In Which We Express Our Gratitude to Electricians Springing Into Action

YES! That is right - that is indeed the scent of bird cherry in full bloom!

As regular readers are aware, we have a thing about bird cherry. We would even go so far as to claim that the brief period when the delightful Prunus padus is in bloom is the best time of the year!

All the signs that summer might return and that we might - at least on a philosophical plane - not be completely fucked, have been making themselves manifest in a joyfully unrestrained manner! After many days of rain (of both the physical and the metaphorical kind) the sun has been making up for all the bullshit by burning our skin until it really hurts, blackbirds have been tooting and doing rude things to each other in the shrubberies in order to ensure the continuation of the species, and the big creepy wasps have started worming their way in through the ventilation system and buzzing angrily around while we have been trying to work. (As anyone who knows us is aware, we are only too happy to get an excuse to procrastinate, even if it means running the risk of getting a wasp sting in the neck and slowly suffocating to death.)

In short, spring is definitely here! Let us celebrate by pondering some light-hearted pictures!

First out is a hope-inspiring message from Shewee Fiend Friend, who writes:

Public message on New York subway.

The message reads:

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze
• Cough or sneeze into the bend of your arm if you don't have a tissue
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer
• If you think you have the flu, stay home until your fever is gone at least 24 hours without a fever reducer 

We of course have some criticism to offer here, the main thrust of which is this:
As demonstrated by Mythbusters, sneezing into a tissue is basically no better than sneezing directly into your hand. (Please, for the love of God, don't sneeze into your hand. Thank you.) SNEEZE INTO YOUR GODDAMN ELBOW.

That ended up not being very light-hearted. Let's try these delightful pictures from Bogsley Hansson Friend.

WE WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH THIS MESSAGE.

Is this a sign pointing out where the spare loo roll is kept? If so, we approve!

For anyone who finds the intersection between toilet-related matters and feminism as fascinating as we do, there is this article on the 1970s fight against pay toilets, sent to us by Tudor Friend, to ponder in a haze of happiness this weekend.

We also received a link to a fantastic article from Australian Friend called Fantastic invention stops men weeing in the streets. It's a toilet. Really, the title says it all.

Speaking of feminism, we had a situation recently which set us thinking. We have been pondering fuse boxes, and wondering why we have never been forced to take a crash course in fuse box management. We like to think that we are reasonably competent, at the Privy Counsel, when it comes to practical things - changing a blown fuse, reversing accidental use of Caps Lock, persuading a reluctant horse to take the bit into its mouth - things like that. However, nobody ever told us how to identify a circuit breaker in a really old building. And, though we like to think that we are experts at finding things on the internet, this is rather challenging when your computer is slowly dying of old age and can only handle 20 minutes without electricity, and your phone is also caving in to dementia, and refuses to show you pictures of fuse boxes or in any other way communicate with you. We won't bore you with the details, but we would like to thank the friendly electrician who drove 40 kilometres on his night off just to flick our circuit breaker (not a euphemism).

We would also like to thank the friends who reassured us that just because you don't know something about a traditional male field doesn't make you a bad woman/feminist. On that note, let us have a festive video! Today's festive video comes to us courtesy of Tudor Friend, and we have no idea if it is ironic or not. What do you think?

Tudor Friend says:

TOILET PAPER and MOCKING OF HIPSTERS.
This is hilarious, brilliant, and I bet at least ten eejits out there fall for it and go out to find this product. May they experience all the joy of bum-splinters!

Festive video - Quilted Northern Rustic Weave, Artisanal Toilet Paper


Related Reading

Previous posts featuring bird cherry:
In Which We Indulge in Poetry and Out-of-Context French Expressions
Cracking Some Suds in Kreuzberg

Jezebel pictorial on the 1970s feminist fight against pay toilets:
The 1970s Feminist Fight Against Pay Toilets

An excellent article on the fantastic invention that stops men weeing in the streets:
Fantastic invention stops men weeing in the streets. It's a toilet.

Another message that started with an enthusiastic "yes"

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend
All posts featuring Bogsley Hansson Friend
All posts featuring Tudor Friend
All posts featuring Australian Friend

Don't miss our most popular Friend Quote ever, Semi-Intellectual Friend's take on the concept of irony - available in the post Foul Play, also Fowl Issues.

Also, everyone keeps telling us to Get Yer Bags Together, Channing Tatum Has Announced a Live Magic Mike Show in Vegas, so we might as well share it here, too.

