The Privy Counsel (A Bog Blog): All Flesh is Grass. Also, the Winner of the Toilet-Paper Origami Competition!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the Erfurt latrine disaster is by far the topic that we receive the most messages about. Why this should be, we couldn't tell you, but one might of course speculate. Is it the thrilling combination of sewage and brutal, sudden death? Is it the reminder that life is fleeting, and all flesh is grass? Or is it that satisfying moment of realising that yes, for most people life is one long chain of really, really shitty moments, and it always has been, and it's not just you being paranoid and incompetent? Your guess is as good as ours - or, quite possibly, considering our track record of displaying an appalling lack of judgement, better.

If there is one person who, in stark contrast to us, has a long history of having excellent judgement, it is Our Favourite Aunt. She recently proved the excellence of said judgement by going to visit Monet's house and taking pictures of the toilets.

Enjoy the tulips while you can.

Do these beautiful Delft tiles remind us of something? Why, naturally! They remind us, firstly, of that time when we received a postcard from Tudor Friend, and secondly of Christian IV's toilet in Rosenborg.

Is Monet's abluvium better than Bach's bog? You tell us!

Many thanks to this gem of an aunt - the most splendid of aunts; indeed, the aunt to end all aunts! - for her benevolent toilet photography!

Remember that time when we announced a toilet-paper origami competition, which resulted in people sending in actual photos? No, we didn't either. For this grievous error, we can only offer our sincerest apologies. There is probably an explanation for why this estimable and important project was lost in the mists of time, and that explanation is most likely that said mists of time were mostly opioid mists. However, we have now bribed the judges of our jury to reach a verdict.

We should probably pause, here, to review the entries. And before doing that, we should possibly attempt to explain what the toilet paper origami competition was, when it was, and why. There was a virtual, online event, this being the trend in 2020 for reasons we can't remember, and it was described thusly:

A further description inside the event read as follows:

Scrolling through the archive, we learn that the idea came from Tudor Friend and was thus, in keeping with that friend's personality, funny, creative and devilishly cunning!

The response to this clarion call of bog-related creativity was staggering. Staggering, we tell you! Here are all the entries, in chronological order. (We're not saying that some of the jurors submitted entries but we're also not saying that they didn't. The fact that Jonny entered a photo in a photo competition where the prize was a photo of Jonny dressed as a pirate no doubt says something about the modern era's lack of standards and post-post-modernist or perhaps even post-post-post-modernist atomisation and lack of coherence.)

Words cannot adequately express our gratitude to everyone who bravely entered this bizarre competition with such grace and stamina.

Before we tell you who the winner is, let us share the most elucidating comments from our international jury of experts. In no wise must the efforts of both ourselves and the jury be underestimated. This has been a long process, and has involved us insisting on motivations and writing anxious messages saying things like:

I'm going to ask you to motivate your answer, please. (Please. I've been doing this with students wanting a higher grade all afternoon. *it says clearly in the question that you have to motivate your answer, for instance by illustrating it with examples *)

On being told that this particular juror preferred a particular entry, we had to push - yes, even after the heart-rending plea above, we had to keep pushing - for a motivation:

What's good about [this entry]? Is it, for instance, the quality of the origami, or the description and puns?

The reply arrived, without hesitation:

I must admit I let myself be overly influenced by puns. That totally affected my judgement.

Another juror said, about the same entry:

I wonder how long it took to make the rose. I would have developed haemorrhoids. [...] Still, I vote for the rose. Both for creativity and sheer bravado.

And the rose is, indeed, the winner! Here it is again, for your enjoyment:

We shall be contacting the winner and arranging for Jonny to send them a signed photo of him dressed as a pirate. Be warned, however, that last time we arranged a photo competition, the prize was a signed photo of Jonny wearing a trench coat, and it took him four years to send it.

We would be remiss if we, after this bog-related onslaught, didn't also share the latest toilet photo that Jonny shared with us. Please note that it comes with a trigger warning for royalist sentiments, sartorial genius and unbridled pizzazz:

Since we have established that a) seven people read this blog and b) none of those seven ever listens to any of the Festive Videos, it matters not one whit which video we select to be this post's Festive Video and thus you have only yourselves to blame for us selecting this one: