You know when you have a thousand things to do and it feels like there is a giant bird of prey hovering just above your head, clawing rudely at your ears and coughing up fur balls? We like to refer to this feeling as the Vulture of Doom. It is likely to follow us around, snapping its beak in a horrifying manner and exposing us to the kind of breath that makes pericoronitis appear, by comparison, like a field of lavender on a sunny afternoon. The Vulture of Doom cares not a jot if it is a high day or holiday, or an ordinary work day; neither does it discriminate between toilet blogging duties and other types of work, for instance the legitimate kind for which one gets paid. It tends to get more persistent when we have a large amount of toilet pictures lying around unsorted and unpublished. Sometimes, just to fuck with the Vulture of Doom, we will procrastinate wildly then sit back with a rum (or, by all means, whisky. We're not likely to turn down a whisky) and coke, and mentally taunt the flea-bitten old scavenger by NOT GIVING A FUCK.
However, we are diplomats by nature at the Privy Counsel, and we reckon life is easier when the Vulture of Doom isn't depositing fleas in our hair. Hence, let's have a look at this picture from Australian Friend!
Also note the proximity to fresh air, supplied by that tree outside.
I'm not partial to the tiling, but one can hardly re-tile a rental property.
We love everything about this picture, not least the stripy shower curtain!
We are grateful to Australian Friend for supplying this charming view of her domestic arrangements.
As regular readers are aware, our friends are pretty notorious when it comes to sending us pictures from the world over. Nor do they stop at sending photos - they send videos, too! The one we are about to show you is from an intellectual friend of ours with whom we share a fair amount of witty and enjoyable banter online but who we will not necessarily recognise immediately when meeting in real life (what's real, anyway? As Australian Friend once said, memory might simply be an illusion, and we may have literally just been thrust into this existence seconds ago), and was captioned with the pithy comment "German. Obviously".
We are going to treat you, here, to the actual conversation that followed the sharing of this video:
Intellectual Online Friend: There's some kind of liquid coming out of the thing that sticks out over the seat. Possibly something antibacterial. Privy Counsellor: Amazing. Intellectual Online Friend: It is. I want one for work. Possibly one that also cleans the pee-stained floor. Privy Counsellor: Yes! That's just what we were thinking! Although something that would be even better would be a contraption that gave people who piss on the floor electric shocks while they're doing it - that would teach 'em.
The noise you are hearing, dear readers, is us panting - panting as the hart for cooling streams when heated in the chase. Panting to keep up with all the toilet pictures! We've got one supremely stylish one from Australian Friend, entitled My Throne, recently filed away into the archive; several really weird ones from Jonny; and doubtless a whole phalanx of other images, impatiently waving their metaphorical sarissae and stomping their sandals in the dust, that we have forgotten about and will most likely discover on a hungover Sunday in November, at which point we will lack the energy to do anything with them.
Because we are only human (and sometimes barely that) at the Privy Counsel, we can only publish one set of photos at a time (well, we have on occasion published more than one set of photos in one go, but this practice invariably results in blog posts so long they cause extended headaches among the populace (for instance this one, or this), and have resulted in some pretty stern warnings from various government bodies concerned with the health of the citizenry). Limiting ourselves to one set of toilet pictures, therefore, we have selected, on this occasion, this beautiful green toilet, photographed by Our Favourite Aunt. This festive and intellectual relative writes:
På vägen upp till Bua fotade jag den här fina toan på laxbutiken utanför Falkenberg. Det fanns inte bara en utan två krokar att hänga på som tyvärr inte kom med på bilden.
(On the way up to Bua, I photographed this lovely toilet in the salmon shop outside Falkenberg. There were not one but two coat-hooks, which unfortunately didn't get included in the photo.)
οὐ φροντὶς Ἱπποκλείδῃ. Due to insuperable technical difficulties, these photos appear upside down. Take this opportunity to focus less on the details of the picture, and more on the composition as a whole - let the lovely green background colour wash over your retinas, rather like the fourth mojito of the evening sloshing a minty patina over your intellectual faculties.
Our eyes spy a stylish, geometric sink, and soap and tissue from our sometime favourite brand, Tork!
This toilet is not only so stylish it makes us want to fling our Chalcidian helmet into the air
and whoop with joy (yes, positively whoop!), it is also disability friendly! Nenikḗkamen, we gibber, and crack open the wine amphorae!
