Toilet Song - Harlem River Blues

It's finally Sunday, our favourite day for Toilet Songs! Purists might argue that the lyrics of today's choice mention neither porcelain nor lavatories, nor contain even any references to flushing. We counter that by pointing out that historical precedence decrees that any lyrics containing words and/or concepts related to "dirty water" indicate a Toilet Song. Justin Townes Earle has been spinning on the Privy Counsel record player quite a lot lately, so most likely we'll misconstrue some more lyrics and find another Toilet Song from his repertoire sooner or later.

Justin Townes Earle - Harlem River Blues

Lord, I'm goin' uptown, to the Harlem River to drown
Dirty water's gonna cover me over and I'm not gonna make a sound

I'm on a roll, mama, I gotta go, gotta get there while I still can
Troubled days are behind me now and I know they're gonna let me in
When you see me walkin' up the FDR, just a-singin' and a-clappin' my hands
Tell my mama I love her, tell my father I tried, give my money to my baby to spend

'Cause Lord, I'm goin' uptown, to the Harlem River to drown
Dirty water's gonna cover me over and I'm not gonna make a sound

Good times come and they go, even a good man'll break
He'll let his troubles bury him whole even though he knows what's at stake
So I'm taking no chances, carrying over while I'm still good in His grace
I'm not no fool, mama, I know the difference between tempting and choosing my fate

'Cause Lord, I'm goin' uptown, to the Harlem River to drown
Dirty water's gonna cover me over and I'm not gonna make a sound

Lord, I'm goin' uptown, to the Harlem River to drown
Dirty water's gonna cover me over and I'm not gonna make a sound

Lord, I'm goin' uptown, to the Harlem River to drown
Dirty water's gonna cover me over and I'm not gonna make a sound

Genuine toilet photo taken by Justin Townes Earle -
clearly a sign that great minds think alike! Image from Twitter.

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Finally! An Italian Train!

There's been a lot of frivolity lately. Time for a proper review, the actual raison d'être of this particular bog blog. Let's have a train, shall we? We quite fancy some transport!
Some Italian friends told us about Italian trains, and their peculiar waste management mechanism, on one memorable occasion, and we were most excited about going on one, as it were. However, our first Italian train was a disappointment; it didn't appear to have the genuine emptying-the-contents-of-the-toilet-bowl-onto-the-train-tracks mechanism. Our second train, though, between Turin and the little village of Oulx, was most satisfactory! However, due to the fact that a) it was unbelievably dirty, and b) the light wasn't working, we didn't take any pictures. The photos below are therefore from one of the fancy trains. Despair not, however: the flush was of the genuine Italian-train-toilet kind! No lack of ventilation there!

This is what the less fancy trains, with the more interesting toilets, look like.
(The pictures below are, alas, not from one of these, but from a rather flashy Trenitalia train.)

An Italian train toilet. We like to think of them as "breezy".

Bog roll: all present and correct.

Unlike the first train we went on, there was both soap and water on this one, and we didn't feel compelled
to spend the next half hour nervously reapplying hand sanitizer.

We heartily approve of this sturdy lock function, with its helpful multilingual signage.

Again, multilingual helpfulness. Though we don't pretend
to understand either the English or the Italian instructions.
(Babies may be annoying, but referring to them as "diables" seems a bit harsh.)

The amount of helpful, pedagogical signage on this train was simply astounding.

We regret to inform our readers that we may have used this toilet while the train had stopped at a station.
In our defense, we weren't to know that the train was about to stop, as there was no announcement!
What were we supposed to do? Cower in the toilet till the train started again?

This train toilet may have had its shortcomings, but we were still very pleased with our visit. If you enjoyed this, you'll be happy to know that we have more Italian toilets up our sleeve, as well as toilets of many other nationalities!

Hook up tomorrow for a new Toilet Song!

