Look, we're not saying that pictures of Jonny have the power to cure all social ills, or even our own increasingly importunate existential angst. They do, however, give our days that certain je ne sais quoi - call it succour, call it a balm for the soul, call it thirty seconds of semi-ironical perving to distract one from the fanatical horror clowns banging pot lids behind one's prefrontal cortex. Whatever you want to label them as, pictures of Jonny are in abundance right now, our favourite young whipper-snapper having hit a creative seam that yields nugget after nugget of pure gold. (At least the gold metaphor works well, we think, if you're into toilet selfies of Jonny - some people, puzzlingly, appear not to be.)
Before we immerse ourselves in the symphonic poetry that is lots of lovely photos of Jonny in a toilet however, let's have some context. Some readers may not be as regular as others, and may not remember who, what, or why Jonny is. Let us make the preamble brief, however, so as not to frustrate those readers who are admirably regular, and are gagging for what we might term Jonny gold:
Jonny is a young man from the North of England who we count as a friend for administrative reasons. He enjoys cycling, and public toilets. Some years ago we composed a lonely hearts ad for Jonny's benefit, which turned out to be a roaring success. Recently, Jonny and the queen of his heart - who, it appears, followed our advice and threw herself at this man - went on a romantic weekend together.
Jonny wrote to us, in his usual forthright style:
COVID ruined my weekend away.
But we booked a Premiere Inn in the Lakes.
We got a disabled room as it was the only one left. Plenty of room in the bathroom to take pics.
Every cloud.
Jonny using adequate protection.
We could not agree more.
This looks like stupendously good cake.
Again, we could not agree more.
Some days later, having feasted on cake and other delights until he presumably couldn't take it any more, Jonny wrote again:
I'm wearing the same t-shirt but I travelled in it.
So many grab handles
It's huge in here
The oh! so ironical bottle of Corona adds, we're sure you agree, a pungent note of political realism.
Finally, Jonny ventured into what we might presume to call the tempestuous waters of political allegory, saying:
Found the worst toilet ever
Who on earth would want to sit in that corner seat facing the urinals?
No cubicles
STANK so bad.
One's heart, indeed, sinks at the sight of this sad state of things...
...but soars with delight at the vision of this Albion Apollo.
Our - for want of a better adjective - clear-sighted eagle eye spotted immediately that the hand-washing apparatus is the exact same kind as that in Morrison's in York, at least as it looked in 2011. We also remarked that the seat might in fact be a shelf, on which one might perhaps place a rucksack (or, depending on what one happens to be carrying at the point of needing to use this toilet, a large sack of potatoes, or a treasure chest overflowing with glittering, non-metaphorical gold). Jonny replied:
Oh, it could be for your bag. That's less weird.
BUT
1) I wouldn't put my bag on it either.
2) I wouldn't need to take my bag off to pee.
The handwashing apparatus was also broken.
We here ventured to suggest that this toilet might, in fact, be a representation of Britain today, at which Jonny retorted, as he is so often wont to do, "Are you putting words in my mouth?" Yes. Yes, we are. These are our words:
Everything is broken, dirty, and horrible, but at least there's Jonny.
According
to tradition, there should now be a Festive Video. Since, as our
long-suffering friends will attest, our favourite method of perving on
Toby Stephens at the moment is enjoying the sight of pirates in tight
trousers scheming against a) each other, b) the weather, and c) women wielding political power, let's have this enjoyable scene
from Black Sails.
Festive Video: "Black Sails | The Best of Black Sails: Vane’s Warning in Charles Town | STARZ"
"Blogging," as Cicero quite possibly said, "is a heartless business". "Not only," that mighty Roman might, not unreasonably, have continued, "is it incredibly time-consuming and financially unrewarding, it also drives one potty trying to keep track of all the toilet photos that people have sent one via various apps". "Also," might the mighty statesman, orator, lawyer and philosopher have soliloquised over a quiet glass of quite possibly lead-enriched wine, "finding the balance between ranting and subtle toilet humour is a delicate business and one is quite likely to fall off the ledge into the murky waters of full-on unhinged crazy talk". Though not versed, whether well or in any other manner, in the classics ourselves, many of our friends are, and we are inclined to revere the words of the worthy Roman wordsmiths. "Nonetheless," as Virgil definitely never said, "sometimes a gentle bout of blogging relieves the mind and eases the disquiet in one's soul".