There are literally hundreds of songs with the word "green" in the title, and the vast majority of them are knuckle-bitingly tedious. The song performed in the festive video below is somewhat less tedious than the rest. The best thing about this video is the Discobolus (see a lovely image here) lurking on the stage.
We're feeling a bit under the weather at the Privy Counsel today. Might be the typhoid, or scurvy. Or herpes. You never know. However, a sturdy grog and some toilet blogging is good, as regular readers are aware, for what ails ya.
The below pictures arrived during one of those times in one's life that are usually described, in retrospect, as "challenging". That is, when the only thing stopping you from throwing yourself in front of a bus is the kind of tiredness that robs you of the initiative to put one foot in front of the other, never mind in front of a moving vehicle. They came from a festive friend who has recently been spending a lot of time in Norway, and cheered us up immensely!
(As usual, don't miss this opportunity of practising your colloquial Swedish! A translation follows below, however, in case you lack the initiative to translate before you've had your afternoon grog.)
Our festive friend writes:
"Väl utrustad discotoa" på Cardinal (pub med bibelaktig bok över ölmenyn) i Stavanger. Hehe kunde inte låta bli att tänka på din blogg när handtorken flimrade i cirkulär formation i mina ögon. Obs film finns på detta.
("Well equipped disco toilet" at Cardinal (a pub with a Bible-like book containing the beer menu) in Stavanger. Hehe, couldn't help but think of your blog when the air dryer flickered in circular formation in my eyes.
N.b. there is a video of this.)
Woof! Let's have a look at this epic disco toilet!
DISCO!!!
Seriously, how festive is this air dryer? It is so festive that it has distracted us into forgetting
to launch into our customary rant about the evils of air dryers.
Although
we are fiercely protective of our friends' privacy (we have sworn a solemn vow, for instance, to never ever reveal which of our friends has a bona fide case of genital
herpes), it cut us to the heart to not be able to show you the
original version of this photo. As you can see, our friend is wearing a
Norwegianlusekofte (visible below Geena Davis's rampant
pirate belt), and looks very charming.
The toilet itself is sadly lacking in disco qualities.
It's wonderful, isn't it, how toilet pictures can constitute spiritual solace? We now feel refreshed and ready to resume our customary ranting - AND DISCO DANCING! We hope you do, too.
It's actually been a good couple of weeks since we last experienced any mansplaining worth its salt. However, we were exposed to a vicious assault of Latin-related mumsplaining just recently, which reminded us of the awesomeness of the Mansplainer song.
Festive video - Mansplainer feat. the Doubleclicks, The Mansplainer
Related Reading
All posts featuring Norway
All posts featuring pub toilets
All posts featuring rabid, mouth-foaming rants about mansplaining
P.S.
When we get depressed thinking about all the shouting dudes lost in dick territory, we cheer ourselves up by remembering some of our favourite people who are male, educated and terribly, terribly nice, and would never dream of mansplaining anything to anyone, ever:
The main topic of discussion at the Privy Counsel right now is Regency trousers. Specifically, Regency trousers as related to embarrassing erections. (It probably surprises nobody to learn that this discussion was occasioned by an overdose of Austen adaptations.) You may find this hard to believe, but there is no information on the entire internet about what Regency gentlemen did if they accidentally got an unwelcome erection in the drawing room. None at all!
Buckskin breeches - which have been compared to a pair of Levi's - were appropriate morning attire in the country. They were supposed to be skin-tight, but would become baggy with time. However, whether helpfully tight or comfortably loose, you couldn't wear them to the drawing room, and so they would be of no use in hiding RREs (Rampant Regency Erections) except maybe when pottering round the stables or the kennels, and frankly, that's a train of thought we would rather not follow.
Image from janeaustensworld.
As anyone who has ever studied Austen adaptations in way too much detail knows, the distinguishing characteristic of a pair of gentlemen's breeches is that they are very, very tight. Also, the coats are designed to cut away from the front, leaving the crotch area abandoned and forlorn. What happened, one wonders, when one of the ladies accidentally flashed too much ankle and the gentlemen's blood was inflamed by a fiery passion? Fictional Friend speculated that "I think that's the response Ms Bingley was trying to elicit by insisting upon perambulating the room". Was this, in fact, what the endless cups of tea were for? To place over the front of one's trousers, thus hiding any embarrassing physical response to bewitching beauty? As Tudor Friend mused, "Given the lighting conditions in most houses of the period, unless it's a very bright day, it might well work".