Ai Weiwei: Incarceration and Sanitation

We could tell you a tale of misogyny, misery, and melancholy, to simultaneously boil your blood and chill the spine. (After all, it is nearly Halloween!) All we'd have to do would be to tell you about our week. But frankly, isn't life appalling enough as it is, without us moaning about our personal traumas? Well, quite. So let us think about our own weary concerns another day and concentrate on somebody else's for a change.

Bogsley Hansson Friend, that connoisseur of all things cultural, sent us a message from Ai Weiwei's exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art. Weiwei's S.A.C.R.E.D. depicts his 2011 house arrest in China. Bogsley Hansson Friend writes:

Ai Weiwei bog art. Part of S.A.C.R.E.D.
Six boxes / dioramas you can look into that are about his house arrest / incarceration.

At the risk of being flippant, we must say that this shower scene reminds us of Semi-Intellectual Friend's shower in Thailand. Although of course Semi-Intellectual Friend wasn't, as far as we know, guarded by Chinese army officials at the time.
When we think about it, the design also reminds us of Semi-Intellectual Friend's shower in Denmark. It appears that, although competent in many areas of life, Semi-Intellectual Friend has very bad luck with showers.

The outside of the boxes, at the Royal Academy.

We would exhort our readers to support Amnesty International to help political prisoners around the world, but then there's the issue of the decriminalisation of prostitution, that no right-thinking person can support, and it all gets very muddled and confusing. One should of course still support all the other work that Amnesty does (for balance, see also Amnesty's motivation for passing the resolution to support the legalisation of prostitution), but it behoves every thinking human being to protest the de-criminalisation of people who benefit financially from trapping women, men and children into prostitution. It is not too late, by the way, to protest against the resolution: We have not given up and it is not too late.

A festive video on the theme of freedom seems fitting, n'est-ce pas? (Although of course the American notion of freedom is inherently problematic (especially in this Southern context - apart from all the colonialism and white supremacy lurking about, there is the fact that the vehicle of freedom is always a petroleum-consuming car - what's wrong with an environmentally friendly and health-promoting bicycle, for instance?), and possibly we should spend time on research in order to find something more universal, but frankly, my dear, we have had a rough week and we wish to get on with our Sunday now. Also this is a song about a woman escaping an abusive husband, and that is a concept we support wholeheartedly, whatever the context.)

Festive video - Danielle Bradbery, The Heart of Dixie

Related Reading
All posts featuring Bogsley Hansson Friend

Interview with Ai Weiwei in Vice, mentioning his bicycle

All posts featuring Semi-Intellectual Friend
A favourite post of ours, in which we get sentimental about our friends: Ask Not for Whom the Bog Rolls

Ask Not for Whom the Bog Rolls

We know, we know. We go on and on about our friends, and shamelessly steal words that they have written and post them on our toilet blog, as if that were an honour. Well, the truth is that without our various cronies, there would be no bog blog. Our comrades send us photos from all over the globe, offer us advice on moral dilemmas, and keep us amused with the stories of their fuck-ups and debacles. Many of them are also good, honest people. The other day we were pondering the lives and deeds of our various bosom buddies, and feeling very smug about what a favourable light their endeavours shine on us.

There is the friend who gets incessant promotions at work, the one who is going off to work on a reproductive rights expedition, the one who used to volunteer at Planned Parenthood, the one who campaigns tirelessly for the rights of her people, the ones who have had to flee their homeland and are pursuing their dreams in a foreign country with a new language, all the ones who are rampantly intellectual in a wide variety of fields - we could go on all day. 

It is our ambition, however, not to bore our readers to death, and so we content ourselves with saying that we hugely enjoy basking in this nuclear-meltdown-strength reflected glory. Keep up the good work, everyone!

We also enjoy receiving messages and photos from all the various chums who make up the Privy Counsel Collective. Indeed, there has recently been, to borrow a plumbing metaphor, a veritable flood of communications, and we have acquired more toilet photos than we know what to safely do with. Since our archive is prone to becoming crammed, unnavigable and downright dangerous, our legal advisory team has instructed us to get a few of the recent ones published before they, too, disappear into the vast cavern that is the Privy Counsel Archive.

Lo, a contribution from Bogsley Hansson Friend:

We've said it before and we'll say it again: HUNKA-HUNKA!

Read more amusing toilet signs here.

Bogsley Hansson Friend says, on our asking (needlessly, you might think), whether the photos are from a toilet: 

[The Elvis picture is] near by. All in a restaurant had lunch at in Cannon beach [read all about it here]. Where sent the previous pics from. The sign was in the actual toilet though.

