The weather is doing that thing where it creeps inside one's longjohns and causes paralysis. We yearn for sunnier climes, and reminisce about happier times. For instance, there was the time when Australian Friend broke a toilet. It was nice and warm then. Or even before that, when we stayed in Nice and it was all hot and humid like a sauna, and we failed to find any ice-cream. On the plus side, we also failed to get robbed and get food poisoning. Here's the toilet in the hotel.
Nothing to cause distress here
Laudable.
They actually seal the toilet, so you know it's guaranteed clean when you arrive. Not even our OCD goes that deep, but it's nice of them to make the effort. The toilet roll passed the Olivia Joules test.
An assortment of toiletries. And, most importantly, a mixer tap!
So where is one supposed to plug in one's hairdryer? People have such weird priorities.
Is it just us, or do the tiles look like they're made of lizard skin?
We had a very enjoyable stay in this exceptionally clean hotel. Regrettably, our brain's too frozen to be able to calculate the points.
Do you like video games? We don't, particularly, but if you do, and you are male, you are in for a treat. A company called Captive Media has developed a urinal-based game, incorporating a "natural joystick". This allows pub-going blokes to play a game while relieving themselves. (Also they are undoubtedly, in their enfeebled, drunken state, extremely receptive to advertising, making the game popular with beer manufacturers.) What rocks our boat, however, is that the game reportedly encourages men to aim straight! Watch Captive Media's demo video here:
For a more level-headed, unbiased version, veer towards the BBC website. (Favourite quote: "You don't have to touch the plumbing.")
Instructions are easy enough for even your average beer-swilling Neanderthal to follow.
Image from Newrisingmedia.
Several people have hinted that they would like a report on the South Korean toilet museum. Well, you lucky, lucky bastards, your wishes have come true - hold on to your hats, here's the report!
The toilet museum in Suwan, which is housed in a toilet-shaped building, officially opened earlier this year. The building was previously the home of the former mayor of Suwon, Sim Jae-duck, affectionately known as Mr Toilet. A representative of the park says, "A toilet can be a cultural space. It is an important space for health, sanitation and water conservation." We couldn't agree more. According to another reliable source, the museum "has a lot of pictures dating back to the 1950s of public toilets in Korea". We salivate at the thought.
Here is the BBC video on the subject:
(Personally, we find the Reuters video funnier - it features several delicious puns.)
The toilet museum is, naturally, toilet-shaped. Image from Intellasia.
Frankly, Rodin's The Thinker had it coming. Image from Flippies.
It's Friday night: Let's have some rock'n'roll! Here's a special review-slash-toilet-song-update for that extra festive rockin' feelin'! (Caution, slippery surface - there'll be consonants droppin' all over the place.)
The guys and dolls at the rock'n'roll café in Linderöd not only play rock'n'roll tunes all day, every day, and serve a mean shrimp sandwich, they also extend the vibe to the toilets! This beauty of a bog has a red, white and black colour scheme for that wholesome retro feel.
Our faithful readers won't believe this, but Blogspot had the temerity to claim that we had used up our space quota for pictures, and wanted to charge us for using our own blog! Honestly! (For an example of our opinion on having to pay for things which are supposed to be free, read this.) Luckily we found a way around it. We are now celebrating with a veritable cornucopia of dazzling and sumptuous pictures. (In your face, Blogspot!) Many thanks to Logoped Friend for the tip, which went something like, "Oi! Did you know there are Versace tiles at Konditori Hollandia?" Beautifully enunciated, of course. (Yes, you heard right. Versace tiles. And there is an English term for "logoped", but it's so long we can never remember. All we know is, it's not "speech therapist".)
It only happens once a year, so make sure you celebrate - today is World Toilet Day!
And what's more, it's Enlightened Friend's birthday - happy birthday, Enlightened Friend!
We gather this information thanks to the labours of Australian Friend.
[For a most informative video, see this, from The Age. It was originally inserted here as a video, but we find that the embedding code no longer works.]
We are thrilled to learn, from a very interesting newspaper article, that at the Western Treatment Plant in Melbourne, a cover designed to limit bad smells means that the sewage plant can harness bio gas, thus producing enough electricity to power 15,000 homes! Read the article, from The Age, here! Our favourite quote: "The cover's quite effective at controlling odours from the treatment plant." (We just love Australian accents.)
Monkey is a great fan of Australia, here represented
by a water-saving flush and a flip-flop - sorry - thong!
Since we're being all festive, let's have an amusing Australia-related video!