A fascinating close-up of the technical workings of the Regency fly.
How helpful, if at all, would this have been in hiding an RRE (Rampant Regency Erection)?
Image from janeaustensworld.
According to Lucy Worsley, one of our favourite historians, it was socially acceptable to relieve oneself when in company in the Georgian/Regency era, at least among gentlemen. Was it likewise socially acceptable to display an erection left, right and centre? Tudor Friend here argued that "it's post-Puritan England, so I'd be surprised if even the lascivious Regency crowd were THAT down with open sexuality". Fictional Friend added, "True. Just trying to figure out how to read between the lines and find a euphemistic reference to it". There was also a strong suspicion that standards may have differed between social classes; as Fictional Friend argued, "that farmer guy in Emma might have had different standards for this than Mr. Knightley".
A resolution was voiced to "go through every Jane Austen story and wonder which of her heroes suffers from RREs (Rampant Regency Erections)", and it was agreed that there is "nothing like a good smutty-minded paradigm shift"!
A gratuitous image of Alan Rickman wearing trousers in Sense and Sensibility.
Image from thepenofawdur.
The discussion ended with the Regency costume website we were studying being declared to be "PURE CRACK" (i.e. highly addictive). There were then some jokes in very poor taste about the Pump Room, and the whole thing deteriorated into a very unscientific conversation.
Seriously, though, why has there been no scholarly inquiry into this topic? As Tudor Friend ranted, "I'm genuinely surprised no one has written about this. Because there is NO WAY that trousers that skin-tight didn't have SOME sexual overtones intentionally". What are the social historians out there doing?
In order to salvage what is left of our self-proclaimed intellectualism, we feel the need to post some seriously classy toilet pictures. These are from the National Gallery - bog photos can hardly get more respectable than that! So there.
This is a functional and aesthetically pleasing motion-sensor tap,
with a functional soap-dispenser dispensing pleasant soap.
Well, strike us pink with a pair of buckskin trousers if that ain't a revolving towel! Huzzah!
There is only one possible festive video for this post. As we all know, thanks to Bridget Jones, the scene where Elizabeth Bennet walks to Netherfield to check on her sister Jane is one for which Andrew Davies, the director of the 1995 BBC adaptation, wrote in the stage directions that Darcy had a giant erection.
Says Bridget (who is interviewing Colin Firth):
BJ Oh. Do you think Mr Darcy would have slept with Elizabeth Bennet before the wedding? CF Yes, I do think he might have. BJ Do you? CF Yes. I think it's entirely possible. Yes. BJ (BREATHLESSLY) Really? CF I think it's possible, yes. BJ How would it be possible? CF Don't know if Jane Austen would agree with me on this, but... BJ We can't know because she's dead. CF No, we can't... but I think Andrew Davies's Mr Darcy would have done. BJ Why do you think that, though? Why? Why? CF Because I think it was very important to Andrew Davies that Mr Darcy had the most enormous sex drive. BJ (GASPS) CF And, um... BJ I think that came across, really, really well with the acting. I really think it did. CF Thank you. At one point, Andrew even wrote as a stage direction: "Imagine that Darcy has an erection". (V. LARGE CRASHING NOISE) BJ Which bit was that? CF It's when she's been walking across the country and bumps into him in the grounds in the early stages. BJ The bit where she's all muddy? CF...and dishevelled BJ...and sweaty? CF Exactly. BJ Was that a difficult bit to act? CF You mean the erection? BJ (AWED WHISPER) Yes. CF Um, well, Andrew also wrote that I don't propose that we should focus on it, and, therefore, no acting required in that department at least. BJ Mmm. (LONG PAUSE) CF Yes. (MORE PAUSE) BJ Mmm.
You're welcome.
Festive video - Pride and Prejudice BBC 1995 walking to Netherfield scene
Related Reading
The by now classic post about Lucy Worsley and Regency toilet habits:
Vroom, vroom! Yes, we have been away! No, you don't want to know what we have been doing! What matters is that we are back - with what we like to think of as a vengeance! Recent traumas have, quite possibly, contributed to some pretty rampant spiritual growth, which should logically result in even more inspirational and intellectually uplifting blog posts henceforth.