Bogsley Hansson Friend has rather a talent for having lunch in interesting places, and finding fascinating toilets. (He is also hugely well-read and very generous, but his flair for toilet photography is what mostly benefits our regular readers.)

This delightful trawl through our personal correspondence does not end there! Behold, an almost painfully intellectual epistle from Uncle Sean:

We were recently in Key West, where, in a span of 10 years Ernest Hemingway wrote 70% of his literary output. His output of a different sort would have occurred here in his studio's loo.

*tries to think of Hemingway-related pun, fails*
If you enjoy celebrity toilets, have a gander at our  Celebrity Toilets label.
Or check out Johann Sebastian Bach's bog!

Uncle Sean continues: 

This one is from Seattle in a now defunct hotel in Chinatown (now an exhibit in the Wing Luke Museum) where over 100 years ago there was one loo per floor - crammed in the closet like a metaphor for the Chinese-American experience in the U.S. during the long lasting and racist era leading up to and spanning the Chinese Exclusion Act.

See what we mean about the rampant intellectualism and learning of our friends?

According to the internet, Hemingway "once took a urinal home from his favorite bar and moved it into his home, arguing that he had 'pissed away' so much of his money into the urinal that he owned it".

On that inspiring note, let's acknowledge the fact that we've been busy as fuck lately by eating anti-social amounts of garlic, and fantasising about going on a Thelma and Louise-style road-trip to the south of France, by no means excluding the possibility of involving Richard Armitage in our doom-filled quest for freedom.

Today's festive video is a contribution from Norwegian Friend. It's from the very first Norwegian TV broadcast ever, in 1960, and is possibly the most festive thing we have ever seen! You're welcome.

Festive video - Nora Brockstedt and Deep River Boys, Voi Voi


Related Reading
All posts featuring Bogsley Hansson Friend
All posts featuring Uncle Sean
All posts featuring celebrity toilets

Coasting Along: Saving Time and Effort by Plagiarising Our Friends. Also Some Otters.

HOLY HANDGRENADES! What a day it's been! And what a week it's going to be! We feel in urgent need of the sequel to Bogsley Hansson Friend's soothing photographic journey through Oregon, don't you?
Yeah, we thought so.

This is as much original writing as we can manage today, by the way. The rest is ripped straight from our friends' correspondence. Huzzah!

Bogsley Hansson Friend writes:

Some shots from the Oregon Coast Acquarium in Newport, Oregon.

This is as good a time as any, we think, to bring out
this infographic about sharks not necessarily being the most dangerous predators around.

OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER
OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER
OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER
OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER OTTER

People! Leave those otters alone!

We seem to remember Bogsley Hansson Friend making a snarky comment about this sign,
but we're fucked if we can remember what it was.

SEA BIRDS! OF SOME KIND!

Bogsley Hansson Friend continues:

Plus a neat pet store complete with super friendly store dog. Got these paintings there.

DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG
DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOGDOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOGDOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG
etc.

At this point we would like to remind our gentle readers that Shewee Fiend Friend speaks very warmly of the Royal Tyrrell museum in Drumheller, Alberta. It is, and we quote ourselves:

"[t]he best museum ever. Shewee Fiend Friend even goes so far as to claim that this museum is the best part of Canada! Apparently, the dinosaurs are to die for, and you can confidently skip the rest of the country!"
We feel very strongly that the Royal Tyrrell museum may appeal to anyone who enjoys looking at otters and sea birds of some kind.

Oh, and also, because we tend to think of Bogsley Hansson Friend and Welsh Gangster Friend en masse, here's another reflection from Welsh Gangster Friend:

I'm currently in a pub where they don't ever shut the door to the gents' toilet so they can see into them from the bar. Lots of drugs in South Wales!

(You may remember Welsh Gangster Friend's reflections on pub toilets in Wales from the other week.)

Which brings us to another greeting, from Australian Friend, in her usual post-post-modern, savvy style:

Btw, just found this crap-related article... something for the Privy [Counsel]?

Said crap-related article is this one, about that time when Houston really had a problem. (This naturally reminds us of a) this whimsical post about space waste, and b) Uncle Sean's timely advice about blue-bagging - a term which, by the way, was previously unknown to us.)

Oh. And one last thing. Mr Smith alerted us to an article about the city of Portland, Oregon, inserting turbines into its sewers, to produce energy. Our mind finds itself in five kinds of bamboozlement.

