, wishing the council hadn't crapped out with such a vandalous solution.

Concrete: the council didn't exactly think long and hard about this one.
Image from The Age.

One way to make good use of old public toilets is of course to turn them into amusing cafés. Australian Friend sends us this picture, from a café in London where she enjoyed a fragrant coffee the other day.

N.b. this coffee cup stands in an actual urinal

HTFU, Melbourne city council! If Londoners can do it, you can, too!

Related Reading:
HTFU: Wipe for Wildlife
London Movement Sends Café Culture Straight to the Toilet (CBS)
Why Today Is a Toiletally Important Day
A Festive Update
Happy Birthday, Australian Friend!
The Attendant Café

We Basically Haven't Slept Since Wednesday

Things are hectic at the Privy Counsel, but let us pause for a minute to show you a Danish kebab-place toilet on the wrong side of midnight. Suffice to say there was no soap.

Danes know how to party.

At death's door.

It's been a strenuous weekend. Let's have a festive video.


Festive video - The Commitments, Mustang Sally

Related Reading
Let's Talk About Graffiti
Toilet-Door Art

It Is Tolerable, We Suppose: A Privy Counsel Pick-Me-Up

In vain we have struggled! It will not do. Our feelings will not be repressed. You must allow us to show you this picture, which you have already seen a hundred times, but which we all ardently desire to feast our eyes upon again and again. After all, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a toilet blog in possession of a Privy Counsel Pin-Up label must be desirous of posting as many pictures of Mr Darcy in the bath as possible, right?
We know, we know, we've already done this Privy Counsel Pin-Up! We have faults enough, but we hope they are not of understanding, even if admittedly our judgement is questionable at times. A little sea-bathing, to calm the nerves, would most likely set us up forever.

Image from Fuckyeahdarcyandelizabeth.

Forgive us, mesdames and messieurs, for taking up so much of your time.

Related Reading
Pride and Prejudice and Plumbing
Privy Counsel Pin-Up - Colin Firth
Lucy Worsley and Jane Austen: Historical Toilet Etiquette

Fun with Crayons, or, Sleepy in Seattle

Well, that's the summer solstice over and done with, and what with the increasing levels of sobriety and consciousness, we have come to realise that we're way overdue for a blog update! The Privy Counsel archive is, as ever, overflowing with a rich and nutritious mush of toilets we have visited, but we thought we'd show you something a bit more cultural and intellectual today. Let's revisit Seattle! Bogsley Hansson Friend sent us these festive pictures from, if we got it right, the Elliot Bay Bookstore! Apparently the people at this book shop are creative, festive types, for they have supplied their toilet with chalk in all manner of fun colours! Does it remind us of anything? Yes, of course it does! It reminds us of the bogs at the village inn in Österslöv!

Van Gogh-esque chair with crayons:
if ever we saw an instigation to artistic activity, this was it!

Hygeia has doubts. Grave doubts.

This window, which can be viewed in one of the toilets at the Nordic Heritage Museum
in Seattle, reminds us of the Red Lion pub in York!

Do you feel refreshed and artistically stimulated? Or just dog tired and hungover? We don't blame you.

Related Reading
Bykrogen: Rustic Cheer
The Red Lion: A Roaring Good Bog
How Long Do Bacteria Survive on Chalk? (Sorry, that's the best we could find)

On the Tiles

As our favourite linguist likes to say, "One mustn't be too hard on oneself". The pressure has been high at Privy Counsel HQ of late; we have been rushing not just hither, but also thither, in addition to numerous other directions. In a fit of escapism, we went in search of the subjunctive, in the sense "another possible world (of desires, dreams, etc.), as in main clause optatives and in counterfactual conditionals". In other words, we went out on the tiles! So vigorously did we carouse on the tiles, in fact, that at the end of the night there were no tiles left. The evidence is visible below.

Whoever decimated these tiles did a thorough job.

That's some hardcore ventilation, yo!
We can only assume that this apparatus was installed
to get rid of the alcoholic fumes.

This sturdy pipe is the only thing still standing.

A scene of carnage: a wild animal and what appears to be a dead rat.

We had a very enjoyable time on the tiles, dancing the night away and generally carousing and also, to a certain extent, cavorting. As the proprietor of this now tile-less toilet is prone to political spasms, we thought we might also present to our readers a bathroom-related political rant (because after all life is often a serious business, tile-decimating rioting notwithstanding):

Festive video - Not the Nine o'Clock News, Conservative Party Politics

Thought-provoking, wasn't it? This level of lunacy is, in our opinion, not surprising in a country where people deliberately, wantonly, install separated taps.

The tiles - get on them!!
Image from deliciousdance.

Related Reading
Academic Excesses
Snýrt, Snýrt: Landnámssýningin
What Goes Around Comes Around
We Receive a Postcard
Blogging Something Rotten
Mr Smith wielding a meat cleaver, in a manner not unlike that of the Conservative Party: Delirium Tremens - We Indulge in paranoid Halloween Horror