Let us, since we must fill this post with some kind of content other than made-up Roman philosophising, have a look at some photos that Shewee Fiend Friend sent us last year. Unfortunately the information about where these photos were taken and what the context was has been lost. Quite possibly it has been sucked into the space-time continuum and is currently disturbing the dreams of a bemused many-headed creature called Zorb, resident of a sulphurous planet in the Andromeda galaxy.
This is quite possibly the public toilet in a small Canadian town that closes for the season in October, and doesn't open again till spring. This seems to us a very sensible approach to winter, and we wish it were applied everywhere. If there were a public referendum, we would definitely vote in favour of enforced hibernation.
This seems to us to be a highly inoffensive toilet. Plus points for the disability-friendly bars.
Here is a picture of - possibly entirely unrelated - bison, and a wind-power generator. Could it be a metaphor of some kind?
We're reasonably sure that this is still the same Canadian public toilet. We approve of the hook and the door handle, and note that although there is an infuriating trend in Scandiwegia to dispense with the hook in favour of a shelf on which one's stuff won't fit, the people of Canada have managed to install a dual system which one can only applaud.
Here's a picture of Jonny. He says:
"Happy New Year x
For all the fanz"
Since we haven't blogged in nigh-on a year, have a bonus Jonny, from the Belfry Hotel!
"Look at that wet floor sign," says Jonny. Indeed!
It has been noted by more than one person that we at the Privy Counsel have shit taste in music considering our level of education and, it has been implied, degree of intelligence. We brush off these slurs with a haughty sneer and continue embracing eccentric country music. Let's have, today, a nice song by Gretchen Peters - whom we would totally have gone to see live last year if we hadn't been suffering from a debilitating hangover which enforced on us, in a manner of speaking, a lenghty hibernation.
Festive Video - Gretchen Peters, Say Grace Related Reading If you feel like you need a dose of wit, intelligence and joy, enjoy this fantastic video of Benjamin Boyce interviewing Helen Joyce: Gender, Journalism, & Justice | with Helen Joyce
It has been decreed by Privy Counsel headquarters that you deserve (the choice is yours whether to view this as benevolence or hostility) a super summer extravaganza blog post, and thus, whether you want it or not, and whether getting one is even in your best interests, you are getting a super summer extravaganza blog post!
We have a lot of photos of toilets to get through, so we'd better get started before the leaves fall from the trees and the bears (those mythical creatures who, according to a popular idiom, crap in the woods) go to hibernate, the lucky fuckers, while the rest of us have to continue getting the bus to work in darkness while trying not to freeze our toes or other extremities off, spend the day under fluorescent lights engaged in meetings with people who can't form coherent sentences, then go home in the dark only to find that the cheese has gone mouldy and women STILL don't count as humans.
Let us keep the darkness, metaphorical as well as literal, at bay, however, by focusing on metaphorical (and, in the case of the northern latitudes, unremittingly literal at this time of year, actually) sunlight: We have a special treat for you today! Regular readers will remember with fondness and admiration past posts by Intellectual Friend. Well, hold on to your hats and make sure your toilet roll is turned the right way around - here is a new contribution from that worthy intellectual! From Greenland, no less!
I thought I would show you this private toilet, which I saw (and wincingly made use of) in a forlorn settlement called Oqaatsut, latitude 69 N, population 40 not counting a couple hundred sleddogs.
It is I believe the cosiest loo I have encountered so far in such a context (the context being the lack of running water, no sewage system (the skybound pipe behind the seat merely serving as a mildly efficient vent and stench suppressor) and the undiggability of the frozen ground).
Black plastic bag in the toilet bowl/barrel. Suspicious yellow-tinted meltwater in the washbasin.
