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
It is after the second or third hipster beer, in our experience, that the really tough questions make themselves known and demand to be taken into consideration. For instance, portaloos with a flush are obviously a game-changer, but where do they place on the grand scale of human endeavour? Are they on a par with fire and penicillin, or further down, more towards the level of Billy the Bass and duct tape? What would Abraham Maslow say? We predict that philosophers will be spending centuries hashing this one out.
We have many habits here at the Privy Counsel, some of which are healthy and many of which are downright deplorable. One habit of which we are not only particularly fond but which we like to think is positively edifying, is having beers with the friend we like to call Nerdy Beer-Obsessive Friend. We happened to be having beer and bewilderingly complex pizza with Nerdy Beer-Obsessive Friend the other day at a place called Benchwarmers, in Helsingborg, and were very pleased to come across this festive and also clean and coat-hook-enriched toilet, especially in light of the inevitable fatigue following upon a) a hard-hitting debate regarding the human condition in relation to portaloos, and b) pizza that requires an inordinate amount of cognitive effort just to figure out what the hell is on it, and why.
We're assuming that the flamingoes are ironic, but the thing about the modern age is that one can't tell the difference between even a joke and a bona fide news item. What chance do the flamingoes stand, in this climate, to signal the presence of irony, or lack thereof?
If you find this picture soothing, there may well be something wrong with you, but at least you're not the only one.
Attentive readers may remember our last post, even though it was published several days ago and nobody among our acquaintance has any memory left of anything occurring this side of 1994. Be that as it may, Shewee Fiend Friend, coming across the illuminative and edifying picture we were sent by Feisty French Friend, was moved to inform us of the changes that have recently occurred in her private life. She reported:
I sent [Male person in Shewee Fiend Friend's life] the beard/mullet toilet roll hanging model from your recent blog and he loved it
In the past year he has converted to full time beard-style hanging and his criticism of my hanging is so intense that I’ve now mostly given up and submit to your and his joint pressure
The funny part is, he believes he has always hung it this way. He has no memory of a time when chaos ruled his life and he did it differently every time, and when I tell him about that time, he claims I am lying
(Read more about this man's incomprehensible approach to bog roll here.)
Reader, this left us reeling. In a frightening and ever-changing universe, Shewee Fiend Friend's misguided stance on toilet paper is one of the few certainties keeping us grounded. What even happens, we asked ourselves, if she has started hanging her bog roll the right way round? As in, cosmically? Will the stars come loose from their sockets and wander about willy-nilly, will the oceans roil and roar to the rhythm of low-quality rockabilly, will the earth quake and maybe even spontaneously combust? Thankfully, Shewee Fiend Friend assured us that:
[This] doesn’t mean my beliefs have changed. I just now deliberately hang the roll wrong.
After this emotional roller-coaster, we naturally needed a drink. Thus we let ourselves be persuaded to visit a beer festival in Malmö, against our better judgement. You may imagine our relief when we discovered that the hygiene facilities, despite the high concentration of hipsters at this event, were neither portaloos nor ironic toilets reminiscent of a cattle shed, but perfectly civilised facilities offering soap, coat-hooks and spare bog roll. (There was however a sink for filling one's water bottle which was, inevitably, constructed in the likeness of a cattle trough.)
There are actually two different kinds of soap here but as Nerdy Beer-Obsessed Friend pointed out, at least one of them smells terrible.
Normally we'd quibble with the placement of the hook (too near the toilet), but on this occasion we were just so grateful, among the onslaught of various hipster horrors, that there was one.
You can just about spot the spare bog roll, unhygienically placed on the floor. Again, we were just so grateful that there was one.
There is another heartwarming story we've been meaning to tell you about a thing that happened outside some portaloos in Helsingborg in probably 2017, but God only knows where the photos are and we can only promise to bring the subject up again in the unlikely event that - no, we can't even imagine what improbable occurrence might cause that story to be told. Let us swiftly move on to these lovely photos from Jonny, containing the message referenced in a previous post, regarding the Twelve Days of Cistern. The thought of this future event is the only thing currently enabling us to view the darkening days and approaching winter, with its attendant emotional carnage and horror clowns, with anything resembling equanimity.
What can one even do, except maybe sigh and possibly clutch one's throat? Well, quite.
In a clear parallel to Margaret Mitchell writing the last chapter of Gone with the Wind first, we constructed the title of this bog blog post before composing the actual post, and are now left with an obligation, however imaginary, to write something about the trauma we experienced the other day when we could find neither a) our Shewee nor b) our back-up Shewee. Reader, it was rough.