That's it. That's all we had to say.

If we ever needed a festive video about Oregon and sloe gin fizz, it was - ye gods! - today.

Festive video - Loretta Lynn and Jack White; Portland, Oregon

Related Reading

The first part of Bogsley Hansson Friend's photographic journey through Oregon: Cannon Fodder

The post in which Shewee Fiend Friend speaks warmly of the Royal Tyrrell museum in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada: Shewees Are a Girl's Best Friend
Previous posts mentioning Loretta Lynn: Kicking Anglo-Saxon Arse: Festschrift to Shewee Fiend Friend
Previous posts mentioning Jack White: Jack White on British Plumbing: Unsubstantiated Claims

Cannon Fodder

As Obsessive Emmerdale Friend so perceptively said, the other day, "You're doing too much again, aren't you?" Things have indeed been moving at a rock'n'roll kind of pace at the Counsel, and pretty much everywhere else too, as far as we can tell. Everyone's busy as a[n] [insert animal of choice], and feeling the need to have a whisky and a lie-down.

It's lucky, then, that Bogsley Hansson Friend has been on a photographic journey, and has sent us a shitload of beautiful pictures with which to delight and edify us all! This means that we don't have to write more words than necessary, but can get on with rocking and rolling. And also reeling.

Bogsley Hansson Friend writes:

Some pics from a recent trip to the Oregon coast. Fancy bathroom art. This is in Cannon Beach which is just down the coast from where they shot The Goonies.

We don't actually intend to say a hell of a lot else. A picture says more than a thousand words, they say. Enjoy the silence!

(Don't miss our more than usually festive festive video at the bottom, however.)

Bogsley Hansson Friend visited this charming place, where he ordered
"fish and chips. With garlic bread which I think is an Oregon coast thing.
Supposed to dip it in the chowder I guess".
We were treated to a picture of this meal, and absolutely scrumptious it looked, too!
Arrrrrr!

We're huffin' and puffin' with delight!

We're fucked if we know what this is.
Some species of observatory?
Either way, it's got paper towels
in it, of which we approve,
and a bin, of which we also approve.

This is festive, what?

Boglsey Hansson Friend is nothing
if not considerate - it's a massive
bag of wine!

"What the hell is that, then?"
one thinks to oneself.

WOOF!

Now then, now then. When did we last do a feminist anthem? We can't remember, so let's have one sharpish.

Festive video - Lesley Gore, You don't own me

Lesley Gore kicked a massive amount of arse in her lifetime. She once told Ms. Magazine that,

As a child I wanted to sing at Carnegie Hall, so I practiced singing behind the closed bedroom door, in front of the full-length mirror, with a hairbrush as my microphone. Behind that closed door, I slicked my hair back in a fairly credible Elvis imitation. I’m sure many of us did. But when I finally walked out onstage — in the spring of 1963, I was 16 — I went dressed like a nice little girl and performed as I was expected to.

Ave atque vale, Lesley.

Related Reading
All posts from Bogsley Hansson Friend
Another seaside toilet: By the Sea - A Toilet Blogger's Holiday
Another photographic journey: Norwegian Wood

Let's Party Like It's World Toilet Day!

We think you should spend today in a haze of riotous champagne consumption. Why do we think you should spend today in a haze of riotous champagne consumption? Why, because it is World Toilet Day, of course!

Only two things in life are certain: death and taxes. When/if something pleasant does occur, therefore, one should seize the opportunity to celebrate! With, if at all possible, reckless abandon!

One thing that cheered us up recently was encountering a small boy who proclaimed his favourite colours to be pink and purple, and spent an inordinate amount of time making not only a mud pie, but a mud pear torte, and a darling mud vegetable soup with a blue plastic-cap garnish. This progressive small boy did all this while remaining totally un-harassed and un-bullied. Cred to his parents! Cred to his school! This brief, but by no means unimportant, encounter filled our heart with joy, and caused us to exclaim, jubilantly: "Take that, patriarchy! UP. YOUR. ASS."

The world is irrevocably fucked up in all manner of ways, but some things are becoming less fucked up, as illustrated by the parable about the small boy above. Another thing that is slowly improving is humanity's attitude to water and plumbing. More and more people are thinking about sanitation and water preservation. For instance, Feisty French Friend has promised us pictures of her soon-to-be-renovated bathrooms, which are going to incorporate water-saving sinks, and Bogsley Hansson Friend reports that the Arcola Theatre in London already has them!