Helpful inscription on the wall above, "Uunga errorit", which can be interpreted as meaning "Wash here" (an injunction which I did not feel inclined to obey, especially as I had my hand sanitizer to hand), where -it is the imperative 2nd pers. sing. ending. There was no toilet paper; but if there had been any, I'd assume by analogy with other lavatories in the country that the roll would be lying on a mouldy windowsill or on the actual and clammy floor at the very foot of the toilet. Note however the ingeniously placed wooden soapholder (what passed for soap in there looked however very unattractive) and also the purple hook and festive handknitted towel.
I should add that I failed to obtain prior permission to take this sneaky photo, partly because our host, a venerable lady and oldest dweller in said settlement, could only speak Greenlandic (and some thick dialect of it at that), so that technically it might be a case of rape and abuse of one's privacy and private property, such as it is, although I'm no expert. But the brave old lady had cooked us lunch, bless her, and she sat and watched us eat it with great interest. [Name omitted], the only fluent speaker of Greenlandic among us, mostly declined to engage in conversation with the host, leaving the hyggelig/lagom atmosphere to thicken up to its natural slightly awkward density.
It was a more or less planned stop we had on a little sailing trip which we took out of Ilulissat, a town to the north where we spent Easter. And here for the sake of variation are a few other pics from that Oqaatsut settlement and around: the [...] house of our host [omitted due to privacy concerns], a bleak view of the village, the worthy old vessel in which we were sailed thereto, and an icefell or two.
We've seen a lot of primitive toilets in our day (for instance, this one or why not ponder this one or indeed this one), and Intellectual Friend's bog description does not scare us; being situated, as it is, in a context of rugged wilderness and base survival. Continuing the theme of rugged wilderness, but in a location which offers no excuse not to offer hygiene and comfort, let's have a look at the toilets at Tugg, a hipster burger place in Lund, Sweden, where we went one sunny day with Australian Friend.
You'd think that Lund, this eminent university town, would produce nothing but civilised functionality, but you'd be wrong. Our main critique of Tugg has heretofore centred on the fact that whoever designed this eatery decided to put metal chairs on a cement floor. Why people choose to make the surroundings in which people are supposed to eat actively unpleasant and potentially damaging to one's hearing is beyond us. Then we went to check out the loos and are subsequently also wondering why anyone would choose to make a toilet unnecessarily difficult to use, due to an inexplicable urge to pander to the 19th-century farmyard aesthetic. Let's show you what we mean.
Here is the toilet. Note the bare walls (nothing wrong with bare walls as such), the minimalist loo (again, nothing wrong with this for now), the weird and flimsy curtain stopping people outside from being able to look in, and the toilet rolls which, albeit plentiful, have worryingly been put into a rustic wooden box. It's not necessarily unhygienic but it's not exactly indicative of cleanliness either.
There are no paper towels; instead, brown (why brown? Why? Does anybody actually like the colour brown?) cloth towels have been placed in another rustic wooden box, this time placed reassuringly high up on the wall.
There are two bins; one for the brown (whyyyy?) towels, another for other waste. This is all fine.
Now it's starting to get scary. The cistern for the toilet is an old-timey one on the wall, with a metal wire that needs to be pulled for flushing. Burlington is a Swedish brand with a nice-looking website that offers no information whatsoever about why one should use this type of cistern, whether it's in any way water-saving, or whether it's considered disability-friendly.
The tap offers so many different types of horror that the breadth and width of the sum total of the horror is hard for the human intellect to comprehend. It's situated over a cattle-trough-like sink (why, in God's name, do hipsters keep insisting on sinks that look like they might be full of cow drool and half-chewed clumps of grass?) and is literally composed of a water-valve lever handle. It is very much not disability friendly, or indeed friendly to anyone who didn't grow up on a farm in the 19th century and has strong, calloused hands the size of dustbin lids, being very hard to turn. Also, the pipe offers only cold water. Not sure how this conforms to health and safety regulations, if at all. Note the toilet roll placed by the sink, on a wooden surface that is extremely likely to absorb water and breed bacteria, helpfully supplied by the hands touching the toilet roll.