Also we made a vow that, if we survived our ordeal, we would go on a champagne bender, the likes of which you have never seen. As regular readers may remember, we have produced some of our best work while hungover (for instance this, and this. This one wasn't bad. Oh, and this was a very satisfying rant), so this resolution may very well work out in your favour.
Audiologist Friend has been adventurous as usual, this time in Iceland! This eminent earwax specialist says (as ever, do take this opportunity of refreshing you colloquial Swedish, but if you happen to be hungover, or otherwise linguistically incapacitated, a translation will follow):
Tro inte att jag glömt din blogg! Här kommer en riktigt fräsch o härlig WC (!!!) nedanför Eyjafjallajökull och Mýrdalsjökull - riktigt lyxigt efter en 26 km gångtur. Inga lampor men tak där väggarna inte når hela vägen upp = ljus lyser igenom, och taket gjord av genomskinlig plast (med vit färg så ljuset kommer in). Stället heter Basar i Þórsmörk.
(Don't think I've forgotten your blog! Here is a really clean and lovely WC (!!!) below Eyafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull - properly luxurious after a 26 km hike. No lights, but walls that don't reach all the way to the ceiling = light shining through, and the roof was made of clear plastic (painted white, so the light could get through). The place is called Basar, in Þórsmörk.)
Icelanders know how to do a good bathroom! Even in the wild! Woof!
We note with pleasure that this toilet is both clean and disability-friendly,
and features a covered toilet-roll holder.
In other news, Tudor Friend sent us this article about Japanese toilets, which was interesting, but also a) creepily close to being an advert, and b) totally lacking in anything resembling an environmental angle. Tudor Friend commented:
My theory on the great "why we don't like bidets" discussion is that we feel like we won't get sufficiently dry, and *retaining* moisture on one's posterior or nether bits is something we associate with not having cleaned sufficiently.
On us predictably going on a rant about how any discussion of Japanese super toilets needs not only an environmental element, but also a clear affirmation of the total and utter non-necessity of having a warmed-up toilet seat, Tudor Friend concurred heartily:
I agree! I've sat on one once and it was fucking CREEPY. My ass does NOT need to be toasted to have a functional bathroom experience.
We're off to bang our heads against the wall for a bit. Hopefully next time we write, we will be rampantly hungover!
Because we recently encountered a gym instructor in his fifties with a passion for both hair metal and Lady Gaga, which totally reminded us of Australian Friend, we thought we'd make today's festive video the most bathroom-related of Gaga's videos. (It coincidentally appears to feature somebody being forced to drink water.)
(No, we don't know why we have two labels for posts written when hungover. Most likely it is a mistake which we have consistently been too lazy to rectify.)
You'd be surprised by how many postcards we receive at the Privy Counsel. When it comes to the more vulgar kinds of material possessions, we don't have much to hang on the Christmas tree, as the Swedes so charmingly put it, but in terms of postcards, we possess a fortune. An actual fortune! Kick-Arse Suffragette Friend sent us one just recently, of the historical-slash-salacious kind; a picture of a rampantly attractive Dakota Sioux by the name of Kicks Iron. We do enjoy our historical heroes and heroines at the Counsel!
Kicks Iron, a Dakota Sioux.
Photograph by Frank B. Fiske, ca 1905.
Then of course there's all the postcards from random weirdoes readers that clog up our postbox to the point where the postman is giving us dirty looks arrive with charming regularity.
This postcard, from a correspondent at Castle Howard, says:
To: The Privy Counsel
The Queen will be visiting the estate next month, and the lady of the house has asked me to contact you for some advice. (The household etiquette books were recently lost in a freak plumbing accident.)
How is one to lay out the bathroom for a royal visit?
How is one to offer the facilities to Her Majesty?
Can one find loo roll that is superior to two-ply?
And is it considered indiscreet, following the visit, to install a small plaque to state "the Queen peed here" for future generations to admire?
Your discretion regarding the matter is appreciated.
From: Private Secretary to Lady [name illegible - these aristos frequently suffer from hereditary syphilis, making their nervous systems unreliable and their pen-wielding limbs prone to tremors]
First of all, let us assure all our readers of our utter and complete discretion.