That time when Shewee Fiend Friend went about the countryside reclaiming her womanhood and urinating all over everything: SISTERS STANDING UP FOR THEMSELVES
In terms of literary devices we're big, as all regular readers are aware, on themes here at the Privy Counsel. One of our main themes, after plumbing-horror-induced handwringing and unstructured ranting, is friendship. (Please note however that Jonny counts as a friend for administrative reasons only.) We have had occasion to note recently that true friends are those who make it a point of honour to take the piss out of one whatever one happens to be doing, whether one is of sound mind or not, and indeed irrespective of whether one happens to be suffering from acute gastric distress due to ingesting too many weird pink shots in a godforsaken prairie bar.
The concept of constructive criticism gets a bad press in these times of cancel culture and groupthink. However, telling people when they're wrong is crucial to maintaining public order and a civilised society. Ponder this very bog blog, for instance. How many plumbing heathens have we converted to the true faith by gently yet inexorably pointing out the horrors of separated taps, doors with large scary gaps, and sticky spots on the floor? Well, we haven't strictly counted them, but there are quite a few people by now who send us weird photos.
Constructive criticism, however, presupposes the ability to hold unusual or unpopular beliefs. If one were, for instance, to repress all mention of hanging bog rolls arse-backwards, one would never, if one is to believe John Stuart Mill, have the pleasure of insufferable smugness in a heated debate about toilet roll orientation. Now obviously, on this subject, there is only one possible position, morally as well as intellectually. However, it is only when heterodox views are tolerated that one gets to hear ideas which, though ludicrous, may be challenging and inspirational. Moreover, it is only when dissent is encouraged that one gets to hear valid critique of one's own delusional notions - which, however smug one may be feeling in the moment, may be constructive in the long run. If, for instance, one happens to have spent - to pick an example at random - all of 2015, 2016 and 2017, most of 2018, and possibly even parts of 2019, perving on Justin Trudeau, it does feel better, when he goes full-on tin-pot dictator in 2022, to know that Shewee Fiend Friend spent all those years regularly informing one that one was being an arse.
As Aristotle probably said, we disapprove of your awful non-mixer taps
but would suffer mild burn injuries for your right to keep
constructing them. Thus, when people whose judgement we for some reason still trust insist on hanging toilet rolls back to front, we resist the urge to call for their heads to be cut off. Instead we graciously tolerate their aberrations, taking great pleasure in our own magnanimity, and encourage them to send us toilet photos, in the hope that they will one day see the light.
On the subject of toilet photos, we received these from Shewee Fiend Friend, who wrote:
I was in a prize winning public loo tonight
I was in this restaurant for a [information redacted for the sake of public decency]
So that was weird. I only have very broken stressed memories of that night
I think it checks all the boxes
Resting being one of our favourite activities, we heartily approve of this piece of furniture, so charmingly named, by those quaint North Americans, a fainting couch.
Behold! The reassuring sight of spare loo rolls! Rejoice, for there may be some hope, however small, for mankind after all.
These toilets can be found at the Sauce Italian Kitchen & Market in Calgary - queen of Canadian cities - and made the top five list in the Canada's Best Restroom competition in 2016, as reported by CBC.
I couldn’t hear anyone else peeing though two other ladies were while I was in there
It has everything you could want. Floor to ceiling doors, solid hooks, pompous art and a fainting couch
I guess they were just nominated. Still, top 5!
The gas station won that year
Speaking of gas stations, Jonny - everyone's favourite Toilet Babe - has also been in touch with some photos. "I hope you're ready for this," he wrote.
Reader, we were not ready!
Is Jonny the Marlon Brando of toilet selfies?
This is supposed to be a hygienic seat. We keep getting distracted by the sticky spot on the floor, however, and find ourselves unable to concentrate on the alleged hygiene. Does one hear echoes of Edgar Allan Poe?
Quoth the poet: No retreat, baby, no surrender! We don't know what your coffee table looks like, but ours has a pile of books intended for summer reading the thickness of
roughly three paper editions of the OED, of which we have read about one
finger's breadth since June; every time we try to peruse a page we fall
asleep. Writing, under these conditions, is a challenge to say the
least. Still, this is not an apology, nor even an explanation, for our perhaps paltry bog blog post production of late. It is
merely a preamble to the main business, which is -
- well hell, we don't know. Ennui? As Morrissey said, "I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and
heaven knows I'm miserable now", or as Al Swearengen put it with perhaps
rather more force, "Many times that's what the fuck life is: One vile
fucking task after another". What with our current consumption of coffee and opioids, not to mention our customary preoccupation
with syphilis, one would be hard pressed to say whether we are at risk of turning into a Romantic poet. Time
will, no doubt, tell.