In the manner of people who insist on serving you coffee in a glass, as if they are
so far above material things that burn injuries are inconsequential (mugs
have handles for a reason?), the architect behind this horror ensemble says, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT WHETHER YOU CAN WASH YOUR HANDS YOU DIRTY PEASANT ALSO STOP STARING AT ME AND GO CLEAN OUT THE OUTDOOR PRIVY NO I DON'T CARE THAT YOU ARE DYING FROM CHOLERA YOU SCURVY MALINGERER".
The door has an old-timey handle and no coat-hook.
The water pipe has a pressure gauge. Personally, we'd have preferred a sane and hygienic tap.
We're grateful that we were in such charming company, or bad things might have happened to our mental state. Swiftly moving on before anyone develops tuberculosis or gangrene of the soul, let's contemplate these interesting pictures from New York, described in Shewee Fiend Friend's characteristically terse staccato style.
Ok I'm in a weird speakeasy
They only have whiskey
And all vegan food
The bathrooms
Are beautiful
But
No paper towel or soap
Not sure how they're supposed to do that without soap Our waiter left the bathroom before me Also
I knocked the toilet paper over
Afterwards we went to burp Castle
There are paintings of drunk monks everywhere The toilet was disappointing
The toilet per se may be disappointing, but we see much entertainment value in the graffiti, for instance the "PODCASTS???" scrawl (we don't see the point in them either - why listen to people breathing weirdly into a microphone when you can get the information much quicker by reading?). Also we enjoy, as ever, almost seeing people.
We asked whether Burp Castle was a typo, but learned that it wasn't:
Nope that's what it's called
It's a monastery esque place
You're not allowed to speak above a whisper
We suggested that you then "can't get drunk as there would be a great risk of laughing raucously?", and the following pithy exchange took place:
Shewee Fiend Friend: I guess? Unless you are good at getting drunk quietly
Privy Counsel: You might as well just inject yourself with melatonin and go quietly to sleep
Jonny has been no slouch this summer, sending us many excellent contributions with messages which, readers of this long and pontificating post will be delighted to know, are short to the point of abruptness.
The conversation for this one went as follows:
Privy Counsellor: So many things going on. Care to make any comment?
Jonny: Not at this time.
Privy Counsellor: You have the right to remain silent.
According to the diploma this urinal is located at the Flying Duck in Ilkley, and has been twinned with another toilet somewhere.
This sink, thankfully, does not resemble a cattle-trough, though the taps are that worrying breed of subjunctive mixer taps.
Semi-Intellectual Friend has also been in touch, offering this commentary on our ongoing Jonny Babe Parade:
Johnny
looks shit hot. Shit hotter every time I see him on there in fact. I
reckon he's one of those Paul Rudd types that just grows increasingly
into their own good looks.
Yes, we naturally asked Semi-Intellectual Friend's permission to share these words, and got the following response:
If
you ever want to share my compliments about Jonny on the blog (or any
mutual friend (that I've just not met yet)), totally go for it. He's got
Hollywood magnetism and the world needs to know about it.
Finally, in a triumph of 19th-century farmyard romanticism, we offer this picture of Jonny, dressed as a cowboy, in front of a sink shaped like a cattle-trough.
WE HAVE ONLY ONE THING TO SAY AND THAT IS "GIDDY-UP!!!"
For today's Festive Video, let's have something that evokes the midnight sun and the hope of good plumbing, as well as offering a mild dose of 19th-century barnyard aestheticism (hopefully a mild dose may ensure a vaccinating effect, like cowpox).
Festive Video: Maxida Märak and Downhill Bluegrass Band, Nikesunnas Jojk
We don't know what your neck of the woods is like, but round our way there has been vigorous galloping in many directions, and enthusiastic cries of tally-ho! have been heard all over the realm. There has been frantic activity, not all of it related to escaping homicidal horror-clowns. Amid all the confusion, Shewee Fiend Friend accidentally agreed with us on two things, one of which was music-related. We know. It was a shock for everyone involved. Right now we're having a metaphorical sit-down in the shade, panting feebly and guzzling reassuring amounts of gin.