HEY EVERYONE! THE QUEEN IS COMING TO USE THE BOGS AT CASTLE HOWARD!
When it comes to laying out the loos for a royal visit, our experience is that ordinary cleanliness goes a long way. Scrub the bathroom thoroughly using eco-friendly products (stay clear of bleach - you don't want the Queen getting her outfit stained then sniffing disapprovingly throughout her visit). Make sure the towels are clean, but don't use fabric softeners (apart from softeners being environmentally hostile, exaggerated softness causes bits of fluff to stick to one's skin which is annoying as hell). Avoid vulgar ornaments.
Googling the words "Which toilet roll does the Queen use" yields a surprisingly rich vein of internet lunacy. The least crazy comment on this subject that we encountered was "I think Andrex holds the royal warrant which would suggest that is the brand of choice for the royal bum". Then again, once the Queen is seated on your throne - belt off, trousers down - she doesn't have much of a choice, does she? We suggest you go for the most ecological alternative you can find. (Read one of our rants about toilet roll and ecological destruction here. Here's another one.) Also, of course, make sure you hang the toilet paper the right way round!
Regarding the royal visit toilet plaque, there are two schools of thought. The first, classic, school goes, "this is an unbearably vulgar and horrid practice and must cease immediately". Was it Josephine Tey who pointed out that if one is to believe all the stories of Tudor houses visited by Queen Elizabeth I, she must have made sleeping in other people's beds quite the hobby? (Then again, Tudor courts did travel more or less constantly. Maybe we should ask Tudor Friend to write us a guest blog post about this?) There is not, as far as we know, an outspoken tradition of putting up plaques commemorating royal toilet visits (though there is a rather festive anecdote about Henry VIII and a toilet in York), and so we suspect that the advice regarding them exists as a kind of sub-genre to the "Queen Bess slept here"-type plaques.
The second, more modern, school goes "take every opportunity of making your toilet a joyous, festive place - fucking go for it, babe!" We're rather inclined towards the more modern school of thought.
This is today's festive video, because it is simply a splendid song. The title does not correlate in any way to our current mental state, long-term memory, or employment prospects.
In our last post, we went all cryptic about what Dirty Harry might or might not have done in relation to some urinal or other. Uncle Sean explains, in this thrilling sequel, what was actually going on:
My apologies for the vagaries of my recent clippings. We had the great pleasure of visiting Coit Tower, which of course brought to mind the scene with Mrs. Westwood. So the loo pictured, the tower's actual loo, was shared in the spirit of architectural and filmological bog edification. As for the resolution of the scene, that remark was meant to be ambiguous; let the mind of each individual make of it as they wish.
We don't know about you, but WE UNDERSTAND ALL THE AMUSING CONNOTATIONS NOW.
The top painting is a portrait of Kitty Fisher by Joshua Reynolds.
View the full Cholera Babe Parade here.
Look at this cholera babe I just found in the New York Public Library! Looks like she has cholera anyway Apologies for shitty phone quality
For those of you who are not familiar with the concept of the Cholera Babe Parade, a cholera babe is, as we so memorably put it in our classic post Woof! Cholera Babe Parade!, "a red-hot Victorian babe in the process of dying from cholera".
In other news, it has come to our attention that there is some competition or other, which is considered important by many people, and determines which restaurant is currently regarded as the best. Apparently, the Danish restaurant Noma was considered the best in the world until very recently. As it happens, we have a very lovely picture from Noma, which Audiologist Friend sent us not too long ago:
We are woefully unqualified to determine restaurant quality (our usual modus operandi when in a food-and-drink-serving establishment is to stumble to the bar and ask for the second cheapest whisky), but we certainly think this Noma toilet looks excellent! It's got a vertical toilet roll, which we decided last year was the ideal bog roll placement, and everything looks very clean, comfortable, and well ventilated. What this picture doesn't tell us is whether the facilities in Noma are afflicted with subjunctive taps - a particularly Danish disorder. We shall have to continue pondering, no doubt.
We had originally planned a rampant feminazi video for this post, but then we came across this one! It was so festive, and the dudes in it so lovely, that we had to post this instead. Enjoy!
Festive video - Pjammerz Dubai, pjamming to Lloraras Por Mi by Chapa C
