SISTERS STANDING UP FOR THEMSELVES

Phew. Here we were, feeling a bit sorry for ourselves for suffering from the vicious combination of a) being academically challenged and b) feeling shagged-out and sleep-deprived after the weekend's debauched shenanigans, when we received a most invigorating missive from a very dear friend of ours! Our most charming and intelligent female friend says (regular readers will be aware that we have mentioned the Shewee once or twice before):

I would like you to know that on the basis of your Shewee review on the bog blog, I have purchased a Shewee. It is awesome. I am so happy. I didn't even know these existed until I read about it on your site. You have changed my life for the better. [...] I was talking to a friend about it from Germany, and we decided to take control of our womanhood together. After a preliminary shower period, we purchased wet wipes, men's underwear (this was not effective) and 6 litres of water each and went on a road trip, the main purpose of which was to pee everywhere.
And that's what we did. It was fantastic. We peed on buildings, in a stream, into grates, on a monument, and off of a cliff. We did it standing beside each other, and circumspectly checked each other's Shewees out when the other wasn't looking.
Unfortunately, it was not 100% successful, but we were expecting that there be some problems at the beginning, and it improved. I guess it's not so good when you are drinking alcohol as well, we discovered later that evening.
Next time I go climbing, I'm taking it with me, and I will drink as much water as I like and not be nervous about finding a hidden corner anymore.

Sistahs standing up! Taking control of their womanhood!
Image from Egotripland

There is only one response that adequately describes one's feelings on receiving such a communication, and that is "WOW!!!" Do you feel spiritually and intellectually rejuvenated? We do!
Interestingly, right when we thought our friend's e-mail couldn't get any more fabulous, IT WENT AND GOT EVEN MORE FABULOUS!

There was also some breaking of the law involved, unfortunately. We went up a Celtic hill fort for the first pee. It took a lot longer to get there than we thought, so we had to go pretty bad once we made it to the top. Then we heard gunshots. It was a private hunting ground. Interestingly, instead of running away, we just moved away from the wooded bit until we couldn't hear the shots anymore. That's where we peed off the first time. Then we saw the "private property no trespassing" sign.

Sisters, take control! (Please note, the Privy Counsel in no way endorses breaking the law.)
Image from Shewee

Then guess what happened? HOLY SHIT IT JUST KEPT GETTING FABULOUSER AND FABULOUSER!

Then we went to this 10th-century church in Nether Wallop. On the way we foolishly stopped at the village pub and met the whole village, they were all there. They gave us directions to the church. After we peed everywhere and signed the book, we noticed the CCTV. In the chuch we made it up into the belltower, unfortunately the bells started ringing about 5 seconds after we got up there. I think we nearly died twice that day. But we peed everywhere, so it was a big success.

Image from Humourflare

Well, that's about as much unbridled joy as a bitter, partied-out toilet blogger can take in one evening! Readers, join the revolution! Get yourself a Shewee device, stride confidently out and urinate, then tell us all about it!
Also, stay tuned for the sequel: The Privy Counsellor Encourages Widespread Use of the Sheewee in Combination with Alcohol Consumption.

A sister standing up.
Image from Broketheinterweb

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What the Yellow Rubbery Fuck: Stephen Fry Acts as Pin-Up Again!

Because it's been one of those weeks, because next week looks like it's going to be much the same, and because we could frankly do with some escapism (couldn't you? We thought so!), let's have another lovely Pin-Up picture of Stephen Fry! We haven't seen the work of fiction from which this still is taken, but we assume this is Sherlock Holmes about to inject, or perhaps having just injected, some intravenous cocaine, kicking off his shoes (but keeping his socks demonstrably on, in laudably Scandiwegian fashion), and generally about to have a thoroughly relaxing Friday evening.

Stephen Fry in contemplative, shoes-off-but-socks-on, mood. Image from Men-in-baths

Well, good gracious, that seems a good idea! See you later!
Oh, and we're planning on having a bit of an orgy this weekend, so we might be incommunicado for a couple of days. Good evening and good weekend to you, gentle readers.


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Victorians

A Therapeutic Picture for a Grim Day

Because the world is a cold and cruel place where people daily take the liberty of insulting one's intellect, let's have a cheerful picture of some Australian teenagers doing we really know not what. They seem to be enjoying themselves though, right? And it looks nice and warm. And the seats are old toilets, and there's a giant toilet roll. We feel better already.

Australian teenagers enjoying some invigorating conversation.
Image courtesy of Australian Friend.

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Thai Toilet Chart

Phew. Things got quite intense in our last post, what with all the Roman history and Teutonic intellectualism. It's Sunday night: time for some rest and levity. The Privy Counsellor said, "Let there be levity", and lo, there was levity! Semi-Intellectual Friend sent us this interesting photo, so its frivolous credentials are well established. Semi-Intellectual Friend says:

It was taken in Jurassic Park Thailand, and there are more in support but they're quite mundane really. The picture itself is nothing you haven't seen before, but I love the glee with which some of the people seem to be dancing. And apparently soiling themselves?