Shewee Fiend Friend went to a diner in North America recently, and sent us pictures with helpful and enlightening captions. The toilets in the diner in question were reassuringly sex-segregated, meaning that Shewee Fiend Friend felt safe throughout her visit. We've talked quite a lot about the horror of forcing women to share intimate spaces with people who a) are on average significantly larger and stronger physically, and b) commit 98 % of all acts of sexual violence. However, we'd still like to take this opportunity to recommend this excellent summary on why mixed-sex toilets are awful for women by Woman's Place UK, and also this one by Holly Lawford Smith.
Allez, en piste! Shewee Fiend Friend writes:
Inside it was pretty cool. Lots of 50s shit
Every table had a personal jukebox I played Video killed the radio star Not Elvis The bathrooms. Phenomenal
You enter this little vestibule from which you can enter one of two toilets
If you look closely, you'll see women's is marked doubly I like that
Same for men's
And in case it wasn't clear, the doors go to the floor
Very pleasant and reasonably clean. Above right was a sturdy coat hook
The comforting reminder that employees must wash hands
(I don't know why Americans have these signs everywhere. I find it disquieting that employees need to be reminded)
And finally, just in case it wasn't clear
Wasn't that wonderful? We feel somehow safe and clean, which is how we like to be if at all possible.
A friend who we might refer to, for the sake of convenience and also accuracy, as Nerdy Beer Obsessive Friend, sent us this festive photo from a place in Helsingborg, Sweden, that provides culture for the people.
Now for a Jonny Babe Parade photo. For reasons to which we are not privy, Jonny is going through a Peaky Blinders phase. The result is most pleasing. We don't know where this photo was taken, and we also don't care.
Woof!
The thing about getting older is that one realises there are things that are better than Elvis. For instance, sex-segregated toilets. Also one realises that there are a fuckload of Elvis songs that other people did long before Elvis, and that are actually much better. Today's Festive Video is one example.
Some previous Privy Counsel posts on the horror of mixed-sex toilets, which can be summarised with the words a) NOBODY WANTS TO ELBOW THEIR WAY THROUGH A SEA OF BEARDED HIPSTERS TO GET TO THE SINK and also b) HARDEN THE FUCK UP AND GIVE THE WOMEN THEIR OWN FUCKING TOILET:
It seems improbable, at the arse end of February, that you will ever see sunlight again, or do anything more constructive than sit wrapped up in your duvet, rocking back and forth and eating cheese. The memories of last summer's carefree, open-air gin consumption seem like a dream at best, or at worst a cruel and sadistic joke by our robot overlords who may well be amusing themselves by implanting false memories into what passes for our brain these days - we can't prove that they're not. Still, the world keeps turning round the sun and soon enough the birds are tooting in the shrubberies and various species of wildlife are doing unspeakable things to each other in the grounds and messuages. Spring is here, and there are signs of life from various corners of the world. Semi-Intellectual Friend, for instance, sprang this stark and surprising message on us:
Holy shit. I assume the internet is all over sending you stuff like this but biiiiig feature on hand towels vs dryers in the Guardian today:
Is the Guardian trying to make a move on Privy Counsel? Maybe you could sell out and make your millions.
Regarding the hand-dryer-versus-paper-towels issue, there are good arguments on both sides. We reckon it's one of those things where you just have to pick a side, and stick to it, belligerently. We've made our views on air dryers known, and will most likely maintain our opinion, even if presented with evidence that we are wrong, until old age and senility make the matter moot. Be advised that we are prepared to defend our viewpoint in a bout of bare-knuckle fighting. Bring your own gin.
When it comes to bowel movements and the worry that sitting on a toilet is "unnatural" compared to the "natural" method of squatting on the ground, we think it's mostly Brits who agonise about this. Possibly also Germans. (More research is possibly needed on which nationalities, exactly, are afflicted by this particular anxiety.) Personally we are very fond of the allaturca or squat toilet, but we by no means feel the need to purchase the "wildly popular seven-inch-high plastic stool, designed by a devout Mormon and her son, which curves around the base of your loo".