Festive video: Monty Python, Bruces
Might as well do another festive video, while we're at it. This one seems to be about some kind of loo (presumably a dual-flush one), and is subtitled, to be on the safe side.
Yesterday was all about revolutionary tendencies and bringing down the bigoted bourgeoisie library toilet monopoly. As regular readers will know, however, we prefer to get our revolutionary activities over and done with during the week, so that we can relax on Sundays (historical precedence sanctions this approach), and maybe enjoy some cultural activity in the shape of a Toilet Song or two, or some interesting pictures. So we are devoting today, being Sunday, to mulled wine with a healthy dose of rum, and mulling over these provocative pictures of Semi-Intellectual Friend's shower in Thailand.
This is the common picture that any ordinary mug with internet access can view on Semi-Intellectual Friend's blog.
Artistically, this is a very interesting picture. Note the playful cascading of the water, and the subtle interplay between light and shade happening all over the delicately pink tiles, with their intricate floral pattern. The selection of toiletries doesn't live up to that of Mrs Smith, but perhaps that's all for the best.
The following pictures are exclusive to the Privy Counsel - you won't see these anywhere else, people!
Whoah! A very avant-garde angle! This is art history happening right in your face!
Water flowing upwards: pure surrealism.
Here we enter the dreamy hyper-realistic plains of post-post-modernism. Hypnotic!
Well, that was certainly thought-provoking, wasn't it? Enjoy this greenery-yallery hiatus while it lasts, and hold on to your hats - tomorrow is World Toilet Day, and we intend to get rabidly political again!
Things have been way too cosy lately, what with all the festschrifts and wedding toilets. It's time for a rant. A proper, good old-fashioned, vixen-from-hell rant! The photos below are not from the Malmö Public Library. Oooh, why on earth not? you may well ask, eagerly anticipating conflict. Because they cost five kronor to use and the public toilets right outside are free, that's why. (Five kronor is about £0.5, or $0.7.)
We are very fond of the Malmö Public Library. It's well stocked with books and friendly, intellectual-looking librarians; has a children's section so cutesy it's positively sickening; and is by no means lacking in cleanliness and airiness. But there is no way that a visit to a library toilet costs the council five kronor, not when the average school dinner in Sweden costs 9 kronor to produce. Consequently, we must conclude that council politicians are running the toilets as a profit-making scheme, which is surely not the point of a public library? What enrages us is that the people most likely to spend enough time in the
library to actually need the toilet are society's most vulnerable members: the old, the young, and the unemployed. We have a mental image of council
politicians joyfully rolling around in the money they have
wrested from the feeble, malnourished hands of impecunious toilet goers.
Here's what the free public toilets just outside the library look like:
It's not glamorous, but it does the job.
We actually like these handwashing arrangements. Except, obviously, for the vile hand dryer.
A good and sturdy coat-hanger
These fine toilets, right outside the library, are disability-friendly
and completely free to use. Image from malmo.se
We are building up to a rant: please bear with us. In the meantime, enjoy these soothing pictures from the toilets on the first floor (second floor, in Swedish reckoning) of the Lund University Library.
Readers who know about the toilets on the top floor of the library
will know why we were relieved to find frosted glass!
We had the great pleasure, quite some time ago, of partying lavishly at the wedding of some very dear friends. However, the subsequent lavish-party-induced exhaustion meant that we regrettably never got around to posting the pictures. When we found out some time later that our friends were expecting offspring, we thought we'd save the pictures for the happy event! The son and heir having arrived safely the other day, the time has finally come to celebrate by posting the wedding pictures! Hurrah!
If the pictures are somewhat blurry, it's because we were having far too much fun to linger
in the toilets. Here is, at any rate, a mixer tap.
Tissue can come in handy in so many ways at a wedding.
How very festive: a yellow toilet!
We can't remember what our motivation was in taking this photo.
Possibly we thought it was a good toilet-roll holder. Or a bad one. What do you think?
We seem to remember being excited by this coat-hook at the time,
hurriedly photographing it before hurtling back to the dance-floor. Or possibly the bar.
If memory serves, the merriment happened at Villa Aquila in Kävlinge, Sweden. You didn't really expect us to be counting points, did you?
We've got a list of lavish lavatories as long as your arm, and will publish pictures in due course. Today, however, being Sunday, the mind craves not intellectual stimulus but rest and repose. Let us therefore relax with a Toilet Song.