Be that as it may, we have some rather competent original content to delight and enlighten you with today. Shewee Fiend Friend, that intrepid straddler of time zones, has been to Amsterdam Airport again. Has she, in fact, blessed this international travel hub with her presence more times than any human now living? The regularity and vigour, indeed, with which Shewee Fiend Friend visits the main airport of the Netherlands is spectacular to the point of being worrying. It's almost as if she is gripped by some sort of fit, or seizure, exclaiming, "I'm going to Amsterdam Airport!" and then, as P. G. Wodehouse would arguably put it, sort of goes to Amsterdam Airport. Medical science will possibly never advance far enough to give us the answer; we'll have to content ourselves with drinking more coffee, and perusing these pictures. Here is Shewee Fiend Friend's review of what she argues is the best public toilet she has ever experienced.
I excitedly told the wrong audience ([Person whose apathy [was] so severe he didn’t even have critique]) that the Amsterdam airport’s toilet was the best public toilet I had experienced
Now I shall correct that error, at 4:30am because I’m jet lagged and can’t sleep of course
So lovely to enter a clean room with clearly marked doors that extend from floor to relatively high ceiling
The stall has these 5 wood coathooks of varying sizes
Honestly most were too big to be of any use with a backpack but they are very aesthetically pleasing. But you just need one. And if you’ve got a purse they’d be great
This device was chock full of paper and I love the seat sanitizer
Look at this bin placement. By the door. Amazing. My thigh did not press uncomfortably against it
So much space. Fun flush
Totally fine sinks
Nothing too fancy, just all very very efficient and comfortable
There is no limit, it seems, to the energetic antics of our friends. Jonny (who counts as a friend for administrative reasons) has an important contribution to make to the debate (is it still a debate if it has been settled that there is a wrong and a right way of doing things and the right way has been established and described at length?) on toilet roll orientation.
Schrödinger's bog roll?
One for your next correct hanging position debate
We note that whether this roll is hung correctly depends on the position of Jonny. If he is to the right of the roll it is hung correctly, but if he moves to the left, a large neon sign will, morally, erect itself, so to speak, over the latrine trench and scream, in large, frantic lettering, "ERROR! ERROR! FLEE!". Also, we would like to take this opportunity of informing Jonny that, whatever one's views on toilet roll orientation, one should never position oneself under the roots of an uprooted tree as it, we have been informed by a reliable source, may turn over again and crush one, under its root system, into clumps of soil. This is not a fate that we would wish on this bog blog's main contributor of toilet selfies. Or, arguably, anyone else.
Jonny has also excelled himself in the "rugged handsomeness with rustic hand-dryer and grit on the floor" genre of toilet photography, and submitted what might be the hottest bog selfie of 2021!
Is your mind boggled? Ours is!
Some random bar last night!
As regular readers will be all too aware, we are fans of clear signage at the Privy Counsel. If you, too, enjoy a) clear signage and b) men in rugged lumberjack shirts using authoritative body language, then brace yourself!
In a Thai restaurant I can't spell the name of
Chaophraya
There was a sign
Lovely bin
Poorly used
"Lovely bin - poorly used" might be the first line of a really great haiku about hygiene and the futility of human endeavour, if anyone felt like writing it. We would, but we are rather busy at the moment with the kind of crazy, overcompensatory coping mechanisms that you develop when you, for complicated reasons, can't walk, sit, or sleep. So fuck off, darlings, and leave us alone.
Oh yes, the Festive Video. We were possibly rather hasty, there, with our exhortation to our audience to fuck off. If you'd like, you can postpone the off-fucking for a couple of minutes and listen to this great song. It's a funny fact, we have observed, that even as you become increasingly conservative with age, you also become more of a hippy. Thus we have, with advancing years, developed a fascination with the moon, going so far as to stand outside staring at it, boring our friends with remarks about its whereabouts, sometimes even going so far as to comment on its colour and size, and downloading an app. Yes, it's that bad. Anyway, the app helpfully informed us yesterday, or if it was the day before, that there is now a quarter moon. Enjoy.
It has been decreed by Privy Counsel headquarters that you deserve (the choice is yours whether to view this as benevolence or hostility) a super summer extravaganza blog post, and thus, whether you want it or not, and whether getting one is even in your best interests, you are getting a super summer extravaganza blog post!