Is the Guardian trying to make a move on the Privy Counsel? What a fascinating question. What do our readers think? Feel free to drop us a fan letter in the form of a five-paragraph essay, either arguing for or against, or discussing the different viewpoints. Don't forget to summarise your views in a neat conclusion.
On avance. We're sorry to inform you that we've had another disagreement with Shewee Fiend Friend. Though most of the time we are as two giant brains pulsating as one, sometimes we have different opinions about things. Last time we counted, we came to the conclusion that we disagree on a total of nine things. (We're fucked if we can remember what those nine things are, but remember our terror when we realised that the powerful magical number nine was involved. We're not free of superstition at the Privy Counsel, however intellectual we purport to be.) Our latest clash was regarding the toilet doors at Vancouver Airport. Shewee Fiend Friend thought they were great, we thought not. We shall present you with the evidence, so that you can form your own opinion and stick to it, belligerently.
Possibly an entirely inoffensive toilet. We can't quite tell from this photo. The tiles are nice, though.
We do like the fact that these doors look like they lead into a Wild West saloon, but why do people insist on designing toilet doors that don't go all the way down to the ground? Our guess is, a man did this.
We can't fault these hooks. They're fucking excellent hooks.
The conversation went as follows:
Shewee Fiend Friend: Vancouver airport loo is swank
Privy Counsellor: They are very good hooks I shall make a note of this. Thank you for sharing the picture of the excellent hooks
[...]
PC: Swanky, but don't go all the way up to the ceiling or all the way down to the floor #fail #YouHadOneJob Nice and bright, but why do they do that horrible material in the sinks that looks like grubby cement
SFF: It's sparkly [the Privy Counsellor] I love it Sigh So critical The doors were super nice They looked all woodsy/cabiny
PC: Yes but they're not noise-insulating
And that's the end of that fascinating academic debate, because at this point we went on to discuss something completely different.
Finally, we've got a build-up of enticing pictures of Jonny that we should publish before there's a blockage.
The first picture comes with this comment:
I did an art piece It’s dark tho Viewer discretion advised It’s called Beauty and the Beast The [non-] mixer taps are the beast and it think it’s obvious who the beauty is
We couldn't agree more! Woof!
The next set of pictures is summarised by these words:
Somewhere in London Too drunk to take note where There was a dog in the bar too so extra points
Feeling single, seeing double?
Well, this is a very nice sink, good tap, and unobjectionable hand soap. Why do people insist on making counters out of wood, though? There is a reason why the traditional materials are porcelain or stainless steel - they're easy to clean and FUCKING HYGIENIC. Wood absorbs water, making for a germ-friendly environment and has plenty of crevices for bacteria to fester in.
JONNY TOILET SELFIE WOOF!
We can't tell if we approve of this saloon-style door or not, as it lacks context.
The graffiti comment says, "We evolved to walk upright and use cutlery".
Actually, now we check our archive, we discover that there is a metric fuck-ton of toilet selfies from Jonny that we have forgotten about, due to the horror, trauma and gin consumption of recent times. We don't wish to overwhelm you with wonder and awe, so we'll save those ones for whenever we next find ourselves inspired by the gin fairy.
Let us finish with a festive video. We enjoyed, when in Budapest recently, a very nice and intellectual lunch with Lithuanian Friend and her intellectual colleagues. One of them sends his regards to the Privy Counsel's readers, and a video! It relates to our musings on the German toilet shelf, which is apparently rife in the Hungarian capital, and about which we poured forth appalled comments at some length in our post about that city. We're not sure we agree with any of the points made in the video, but it might potentially be considered an amusing political commentary. Apparently, the above-mentioned intellectual colleague says to keep in mind that the drawings are not correct.
Festive Video: Hermeneutics of toilets by Slavoj Žižek
According to this post, we described the horror of recent times "with plenty of poetic expression but not a whisper of a scintilla of an iota of hyperbole", in this post: Hungary: Dubious Shelf-Life
All posts featuring Jonny
For the benefit of all the hipsters out there whose aesthetic and hygienic ideal is a 19th-century farm yard, we hereby remind our readers of the existence of the CHOLERA BABE PARADE
