Toilets! Huh! What Are They Good for?

 For various reasons to do with the obsessions of a close acquaintance, we end up reading a lot of soldiers'  autobiographies and war accounts. We have quoted Andy McNab, that stalwart of the ex-soldier action thriller, on the odd occasion, and have furthermore done one or two reports on military bogs. Today, however, we up the ante by giving you photos of genuine field toilets, not those pansy-arse, toilet-paper-providing garrison toilets!

As much as we'd love to be able to travel to Afghanistan to give you an in-depth report on toilet conditions there, we will have to content ourselves, for the moment, with viewing them by proxy. We came across a most interesting book called Infidel (London: Chris Boot Ltd, 2010) by Tim Hetherington, a photojournalist. Hetherington spent time with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team of the U. S. Army in Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, in 2007 and 2008, making a documentary called Restrepo.

He says,

"Burning the poop" was even more unpleasant than actually having to use the "shitter". During the summer, when temperatures in the valley could soar, I'd often avoid having to use the facility for as long as humanly possible. Eventually, lower-ranking soldiers would be assigned the task of stirring and burning the tank when it was full. (p. 236)

The shitter

"'Piss tubes' at the main Kerengal outpost" (p. 236)

 We also, for the same various reasons to do with the obsessions of a close acquaintance, recently watched the Ross Kemp Afghanistan documentary. We recall one of the soldiers saying, when asked what he would miss most on going to war: "Bog roll. A nice bog to sit on."

Indian Splendour

We had an interesting toilet experience at the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens in Bangalore today. Spending a penny costs 1 rupee for using a urinal, or 2 rupees for using a toilet, as pictured above. These toilets were perfectly clean, but as there was no flush (or at least there was, darling, as Bridget Jones's mother would say: there was a tap and a bucket), toilet paper or soap, we are unable to award any points. However, we don't want to disappoint you by writing a boring blog update, so, as in all moments of crisis and difficulty, we turn to literature: here's a quote from Andy McNab's book Bravo Two Zero (Corgi Books, 1993). Andy is a prisoner of war in an Iraqi prison:

There was no ambient light whatsoever. It was so dark in the room I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. There was a gagging stench of shit. I got down on my hands and knees and felt my way around. There wasn't much to feel. The room was tiny, and it didn't take me long to discover the two porcelain footpads either side of a hole about eight inches in diameter. No wonder my new bedroom stank. I was in a minging Arab shithouse. (pp 272-274.)

Immediate Action: Soldiers Use Toilets, Too

We're broadening our horizons in more than one sense during our sojourn into the East. A thrilling book called Immediate Action, by Andy McNab, has come our way, offering a tantalizing view into the British Army's use of toilet roll as motivation:

There were...other bonuses [to doing a tour in Northern Ireland]. One, we got 50p extra per day, and two, we got soft toilet paper instead of the hard stuff in UK garrisons. It was actually dangled as a carrot during training: 'Remember, it's soft toilet rolls over the water.'
(Corgi Books,1995, p. 50)

We are amazed, but not surprised, at this typical instance of British eccentricity. Are you amazed?

Image from Principiadialectica