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Toilet-Twinning - Worcester Cathedral

Oh dear, oh dear. We've got so many inspirational bog blog ideas that we literally don't know in which end to start. There are some thrilling linguistic musings from Intellectual Friend, random wordless weirdness from Semi-Intellectual Friend, continued greatness from German Friend, and more Privy Counsel Pin-Ups than you can shake a glory stick at!
Still, we believe we'll start with toilet-twinning. Don't worry, we didn't know what it was, either. But Tudor Friend sent us this picture, from Worcester Cathedral!

Worcester Cathedral lavatory.
(Because cathedral conveniences are always lavatories, never toilets.)

Toilet-twinning apparently funds projects that improve sanitation in developing countries. We heartily cheer this on because - as we have memorably observed on a previous occasion - if there is one thing worse than coming across a bad bog, it's not having one at all! (For more information on similar projects, see our Good Deeds, Oxfam Build a Bog and World Toilet Day labels.)

Tudor Friend says:

Toilet twinning... who'd've thought of such things? In case it comes through funny, I believe the website is toilettwinning.org. And apparently Worcester Cathedral's counterpart loo is in Burundi. I wonder if anyone goes there on some sort of friendly visit, to see the... sister bog? Did someone from Burundi come to Worcester for a grand opening? Is it all ceremonial and shit? (Pun intended, of course.)

Tudor Friend also hopes to be able to bring us photos from the actual lavatories in Worcester Cathedral! We can barely contain our excitement! (2012 was full of shit, but 2013 has been kicking some serious arse so far - we hope this trend continues!)

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Privy Counsel Pin-Up - Now with 50 % Less Creepiness

We've been making quite a big deal of our recent gender equality campaign, congratulating ourselves on posting a picture of a girl Privy Counsel Pin-Up. This was, in our opinion, an achievement, as 75 % of our previous Pin-Ups had been male (and, we may mention, a roaring success, indicating continued male Pin-Up dominance). But one must do one's bit to promote equality between the sexes. The problem is that pictures of men in bath-tubs are infinitely more humorous than pictures of women in bath-tubs, and also, the latter often have a tendency towards creepiness. And creepiness, as our regular readers will know, is not what the Privy Counsel is about. Be that as it may, however, we luckily came across a Privy Counsel Pin-Up-worthy picture, the gender-equality levels of which were through the roof! Through the roof, people!

Hurrah! Howard from The Big Bang Theory, and Starbuck
from Battlestar Galactica! In a totally uncreepy situation!
Image from kateesackhoff.com.

Well, we're off to grab our gun and bring the cat in. It really needs a bath.

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More Uzbek Toilets

The saga of the Uzbek toilets continues! We'd love to pretend that we've learned some polite Uzbek phrases to mark the occasion, but frankly we've been too busy promoting gender equality, making new friends, and generally running a toilet blog. We're only human, after all! (And sometimes barely that.) However, here are some delightful pictures from the ever helpful German Friend!

German friend says: "We love the multifunctionality. Not in the picture: families Cock and Roach."

Multifunctionality indeed. How lucky that the toilet-roll holder covers the bog roll,
or it would get very wet when one had a shower!

Look! An Uzbek mixer tap! How utterly thrilling!
(Eat shit, Britain!)

 Oooh, that was most enjoyable! We wouldn't want to angry up the blood with too much exciting news, but the fact remains that there is more where that came from! Hurrah for German Friend! Stay tuned!

We should perhaps mention as a general postscript that, although there was initially some confusion at Privy Counsel HQ about how to adjectivise (apologies to Australian Friend for recklessly verbifying a noun) Uzbekistan, we have finally gathered that the correct adjective, meaning "relating to Uzbekistan, the Uzbeks, or their language" is "Uzbek"; both Oxford Dictionaries and the website of the Uzbek embassy in the U.S.A.  appear to agree on this. So you can all stop wondering and go back to whatever plebeian pursuits you normally busy yourselves with when not pondering linguistic matters.

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Magic, Brilliance, Power, and Bog Roll

As stated recently, we like to believe that we have many friends and well-wishers here at the Privy Counsel (and not just our Privy Counsel Friends either, although do check out the most recent addition to our menagerie, if you haven't already). We have particular reason to be grateful to our friends at First Flight Communication in Malmö. If you ever need an ad agency full to bursting point with magic, brilliance, and power, we really can't recommend these guys enough! And not just because they have really great toilets in their office - they're also very good at what they do (though we still have no idea what that is), and ooze coolness in every direction. (But seriously, if you're gonna pick someone to market your product you might as well pick someone proffering kick-arse toilets, right?) First Flight also have a penchant for dressing up, singing out of tune, and drinking inappropriate amounts of alcohol - all things of which the Privy Counsel approves! So, three cheers and a roaring hurrah for First Flight!

Now to the point: one of our First Flight friends sent us this link. We're not entirely sure that we get the point, but on the other hand we always, always approve of toilet paper. We also find the meditative rolling back and forth of this virtual toilet roll very soothing - a most appropriate Sunday activity! Anyway, here it is:

http://www.papertoilet.com/

We are not at all convinced that First Flight will be grateful to have their very cool brand linked
to a toilet blog in this fashion. What can we say, except "tough shit"!

Roaring Good Roman Fun

After a hard week's graft of lobbying for gender equality, in addition to maintaining our usual high intellectual standards, we thought that, it being the weekend, we might be allowed to relax and ponder something light-hearted and fun! And what can be more fun than Roman plumbing? Well, quite. We couldn't think of anything, either.
We are also pleased to announce that we have a new Privy Counsel Friend; Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend. We don't usually employ the word "medieval" in our friends' names, due to the simple reason that almost all our friends are medieval in one way or another, if not in research interests then in mentality, table manners, or some other equally distressing aspect of their personality. However, Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend is probably more medieval than most! Anyway, Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend sent this picture to us, saying, "I thought you would enjoy this photo of me sitting on a Roman toilet at the bath complex in Nice", and later adding, "Roman plumbing is just about my favourite thing in the entire existence of the whole wide world too!"

 We do so enjoy it when ours and our friends' interests and preferences are in harmony!

Veni, vidi, cacavi: Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend
atop a toilet at the Roman bath complex in Nice

We gather this description of the bath complex from Waymarking:

The Roman Bath Complex at Nice-Cimiez is the largest known in Gaul. First surveyed by Duval in 1943, the baths were excavated over the next 30 years by F. Benoit. During the Severan period the North or Magistrate's Bath was built, then expanded to include separate East (men's) and West (women's) bathing areas, the latter having large quantities of hair pins and earrings recovered from the drains. Bath areas identified for visitors include the cold bath (frigidarium), warm bath (tepidarium), sweat bath(laconicum), hot bath (caldarium), swimming pool (natatio), and court and exercise ground (palaestra).

These baths are located at a Greek stronghold that was founded on the Colline du Château at Nice in the 4th century BC by Phocaeans from Marseille. Nice originally had the Greek name Nikaia Polis, or the town of victory (from Nike, victory, and Polis for city). The northern suburb of Cimiez where considerable Roman remains are located was known as Cemenelum.

In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, Cemenelum was a base of the Vediantii, a Ligurian tribe. In 154 BC Romans helped Massiliotes defend both Nikaia and Antipolis (Antibes) from Ligurian attacks, after which Cemenelum became a Roman settlement along the Via Julia, a major Roman road. Favorably located, Cemenelum was chosen as the principal seat of the province of Alpes Maritimae by Augustus in 14 BC. Later, the Romans settled further inland, on the opposite side of the river Paillon. Remains of the town on the Hill of Cimiez date to the 3rd century AD, and are now part of the archaeological park at Nice-Cimiez.

Learn some more interesting facts about the Roman bath complex in Nice here, view some sort of semi-official site here, or, if you're into French, view the official site here. For more general information on Roman baths, there is always that stalwart friend to the ignorant yet pretentious, Wikipedia.

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