Always Stay Humble and Kind, and Also Answer Your Phone

You know the feeling when you'd really like to play the ukulele for a bit; not only because you are about to perform in public and some practice would benefit everyone involved, not least the audience having to endure the performance, but because that is your heart's desire; however the Fates are not smiling (and why should they? They have enough to deal with - rude people on trains, incorrect grammar on food packaging, the inevitable apocalypse that will annihilate hot baths, dentistry and espresso - without going about smiling at strangers) and you are hindered in your endeavour by the fact that the weather is literally sweltering and necessitates a dramatic, privacy-killing, and potentially highly neighbour-irritating flinging open of doors? What better way to profit by your enforced inaction than by writing a blog post, to delight and edify your readers!

Here, at any rate, is photographic evidence - delightful and edifying or not - of us leaving off worrying about the causal link between the zombie apocalypse and poor potato harvests for a few hours while enjoying the craft beers at Beer Ditch, in Malmö!

A toilet after our own heart! We are reasonably confident that Shewee Fiend Friend barked with happiness at the evidence of craft beer-brewing happening around the world visible here.

A hygienic mixer tap.

Our intrepid correspondent, showing off a highly beloved t-shirt and trying very hard to live up to its message. If you like the look of it, you can order it at the sheshirtshop.

 

A friendly sign telling one where to find more paper towels, should these ones run out. We do love clear signage!

Our only complaint about this toilet was the hopelessly feeble coat-hook. Look at it. We're not even sure it's a coat-hook. It might just be a random hook left from where a painting used to hang but, quite conceivably considering the minuscule size of the hook, fell off.

Now for an update from New York! Shewee Fiend Friend, feeling intellectual, ventured forth to a museum. She sent us the following commentary:

The museum was modern art
Mostly rock sculpture
I liked the coat hook

It certainly looks robust and functional

This, too, looks functional and hygienic. We appreciate that there is a sturdy rail that one could clutch, should one be feeling frail for any reason.

We don't often get sentimental here at the Privy Counsel. Except we do, actually, much more often than we would admit to in public, or anywhere else for that matter, including the most privy recesses of the Privy Counsel and its environs.

A song that we've been listening to a lot lately is the one featured below in today's Festive Video, that we reckon contains good advice to young people. It so easily happens, when one is young, that one caves in to what Caitlin Moran calls "the anxiety of other, ultimately less satisfying things like ‘being cool’, ‘being more successful than everyone else’ and ‘being very thin’". Even people who are not quite so young any more and may in fact be medievalists in their mid-to-late thirties, may profit from its message; we've been reflecting lately on the need to remain humble and kind even when things are changing, or confusing, or you're super annoyed and would like nothing better than to walk off in a huff and sodding well let everyone else drink the champagne - which you have, by the way, out of the kindness of your heart, carried for four hours - BY THEIR SODDING SELVES. (Everyone was doing their best to ensure a restful moment of champagne consumption, they just weren't communicating efficiently. Could we add a subclause to the refrain? "Always be humble and kind AND REMEMBER TO COMMUNICATE YOUR THOUGHTS AND INTENTIONS BECAUSE PEOPLE CAN'T READ YOUR MIND AND ALSO ANSWER YOUR PHONE", perhaps?)

Festive Video: Lori McKenna, Humble & Kind


Related Reading
All posts featuring pubs
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All posts with an explicit mention of signage
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All posts featuring toilets in museums
Another toilet that has a sturdy rail 
Because we know it's what you want: all posts featuring Jonny