One can apparently have endless amounts of prohibited fun in a Thai toilet

We do enjoy anything informative. We would, however, have appreciated a supplementary chart showing what one is allowed to do in a Thai toilet.

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Arachne-Philia and German-Induced Euphoria

Some days start out being execrably foul then unaccountably do a 180 and end up being stupendously smashing! All it takes is a free lunch, a sympathetic hairdresser and a cream bun! Oh, and a heavy artillery of lectures on Roman military history of course! While caught up in the process of the day going from hellishly vile to heavenly luscious, we had time to wonder who in the name of arse Hannibal was. Turns out he was a Punic Carthaginian military commander. So that's all cleared up, and we can turn our mind to other things.
We also discovered a fount of joy in the shape of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut's digital database, Arachne. Behold, an image browser of the Great Relief and Telephos Relief of the Pergamon Altar in Berlin! In celebration of this awesome Teutonic discovery, let's have a German toilet, courtesy of German Friend! Please note, however, that this is not the anticipated existentialist German toilet - you'll have to wait a bit longer for that!

German friend says,

Before this German goes all existentialist on your medieval derrière, here is a lesson in bog-symmetry for your archive. Oh, the beauty! Some random London pub, I think, not sure even where. But what can I say...

Don't worry, you haven't gone cross-eyed from drink! We just couldn't decide which of these beauties is the more attractive, so we uploaded both! (It is, after all, Friday night - let's go a bit wild and ke-raaazy!)

Christ, that's beautiful

We have actual tears in our eyes

 Well, wasn't that simply smashing! Time to crack open an amphora or two of invigorating wine, spin some popular music on the Privy Counsel record player and get the weekend off to a healthy start!

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HTFU: Wipe for Wildlife

So this Valentine's Day bollocks has been unleashed again. Millions, if not billions, of people will be spending their hard-earned cash on cheap chocolate and sharing nauseating Victorian sentiments in the belief that they are celebrating love, when actually they're honouring a saint about whom absolutely fuck-all is known except that he died. If the ANZACs were around today, we reckon they'd be fucking spewing. We suggest you HTFU, refrain from buying a load of red and pink plastic tat, and join us in showing some love for the planet!

An article in the Age, sent to us by Australian Friend, alerts us to the fact that Zoos Victoria was running a campaign to encourage the use of recycled toilet paper. Zoos Victoria is quoted as saying:

Millions of trees are flushed down Australian toilets each year, so we can wipe our bums and bits. Zoos Victoria's Wipe for Wildlife campaign encourages the community to help save local wildlife by making the switch to recycled toilet paper and choosing products with the FSC logo. 

However, the campaign was apparently not in agreement with the Baillieu government's timber industry action plan, and hence it could not be supported by Victoria government. Consequently, Zoos Victoria was forced to drop the campaign.

Join us in telling the Victorian government to HTFU!!!

Crapman says "Harden the fuck up, Australia!" Image from the Age.

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Privy Counsel Pin-Up: Elvis! Again!

Because it's just been that kind of day, let's have another Elvis Pin-Up!!

Keep your cotton-pickin' fingers, etc. Image from the Guardian.

Any day is a good day to post a picture of Elvis in a bathroom, obviously, but today we have, for various reasons, been more derangedly Elvis-obsessed than usual at Privy Counsel HQ. Granted, Elvis isn't in a bath in this picture, making it technically not a Privy Counsel Pin-Up at all, but one's sources are limited when one is dealing with dead people. It's called history. HTFU.

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Musings on Hygiene

Gorblimey, is it Sunday already? It seems but yesterday that we were off gallivanting in our finest finery while imbibing fine wines and some frankly revolting cocktails until the quite late hours of the morning. (But in an academic setting, of course, making the whole disgusting mess a lofty undertaking, not without relevance to theories on 1950s cultural phenomena.) The resultant aching head and sore throat is probably no more than we deserve after such orgiastic revelry. Let us take this opportunity of imparting some useful advice on hygiene.

HERE'S HOW TO WASH YOUR HANDS IN SPACE. IN SPACE, PEOPLE.

On a related topic, it's high time that certain people learned some proper respiratory etiquette.

"Coughs and sneezes spread diseases." Image from 21stcenturygent.

Ladies, handkerchiefs are not for putting lipstick on, but for preventing disease.
Image from Friendsreunited.

There. We're off to fondle our hand sanitiser and commit unspeakable acts against our handkerchief.

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"We could have orgies. Whatever they are."