We have a lot of photos of toilets to get through, so we'd better get started before the leaves fall from the trees and the bears (those mythical creatures who, according to a popular idiom, crap in the woods) go to hibernate, the lucky fuckers, while the rest of us have to continue getting the bus to work in darkness while trying not to freeze our toes or other extremities off, spend the day under fluorescent lights engaged in meetings with people who can't form coherent sentences, then go home in the dark only to find that the cheese has gone mouldy and women STILL don't count as humans.
Let us keep the darkness, metaphorical as well as literal, at bay, however, by focusing on metaphorical (and, in the case of the northern latitudes, unremittingly literal at this time of year, actually) sunlight: We have a special treat for you today! Regular readers will remember with fondness and admiration past posts by Intellectual Friend. Well, hold on to your hats and make sure your toilet roll is turned the right way around - here is a new contribution from that worthy intellectual! From Greenland, no less!
I thought I would show you this private toilet, which I saw (and wincingly made use of) in a forlorn settlement called Oqaatsut, latitude 69 N, population 40 not counting a couple hundred sleddogs.
It is I believe the cosiest loo I have encountered so far in such a context (the context being the lack of running water, no sewage system (the skybound pipe behind the seat merely serving as a mildly efficient vent and stench suppressor) and the undiggability of the frozen ground).
Black plastic bag in the toilet bowl/barrel. Suspicious yellow-tinted meltwater in the washbasin.
Helpful inscription on the wall above, "Uunga errorit", which can be interpreted as meaning "Wash here" (an injunction which I did not feel inclined to obey, especially as I had my hand sanitizer to hand), where -it is the imperative 2nd pers. sing. ending. There was no toilet paper; but if there had been any, I'd assume by analogy with other lavatories in the country that the roll would be lying on a mouldy windowsill or on the actual and clammy floor at the very foot of the toilet. Note however the ingeniously placed wooden soapholder (what passed for soap in there looked however very unattractive) and also the purple hook and festive handknitted towel.
I should add that I failed to obtain prior permission to take this sneaky photo, partly because our host, a venerable lady and oldest dweller in said settlement, could only speak Greenlandic (and some thick dialect of it at that), so that technically it might be a case of rape and abuse of one's privacy and private property, such as it is, although I'm no expert. But the brave old lady had cooked us lunch, bless her, and she sat and watched us eat it with great interest. [Name omitted], the only fluent speaker of Greenlandic among us, mostly declined to engage in conversation with the host, leaving the hyggelig/lagom atmosphere to thicken up to its natural slightly awkward density.
It was a more or less planned stop we had on a little sailing trip which we took out of Ilulissat, a town to the north where we spent Easter. And here for the sake of variation are a few other pics from that Oqaatsut settlement and around: the [...] house of our host [omitted due to privacy concerns], a bleak view of the village, the worthy old vessel in which we were sailed thereto, and an icefell or two.
We've seen a lot of primitive toilets in our day (for instance, this one or why not ponder this one or indeed this one), and Intellectual Friend's bog description does not scare us; being situated, as it is, in a context of rugged wilderness and base survival. Continuing the theme of rugged wilderness, but in a location which offers no excuse not to offer hygiene and comfort, let's have a look at the toilets at Tugg, a hipster burger place in Lund, Sweden, where we went one sunny day with Australian Friend.
You'd think that Lund, this eminent university town, would produce nothing but civilised functionality, but you'd be wrong. Our main critique of Tugg has heretofore centred on the fact that whoever designed this eatery decided to put metal chairs on a cement floor. Why people choose to make the surroundings in which people are supposed to eat actively unpleasant and potentially damaging to one's hearing is beyond us. Then we went to check out the loos and are subsequently also wondering why anyone would choose to make a toilet unnecessarily difficult to use, due to an inexplicable urge to pander to the 19th-century farmyard aesthetic. Let's show you what we mean.
Here is the toilet. Note the bare walls (nothing wrong with bare walls as such), the minimalist loo (again, nothing wrong with this for now), the weird and flimsy curtain stopping people outside from being able to look in, and the toilet rolls which, albeit plentiful, have worryingly been put into a rustic wooden box. It's not necessarily unhygienic but it's not exactly indicative of cleanliness either.
There are no paper towels; instead, brown (why brown? Why? Does anybody actually like the colour brown?) cloth towels have been placed in another rustic wooden box, this time placed reassuringly high up on the wall.
There are two bins; one for the brown (whyyyy?) towels, another for other waste. This is all fine.
Now it's starting to get scary. The cistern for the toilet is an old-timey one on the wall, with a metal wire that needs to be pulled for flushing. Burlington is a Swedish brand with a nice-looking website that offers no information whatsoever about why one should use this type of cistern, whether it's in any way water-saving, or whether it's considered disability-friendly.
The tap offers so many different types of horror that the breadth and width of the sum total of the horror is hard for the human intellect to comprehend. It's situated over a cattle-trough-like sink (why, in God's name, do hipsters keep insisting on sinks that look like they might be full of cow drool and half-chewed clumps of grass?) and is literally composed of a water-valve lever handle. It is very much not disability friendly, or indeed friendly to anyone who didn't grow up on a farm in the 19th century and has strong, calloused hands the size of dustbin lids, being very hard to turn. Also, the pipe offers only cold water. Not sure how this conforms to health and safety regulations, if at all. Note the toilet roll placed by the sink, on a wooden surface that is extremely likely to absorb water and breed bacteria, helpfully supplied by the hands touching the toilet roll.
In the manner of people who insist on serving you coffee in a glass, as if they are
so far above material things that burn injuries are inconsequential (mugs
have handles for a reason?), the architect behind this horror ensemble says, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT WHETHER YOU CAN WASH YOUR HANDS YOU DIRTY PEASANT ALSO STOP STARING AT ME AND GO CLEAN OUT THE OUTDOOR PRIVY NO I DON'T CARE THAT YOU ARE DYING FROM CHOLERA YOU SCURVY MALINGERER".
The door has an old-timey handle and no coat-hook.
The water pipe has a pressure gauge. Personally, we'd have preferred a sane and hygienic tap.
We're grateful that we were in such charming company, or bad things might have happened to our mental state. Swiftly moving on before anyone develops tuberculosis or gangrene of the soul, let's contemplate these interesting pictures from New York, described in Shewee Fiend Friend's characteristically terse staccato style.
Ok I'm in a weird speakeasy
They only have whiskey
And all vegan food
The bathrooms
Are beautiful
But
No paper towel or soap
Not sure how they're supposed to do that without soap Our waiter left the bathroom before me Also
I knocked the toilet paper over
Afterwards we went to burp Castle
There are paintings of drunk monks everywhere The toilet was disappointing
The toilet per se may be disappointing, but we see much entertainment value in the graffiti, for instance the "PODCASTS???" scrawl (we don't see the point in them either - why listen to people breathing weirdly into a microphone when you can get the information much quicker by reading?). Also we enjoy, as ever, almost seeing people.
We asked whether Burp Castle was a typo, but learned that it wasn't:
Nope that's what it's called
It's a monastery esque place
You're not allowed to speak above a whisper
We suggested that you then "can't get drunk as there would be a great risk of laughing raucously?", and the following pithy exchange took place:
Shewee Fiend Friend: I guess? Unless you are good at getting drunk quietly
Privy Counsel: You might as well just inject yourself with melatonin and go quietly to sleep
Jonny has been no slouch this summer, sending us many excellent contributions with messages which, readers of this long and pontificating post will be delighted to know, are short to the point of abruptness.
The conversation for this one went as follows:
Privy Counsellor: So many things going on. Care to make any comment?
Jonny: Not at this time.
Privy Counsellor: You have the right to remain silent.
According to the diploma this urinal is located at the Flying Duck in Ilkley, and has been twinned with another toilet somewhere.
This sink, thankfully, does not resemble a cattle-trough, though the taps are that worrying breed of subjunctive mixer taps.
Semi-Intellectual Friend has also been in touch, offering this commentary on our ongoing Jonny Babe Parade:
Johnny
looks shit hot. Shit hotter every time I see him on there in fact. I
reckon he's one of those Paul Rudd types that just grows increasingly
into their own good looks.
Yes, we naturally asked Semi-Intellectual Friend's permission to share these words, and got the following response:
If
you ever want to share my compliments about Jonny on the blog (or any
mutual friend (that I've just not met yet)), totally go for it. He's got
Hollywood magnetism and the world needs to know about it.
Finally, in a triumph of 19th-century farmyard romanticism, we offer this picture of Jonny, dressed as a cowboy, in front of a sink shaped like a cattle-trough.
WE HAVE ONLY ONE THING TO SAY AND THAT IS "GIDDY-UP!!!"
For today's Festive Video, let's have something that evokes the midnight sun and the hope of good plumbing, as well as offering a mild dose of 19th-century barnyard aestheticism (hopefully a mild dose may ensure a vaccinating effect, like cowpox).
Festive Video: Maxida Märak and Downhill Bluegrass Band, Nikesunnas Jojk
