We Don't Want to Foist Our Opinions on Anyone, But

You know how sometimes you end up drinking schnapps with three young men from the navy on Midsummer's Eve? And it turns out they know an astonishing amount of drinking songs? And then, soon after that, somebody invites you to have a look at their archive? (Not a euphemism.) And how sometimes, even after that, other good things keep happening? To the point where you start to feel paranoid, and your eyes dart back and forth crazily while your mouth forms itself into a lopsided demented grin whenever you talk to someone? Well, that is what life is like at Privy Counsel HQ at the moment.

Also, have you noticed that the lime trees are in bloom? If you haven't, don't worry - we have done it for you! Lime trees, as we all know, have a delightful scent when in bloom and have inspired Germany's most poetic street name, Unter den Linden.

Lime trees in their most rampant phase of loveliness.
Image from deboragarden.

Other flowers that are in bloom at the moment are honeysuckle, roses, and elderflower. Our friend Maureen Helen frequently blogs about flowers and other mindfulness-inducing phenomena, and we don't see why we should lag behind. Thus we are now going to talk at you about flowers, whether you want us to or not.

We exhort you to get a snootful of honeysuckle as soon as possible,
for the sake of your health and relative sanity.

If at all possible we should all be stopping to smell the roses.
We simply cannot think of anything more enjoyable (especially on a day when one's drinking-schnapps-with-three-young-men-from-the-navy quota has already been filled).

Elderflower is supremely useful. Not only is it an effective medicinal herb, but elderflower cordial goes superbly with all kinds of alcohol, and makes for a jovial evening and cordial relations.

An elderflower tree in the vicinity of Privy Counsel HQ. We didn't actually know it was there until a friend kindly pointed it out, which is somewhat embarrassing, but in our defense it is too dark to see anything for nine months of the year where we are, and also we spend most of our time at a computer ranting about toilets and sexism, not  in the wild outdoors staring at trees.

We suspect that our intelligent readers are now extremely impatient for some toilet pictures. We seldom, in our own humble opinion, disappoint, so here you are! Our Mum, who hates football, sent us a message last night announcing her defiant intention of watching the Iceland-England game, hoping to see "Iceland beat the crap out of England". Those who voted pro-Brexit, thereby risking the political and economic stability of the entire European Union, are presumably not aware of the fury they have unleashed. Let us hope, for their sake, that they don't run into Our Mum when she is in a fuming rage ranting about the idiocy of Brexit!

Iceland, as we all know by now, did beat the crap out of England, which led to a certain grim satisfaction in the Bremain camp, though ultimately a football victory does little to undo the political chaos and rampant racism of recent days. But still. The people of Iceland are our heroes today, and what better way to celebrate than by enjoying pictures from the toilets in Reykjavík's Hallgrímskirkja? Well, quite. We ventured into our archive (which, as regular and perhaps semi-regular readers are aware, we imagine as a crypt out of The Monk, no doubt for sane and normal reasons) to retrieve these specially. Verði ykkur að góðu!

Sturdy, functional and very, very clean - just what you'd expect of a church in Reykjavík.

We cannot applaud this simplicity and cleanliness enough.

Words cannot describe how much we love this sturdy coat-hook.

We do not love this kind of scented soap, but it does the job and we will not rant needlessly.

We couldn't help but feel very, very smug when spotting this Swedish Mora tap.

Since we're on the topic of politics, may we suggest, if anyone with any influence in the Labour party happens to be reading, that you put a woman (if you are unsure what this is, see a helpful definition here) forward for leadership? We are not huge fans of party politics, but clearly the Tory party consists entirely of lunatics, and a change of government now seems indicated, both in terms of political spectrum, and in terms of sex. We don't want to foist our opinions on anyone, but CAITLIN MORAN FOR PRIME MINISTER!!!

Before we move on to today's festive video, here is a delightful postcard that we received from Tudor Friend, who has been to Haworth to visit the Brontë museum. As regular readers are aware, the Brontës are our heroes, and we think that the below quote by Charlotte Brontë adequately summarises the raison d'être of this blog.

Charlotte Brontë was a woman who wrote books. Yes, really.

Reinforcing our point that Caitlin Moran should be the next prime minister of Britain (or whatever the hell we should now call this country), here is her "advice to creatives".

Festive Video - Caitlin Moran, Inappropriate Advice for Creatives

Related Reading
Our friend Maureen Helen's philosophical blog

All posts featuring Our Mum

All posts featuring rants

All posts featuring Iceland

Not forgetting, of course, The Best Toilet in Iceland

All posts featuring churches

We once created a helpful abridged version of Jane Eyre

All posts featuring Tudor Friend

All posts featuring Caitlin Moran, whom we love to distraction

We actually get political surprisingly often for a toilet blog. For instance we once wrote a post called Love, Politics and the Revolution.