Blue Lagoon: Blissful Bathing, Bloody Awful Toilet Doors

Privy Counsel HQ is cold as hell today, and we've been sitting here reminiscing about times when we have been warm in the past. For instance, the time when we were enveloped in the hot springs of Iceland! The Privy Counsel heartily encourages visits to the Blue Lagoon spa (or Bláa lónið, as the natives prefer calling it), and equally heartily disapproves of the showers at said establishment. If there is one thing the Privy Counsel most decidedly does not appreciate (apart from non-integrated taps, poor ventilation and, actually, a very large number of other things) it is fancy showers with water coming from the bloody ceiling, denying one the option of whether to wet one's hair and/or glasses or not. Also, the Privy Counsel's anonymous benefactor was irritated at being kept waiting with a herd of tourists until the clock struck 10:00 and the staff were allowed to let people in, saying it was "like queueing in the bloody Soviet Union".

However, the bathing experience is exactly what all the websites say it is - emphatically lovely!

So far, so unobjectionable

Mineral-enriched soap - why not?

 

We love the tap and the paper towels (although they're not, alas, unbleached)

AN ESTABLISHMENT CHARGING SUCH EXORBITANT ENTRY FEES SHOULD BE ABLE
TO AFFORD DOORS THAT GO ALL THE WAY TO THE WALL! EMPHATICALLY NOT OK!!!

Annoying: the water comes from the ceiling. Image from Travbuddy.

Our least favourite things were the doors and the showers. But everything else was lovely.
View a 360-degree panorama of the Blue Lagoon here. Get useful information from our dear friend Wikipedia here.

Blue Lagoon

240 Grindavík

Iceland

420-8800
http://www.bluelagoon.is/
http://www.bluelagoon.com

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Sushi in Seattle

A friend who likes to think of himself as Bogsley Hansson, and who we will henceforth, for ease and convenience, refer to as Bogsley Hansson Friend, sent us these pictures, from a sushi place in West Seattle called Mashiko. Bogsley Hansson Friend was very happy with his food, but was worried by the fact that there seemed to be toothpicks in the bathroom. We find the toothpicks alarming as well, but mostly we're so bloody delighted to spot what looks like recycled Tork toilet paper that we refuse to let them worry us!

Bogsley Hansson Friend says: "Toothpicks in the bathroom?
Is that some strange Japanese custom I'm not familiar with?"

We don't see anything to complain of. Toothpicks still worrying,
but then again there's that unbleached Tork bog roll, making us vacillate between fear and unbridled joy.

For good measure: a picture of Bogsley Hansson Friend's food!!

If anyone should happen to know why there might be toothpicks in a Japanese bathroom, do please let us know. We've been trying to think what they might be for, but frankly we're boggled! (Unless of course they're simply supposed to be toothpicks?)

Mashiko Japanese Restaurant + Sushi Bar
4725 California SW
Seattle WA 98116
USA
http://www.sushiwhore.com/

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Toilet Song: Soda Soap

An invigorating Toilet Song seems to be in order! The one we've chosen for today is one that's close to Hygeia's heart, being about hygiene.
Sierra Leone's Refugee Allstars were formed in a refugee camp in Guinea in 2004, during Sierra Leone's civil war. The band toured refugee camps to keep everyone's spirits up, and when the war was over, their album Living Like a Refugee was released. As far as we understand, soda soap is a simple, home-made soap, which people tend to avoid in times of affluence, but which comes in handy when one is stuck in a refugee camp with limited hygiene facilities.

There don't appear to be any lyrics available in all the wide expanse of the inter-ma-net, but we found something even better: this lovely explanation by the singer himself.

Sierra Leone's Refugee Allstars. Image from kginsberg.de.

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Privy Counsel Pin-Up: Elvis (The Day After the Night Before Pick-Me-Up)

Having learned our lesson, we are not hungover today, but a certain bleary-eyed-ness still pervades Privy Counsel HQ. What better way to revive one's spirits than with a Privy Counsel Pin-Up! (Sod it, we're going to go ahead and use three exclamation marks: !!!) Australian Friend alerted us to this beautiful picture of Elvis having an invigorating bath! (Apparently some dude or other wrote a book or summat.)

Image from the Guardian.

We don't have a hell of a lot else to say on the subject. It's a picture of Elvis being all wet in a swimming pool. Have a nice weekend.

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Fair Play in Melbourne

Urgh. The picture of our friend Jonny on the john may have been thought-provoking, but it was hardly in good taste. Be that as it may, our hangover has now departed, and we are struck by an urgent desire to obtain a healthy-ish mind in a semi-healthy body by eating well, exercising, drinking non-alcoholic beverages and contemplating something beautiful. What better object than Australian Friend? These archive photos are from the Southbank Theatre, where Australian Friend went to see a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest (we love a bit of Oscar Wilde. And cucumber sandwiches. Above all, we love cucumber sandwiches) which, rather fabulously, featured Geoffrey Rush in a dress.

Australian friend: "The boys' toilet is blue!!"

Woof! A vision of loveliness!

We hope you feel less degraded and intellectually insulted now. We sure do.

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