Bogsley Hansson Friend writes:

The bog at the Arcola Theatre in London. Going to see The Rivals there in a bit. Had a nice DIY feel to it. And impressive curved combo bog / sink unit. Alas did not try it out in all its glory. Although have to have incredibly long arms to reach the bog roll. Or stand up. [Editor's note: You're not supposed to be standing up. You're supposed to be embracing riotous champagne-induced leglessness.]

Sturdy toilet roll holders also bring joy to our heart!

Woof! A water-saving sink! The water you wash your hands with is used to flush the toilet.

We just adore ventilation pipes, too.
This one is accompanied, Bogsley Hansson Friend insists, by mood lighting.
Let the dancing commence!

More than one person warmed our heart by sending us this link to a thought-provoking BBC article about toilets around the world. Billions of people don't have access to things that many of us take for granted - clean drinking water and somewhere safe to go to the toilet. Lack of sanitation holds economic development back, and causes untold suffering due to preventable, unnecessary diseases. However, lots of organisations are committed to improving sanitation around the world, for instance Oxfam, the Gates Foundation, Water Aid, and ToiletTwinning.
We think that's worth celebrating!

Let's have a riotously festive video! Yeahh!!

Festive video - Emmylou Harris, Two More Bottles of Wine

Related Reading
All previous Word Toilet Day posts:
World Toilet Day 2013 - Hurrah for Toilets, Even Crap Ones!
Why Today Is a Toiletally Important Day
World Toilet Day 2011 - Taking Our Baths and Our Women
It Finally Happened - World Toilet Day

A related story, incorporating the above-mentioned Feisty French Friend (who, by the way, is prone to literally forcing champagne down her friends' throats):
A Morally Improving Story for World Toilet Day

Another water-saving toilet at the Museum of Wine in Chinon, sent to us by Quasi-Intellectual Friend:
On the Nature of Academic Friendships

In other news:
CHRISTMAS IS COMING
Have you considered turning your back on mindless consumerism and instead benefiting mankind by spending a penny on Oxfam Unwrapped, WaterAid, or ToiletTwinning? Or why not donate to Amnesty International, or your local women's shelter?

Wales Cannot Wait

We actually have several very important things (some of which are champagne-related) to be getting on with, but it appears that Wales cannot wait. Bogsley Hansson Friend, continuing his tour de force, sent us exuberant photos from what we believe is a Wetherspoon's pub in Cardiff. The message read,

So apparently this is the greatest bathroom in Cardiff. If not all of Wales and the free world. With a couple of Welsh gangstaz - Deebo and Hev-5. Deebo's publicist (Hev-5) says if this doesn't end up on the blog "it is a travesty of justice".

No, we don't understand that, either. But, being eager to avoid travesties of justice, it seemed that the need to publish the following pictures was urgent. (Also, we're as prone to procrastination as the next man. Or most probably quite a lot more.)

Very festive baskets of flowers and bright, festive lights: a promising exterior!

Eager to have the opinion of someone whose judgement we trust, we asked a friend, who is intimately acquainted with Wales, what she thinks. The evaluation read: "When I used to go there, there was an ornate fountain in the Ladies'. Couldn't say if still there as it's been a few years, sorry!"
We love how the world is so small that one can ask a friend the opinion of a particular pub toilet in Cardifff,
where another friend has just been!

Bogsley Hansson Friend claims that this is a dance-off.

Extraordinary country, Wales, what? We haven't, regrettably, been to Wales a lot, but we do have very fond memories of an afternoon spent at Tesco's in Merthyr Tydfil. Anyway, Bogsley Hansson Friend assures us that there will be more drunken photos from Wales. We can only just contain ourselves - can you?

Let's have a festive video.

Festive video - Going up to Merthyr!

Related Reading
Bogsley Hansson Friend's last post from Wales: Capering Round Caerphillly Castle
More Wales-related alcohol consumption: Foul Play, Also Fowl Issues
On festive bus drivers: Of Mixer Taps and Spiritual Solace

Capering Round Caerphillly Castle

Bogsley Hansson Friend, having visited Caerphilly Castle, sent us some jovial pictures with which to delight end edify our readers. "Caerphilly" is one of our favourite words ever, being also, apart from a medieval castle with kick-arse bogs, a cheese. We love cheese an awful lot - though not, obviously, more than Elvis, or our mother. (An attempt to decide whether we love cheese more than mixer taps resulted in mass destruction and carnage being wreaked upon Privy Counsel HQ.)
We have previously explored the theme of the medieval garderobe in a post called The Royal Toilet at Kronborg: "A Foul and Pestilent Congregation of Vapours". Actually, we found even more photos of medieval toilets in our archive the other day, but then unfortunately there was a gust of wind, coming from where we know not, and the torch went out, and we had to crawl back to the office on our hands and knees, bumping into several unpleasant objects along the way. (At one  point, a skeletal hand grasped our calf. More on this in our Halloween special issue.) Those photos will therefore have to wait. In the meantime, enjoy these ones:

The traditional hole-in-a-plank set-up. Why deviate from a successful concept?