Sex Pistols - Satellite
A suburban kid and ya got no name
You're too dumb baby and ya got no brain
I bet you're all so happy in suburbian dream
But I'm only laughing
You ain't in my scheme
Baby
I love you
I only ever listen when you're on the phone
From your safely-restricted-zone home
When I got nothin' better to do
Then there's always you
You're good for my shoe
Hey babe
I love you
You look at me and you just can't tell
You're looking like you've just come out of hell
Acting like a dirty lavatory
There ain't no bid for your chastity
Hey Baby,
I love you
I'm in love
I'm really in love
Try and join the scene but you're too obscene
You're looking like a big, fat, pig-faced queen
How did you figure that you'd be any use
when all you're gonna get is my abuse?
Hey babe,
I love you
You know I don't like where you come from
It's just a satellite of London
And when you look me in the eye
Just remember: I wanna die
Hey babe
I love you
I can't take no more, just stop
The Sex Pistols: Fine lyricists and authors of simply gobsmacking metaphors. Image from Morrison Hotel Gallery
Jealousy really is the greatest motivator. Semi-Intellectual Friend recently started a blog, and we found ourselves insanely jealous of his foxy format and vigorous videos. Determined not to be outdone by a mere novice blogger who's very much the Watson to our Sherlock, we decided to get our heads round this video insertion thing, and found that it was laughably easy! We are now in the process of updating all our posts containing videos (a list of our favourites follows below). What's more, we thought that this was the perfect opportunity to document the many, many hospital handwashing videos out there! You're welcome!
Our favourite hospital handwashing video ever, all categories, is from NHS Milton Keynes and Northamptonshire, in collaboration with Northampton General
Hospital and Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. Gangnam style!
For reasons that aren't entirely clear, there is a special sub-category of
handwashing videos featuring hospital staff doing spoofs of Michael
Jackson's Beat It. Our favourite one is by the Banner Desert Medical Center and Cardon Children's Medical Center, and features the immortal words "In and out of places touching everything / It doesn't take that long to make sure they're clean / So wash 'em / Just wash 'em", sung in a very pleasant soprano voice.
Jefferson University Hospitals does a very slick, flashy version, which manages to be educational while incorporating a covetable red PVC jacket and a board of bacteria names. Owww!
The staff at Gerber Hospital in Fremont, Michigan, do a cheerful, rocky video in which they promise to "wash my hands for you / Before doing your X-ray or catching your baby". The song was written by an actual hospital employee. Major plus points for the "cha cha cha" at the end!
If you're into arty, French, and just plain weird stuff, which many people are, you may enjoy the contribution from Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève.
A short and cheerful contribution from the Billings Clinic in Billings, Montana.
Finally, in the spirit of education, here's a video showing how to perform a World Health Organisation-approved handwash, which we find both funny and not a little dirty (and not just because of the cheesy jazz music). We're almost sure it's entirely accidental.
Oh, go on, then. Just one more. We love this lady's northern English accent! Sample quote: "Keep rubbin' until the alcohol handrub has dried."
It is customary, in academic circles, to honour scholars with what is called a festschrift when they reach a certain age or level of deafness. While we have no idea how old Intellectual Friend is (although we have a sneaking suspicion that his birthday falls during the slightly less dark and shadowy part of the year), and seriously doubt that he knows himself, we think he deserves a festschrift, firstly, for being such a loyal and hardworking contributor to the Privy Counsel, secondly, for generously providing moral support and spiritual solace to those in need, and, thirdly, for being made a Doctor of Philosphy! Congratulations, Intellectual Friend!
We happened to be visiting the Lund University Library recently, and thought that the toilet on the top floor there made a suitably festive subject for a festschrift.
On first entering this holy of holies, we were annoyed that the light didn't work. On second thoughts,
we realised it was probably best that way, considering that one is on view to the outside world. Here one can sit and ponder, if one is so inclined, etymological mysteries, elves, trolls, and perhaps ale, while the people in the building opposite contemplate one's physical peculiarities. An ideal arrangement.
Close-up of the utterly charming window and its view
The toilet in all its glory. Oooh, look at the glory stick there, in its glory-stick holder.
Once again we find ourselves simultaneously horrified and delighted. Horrified by the scary hand-dryer,
delighted by the thoughtfully provided drinking cups. (Toilet blogging requires nerves of steel.)
We have this annoying feeling that "old soap" is supposed to be good for something...
The Lund University Library is housed in a magnificent Victorian brick building,
rich in nooks, crannies, books, and toilets. Image from Reseguiden
