When did you last find yourself explaining the concept of fermented herring to a steel slide player from North Carolina?
We had never, before last Saturday, attempted such a thing either metaphorically or literally, but would like to think that we did rather well, with a little help from a) friends and b) beer. Free speech rights may also have insinuated themselves, as they are wont to do, the wiley devils, into the conversation, but then again that may be pure wishful thinking on our part. Either way, we will surely soon receive a medal from the Swedish tourist board, in
recognition of our efforts to describe the many delights of Swedish
culture to said worthy North Carolingian musician - not, we suspect, your typical demographic in terms of Swedish tourism.
Whether freedom of speech was a central part of the evening's conversation, however, or played a more discreet role, confined mainly to the inside of our head, may be a moot point. The important thing as far as we're concerned is that we enjoyed ourselves hugely, from the sneaky can of wine on the train to the last rant over the last beer in the last pub. Since the amount of beer that drives out the toilet obsession from the aforementioned inside of our head has not as yet been determined, despite dedicated empirical research, we took some photos. Here, for your delight and edification, is an illustration of one of the toilets at the Biljardkompaniet sports bar in, of all places, Kristianstad.
Under normal circumstances we would naturally be having some kind of fit at this point, gesticulating wildly while pointing out the manifold horrors of leaving toilet paper about in this cavalier manner, without a proper toilet roll holder. On the other hand, check out the crafty spare-bog-roll-holder in the corner! Then ponder the fact that there was not just one of those, but two! This makes up for many, many, many sins.
Let us move on from the murky world of southern Swedish sports bars, to what Shewee Fiend Friend describes as a "lovely loo in a hicktown bakery".
These taps look like the perverted Danish variety of subjunctive taps. On the other hand, it looks like there might be both soap and hand lotion? As Semi-Intellectual Friendso wisely remarked once: "Real men have hands that are as cracked and tough as the floor of the Gobi if it was made from leather." However, the rest of us rather enjoy a spot of lotion.
We have no idea what's happening here and have no desire to find out.
Does this rampant discrimination against feet remind us of anything? Friends, it reminds us of the car park toilet in Goathland.
Jonny proves, once again, that he is not only devastatingly handsome but has an uncanny knack for saying what we're all thinking, which is:
Too hot!
So hot.
What our favourite band was doing in a weird sports bar in the southeastern corner of Sweden we will never understand. But we will be forever grateful! Many thanks also to the friend who shall henceforth be known as Waycool Maths Teacher Friend, who not only bravely ventured into a wild and uncharted territory, but who showed unparalleled presence of mind by bringing wine.
Festive Video: Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, (Please Be a) Stranger
We reported, in our last post, on Shewee Fiend Friend's distressing experience of being forced to comply with the diktat of ideological zealots. [Male person in Shewee Fiend Friend's life], having gone from not caring which way the toilet roll hangs, to becoming an over-orientation fanatic, is exhorting Shewee Fiend Friend to engage in a practice which to her eyes is misguided and wrong, with such force that she has "mostly given up and submit[ted] to [our] and his joint pressure".
While obviously exulting in this epic triumph of right over wrong; good over evil; over over under, we nonetheless feel some concern regarding Shewee Fiend Friend's human right to hang the bog roll any damn way she chooses. This led us to wonder whether Shewee Fiend Friend is, in fact, the greengrocer of the Privy Counsel bog blog.
Having gone through, like many people, what one might term a moderately woke phase (one of the more sinister manifestations of which was, apart from an increased propensity to indulge in humourless ranting, a bona fide crush on Justin Trudeau) some years ago, we came out the other end with a determination to read the kind of literature that we have had a nagging feeling, ever since high school, that we really should have read, but never got around to due to other concerns. For instance, we went back to 1984, enjoyed the SCUM Manifesto, and made the acquaintance of Václav Havel's greengrocer.
For readers who are perhaps slightly less intellectual than the desired ideal (we are absolutely looking at you, Semi-Intellectual Friend), the famous greengrocer appears in Havel's essay The Power of the Powerless. Havel writes:
The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop
places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: "Workers
of the world, unite!" Why does he do it? What is he trying to
communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of
unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that
he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his
ideals? Has he really given more than a moment's thought to how such a
unification might occur and what it would mean?
I
think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of
shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor
do they use them to express their real opinions. That poster was
delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with
the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because
it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and
because that is the way it has to be. If he were to refuse, there could
be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration
in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it
because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is
one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil
life "in harmony with society," as they say.
Here is a funny yet achingly intellectual meme that we made a couple of years ago.
We put it to Shewee Fiend Friend that she
might be the greengrocer, and the toilet-roll orientation (the correct
one, which she is now engaging in, albeit against her will) might be the
slogan. Shewee Fiend Friend pondered this. Then she wrote back:
Ok I’ve finished reading it. It gets heavy towards the end. Basically you are suggesting I am a collaborator
In your own ideology! Which you think is morally just!
You
are criticizing my collaboration of a system you believe in and have
tried to convince me of! How do you, as the post totalitarian dictator,
somehow get the moral high ground here??!!
Regarding the moral high ground we would argue, firstly, that we always had it. As we have stated before, categorically and determinedly, on the issue of toilet-roll orientation "there is only one possible position, morally as well as intellectually". Secondly, having conceded, on more than one occasion, most notably
perhaps regarding the Canadian prime minister but also on several other
points, some of which we can remember, to Shewee Fiend Friend that she
was right and we were wrong, perhaps we win the moral high ground on
this occasion by virtue of past humility, however haphazard and
accidental? Or perhaps it is simply the case that smugness will triumph. Whichever argument we employ, we doubt that Shewee Fiend Friend will agree.
Reader, it is hot, hot, hot out there, rather in the manner of Mr Rochester's bedroom. Jonny, that connoisseur of fine bathrooms, sent us this exquisite toilet selfie, which we would argue is on a par with the weather, in terms of hotness. Attached was this greeting:
You can't really tell but the shirt is waaaaay too big
This is all very well, we thought, but what in the name of arse is going on with the mirror? Jonny's theory was as follows:
Who knows? It was a Mediterranean restaurant so maybe it's normal?
When we suggested, in line with the current fashion for political correctness, that Jonny might be guilty of xenophobia, perhaps even mediterraneophobia, he retorted, quite reasonably:
I don't think so? Just my first time in a Mediterranean restaurant so statistically it's the norm.
Another possibility, put to us by a reliable source, is that the mirror is a portal to hell. "And not the fun one." We are inclined to agree.
Finally, we are delighted to announce that Jonny has joined the proud Privy Counsel tradition of giving up on learning Greek.
Unfortunately for Jonny, of course, he only counts as a friend for administrative reasons.
The obvious Festive Video for this post is the Swedish punk classic Sheiße
(or, as the annoying diktat of the modern German grammar commissariat would have it, Sheisse) by Ebba Grön, which one might argue, someone pointed out to us recently, praises the beauty of free speech.