An edifying close-up of the hole. (Bogsley Hansson Friend is nothing if not considerate!)

Oooh, a charming mullioned window!

White walls, slanting sunlight - this is like something out of an interior design magazine!

We didn't get a commentary on these bogs, but we're assuming that these are the visitors' toilets.
Very nice they look, too.

Since the theme of today's blog post is medieval, let's add a photo sent to us by our favourite insane medievalist, Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend, who says, jauntily: "Best sign I've ever seen in a toilet."

If you, like us, spent all six seasons of The Sopranos wondering what in the name of arse cannoli actually is, wonder no more! "Cannoli are Italian pastry desserts. The singular is cannolo (or in the Sicilian language cannolu, plural cannola), meaning 'little tube', with the etymology stemming from the Latin 'canna', or reed." There.
(From Wikipedia, obvs.)

Today's festive video is about a man who likes going to the lavatory and, we suspect, doesn't much care what it looks like or whether it has mixer taps:

Festive video - Monty Python, Lumberjack Song

Related Reading
Another toilet in a Welsh castle: The Privy Counsel Book Club - At Home
A memorable pub evening, during which Wales was mentioned more than once:
Foul Play, Also Fowl Issues
More historic toilets:
The Historic Toilet Tour of York
The Royal Toilet at Kronborg: "A Foul and Pestilent Congregation of Vapours"
All posts on medieval plumbing

Pictorial Eloquence

Tally-ho! We've been busy as [insert industrious animal of choice], here at the Privy Counsel, running hither and thither, and probably other directions as well, and generally racking our brains, taxing our intellect, and engaging in a fury of cerebral activity. Our frantic industry has rendered us unable to tend to our bog blog with the attentiveness to which it is accustomed, and as a result, the pile of toilet pictures in our archive has grown to an alarming size. We suspect there are a couple of dwarves and a pheasant trapped in there - we can hear them muttering at night, and scratching the walls - but the sheer volume of pictures means we can't get in far enough to help them. A radical reorganisation seems indicated, and will definitely be executed as soon as we can spare the time. Any decade now, in fact.

In the meantime, here are some pictures that kind people have sent us recently, and which haven't even made it into the archive, having instead lain in a large unorganised pile on our desk, therefore being easy to find. Tally-ho, yoik, and all that.

Bogsley Hansson Friend sent us this festive greeting from Canada. A goose indicates to ladies that this is where they should head when nature calls, while a stag (below) performs the same office for gentlemen.

We could wax loquacious on the subject of gender stereotyping, but actually we're still really busy.

Tudor Friend calls these toilet-seat covers "classy and toilet-related".
We are unable to resist the temptation to consider them also "Elvis-related".

According to Semi-Intellectual Friend, this is an Iron Age toilet in Gurness.

A dear friend who we like to refer to, for reasons lost in the mists of time, as Uncle Sean,
sent us this picture, with the most eloquent caption:

"There I stood, poised at the urinal, zipper, hand, posture as you would expect,
with no further intention than relief, but there before me this artwork, this quote, edification."

We fucking love toilet poetry. If you find Uncle Sean's musings inspiring, you may want to check out
Danish Friend's bog poetry, or even Intellectual Friend's toilet graffiti.

Another thought-provoking contribution from Bogsley Hansson Friend, this time from Seattle.

Since we try to end all our  blog posts with a festive video, here is a most convivial clip of a highly festive Twitter acquaintance of ours, the Loo Tour Lady.

Festive video: The Loo Tour lady

Related Reading
If one gets too overworked, one can end up believing that one is a tiny, speckled hamster:
Safety at Work
If you enjoy the combination of archives and art: 
Blurry, Lop-Sided Archive Musings
Danish Friend's bog poetry:
Christmas 2013: Shetland Shithouses Part II. Umm, Poetry in Motion?

Intellectual Friend's bog graffiti:
The Intellectual Streak Continues: Leeds University Library Bogs, or, Yorkshire Graffitti