If You Can Meet with Triumph and Disaster

We like, at the Privy Counsel, to be seen as competent people. When you are a self-professed intellectual, you set your standards high. As we mentioned the other week, we did battle with a circuit breaker and came out of it covered in dust and spitting teeth. However, in most areas of life we like to think of ourselves as clued-up and capable. Our source criticism is rigid, our soap is the monkey-friendly kind, and we wouldn't dream of using a semi-colon where a colon is clearly indicated.

But sometimes you fail. Sometimes, you find yourself - to borrow a story from Caitlin Moran to furnish us with a metaphor - in a taxi, having accidentally poured neat clove oil into the eye of a celebrity, and trying to rinse it out with a can of lukewarm Lilt. It happens. Sometimes, no matter how competent you are generally, you will fuck up royally, and your cheeks will burn with shame. And that's ok. As we never tire of saying at the Privy Counsel, we are only human - and some of us barely that. It's totally fine to embarrass yourself and make people angry with your half-arsed blundering. As Our Favourite Aunt pointed out, you might even be doing them a favour - a brief cease-fire in your ordinary barrage of breathtaking skill and flair might be a nice break for everyone else, who has been feeling quietly inadequate in the light of your dazzling sufficiency.

We received a message from Tudor Friend, that purveyor of toilet news good and bad, accompanied by a link to this article about a brewery that has revolutionary toilets.  The toilets mentioned embody, we think, the trope of the high ambition sadly trampled by an utter failure to achieve high standards. Tudor Friend said:

God, would you ever have thought, when you started your blog/fascination, that TOILETS would suddenly become an issue on everyone's lips?* (That... that sounds wrong, now that I read it again. But I'm leaving it because maybe you need a giggle.) Anyway, curious about your thoughts on this- it doesn't solve the horrible-hipster-at-the-sink problem, but it does seem to offer everyone a modicum of privacy in a fairly equitable fashion (I have never understood how guys can stand next to one another and wee!!). 

It's not quite the Eden of actual separate fully-plumbed gender-neutral toilet rooms, and it would be a lot better if the stalls ran right up to the roof to create something closer to separate space, but I have to give them credit for trying to find a fix, as I fear individual complete bathrooms are never going to catch on financially. (I also rather like that it doesn't appear to have mirrors. I'm kind of okay with de-primpifying bathrooms and making us think less about how we look all the time, but that might just be me.)

The toilets in the Optimism Brewery, in Seattle
Image: thestranger.com.

Although we revere Tudor Friend's opinions to the the point of near-idolatry, in this matter, we don't agree. The story of the above brewery toilet has been bandied about on social media as the dernier cri in inclusive toilet-related equality of late. However, we have several reservations.

First of all, why bother with urinals at all? If one of the reasons for having a gender-integrated bathroom was that guys have more stalls than girls, why then make half the stalls in said gender-integrated bathroom unavailable to women? (Unless of course all the womenfolk are packing a shewee. We really hope they are.) We frankly don't see the point.

Secondly, the stalls, although seemingly made of sturdy, noise-insulating wood, don't, as Tudor Friend points out, go all the way to the ceiling. Can this horror cease now, please? Bathroom stalls need to ensure privacy, and that includes being noise-insulating.

Thirdly - and we can't believe we are still having to point this out - NOBODY WANTS TO ELBOW THEIR WAY THROUGH A SEA OF BEARDED HIPSTERS TO GET TO THE SINK. We cannot stress this enough.

Regarding the mirror issue, we see the sense of Tudor Friend's stance and would dearly love to be able to agree, but being fanatic wearers of eyeliner and obsessors of hair, we really, really, really want a mirror available in the bathroom.

In conclusion: No to non-noise-insulating stalls. No to bearded hipsters. Yes to safe spaces and mirrors. Full points to the owners of the Optimism Brewing Company for wanting to provide toilets that are safe for everyone, and friendly to trans people. We really, really appreciate it. But alas, we cannot bring ourselves to approve.

We move, now, into the realm of poetry. Readers, brace yourselves.

Quite a useful poem to remember odd snippets of when you are flailing wildly, making odd squeaking noises and spectacularly failing to impress people is Rudyard Kipling's "If". This poem was written by Kipling in 1910, and made popular by Helen Fielding in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, from 1999. Bridget Jones finds comfort in this poem when in a very sticky situation indeed, musing:

Poem is good. Very good, almost like self-help book. Maybe that is why Mark Darcy gave it to me! Maybe he sensed I might get into danger! Or maybe he was just trying to tell me something about my attitude. Bloody cheek. Not sure about sixty seconds' worth of distance run anyway, or if actually want to be man. Also is a bit hard to treat this disaster the same as triumphs as have not had any triumphs that can think of, but still. Will force heart and nerve and sinew to serve turn, etc. in manner of First World War or jungle soldier or whatever Rudyard Kipling was and just hold on. 

(Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. London: Picador, 1999) 

The poem itself, in all its "lip stiff and upper" glory, goes like this:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—not lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a man, my son!

As Caitlin Moran pointed out, this is a very useful poem - if you are a man. If you happen not to be a man (a calamity affecting roughly 50 % of the population), there is no poem specifically designed to make you feel better when you are panicking about a press release you wrote that contained factual errors. There is no poem to calm you down when you've spilled mayonnaise AND red wine on a yellow satin skirt. There is no poem containing guidance on how to change your tampon in the toilet of a moving train. However, Caitlin Moran has changed all that! Here, for your delight and edification, is Caitlin Moran's "The Woman's If".

Festive Video - Caitlin Moran, "If" I Were a Woman

Now, we recommend that you all chill the fuck down, stop worrying about that time when you accidentally poured boiling water on someone's foot, and spend the weekend watching Outlander and drinking whisky.

*We can't remember having any thoughts at all around the time we started this bog blog, but no, as far as we remember, we were the only people in the entire world, at the time, who cared about the quality of toilets. We certainly didn't expect transphobia to make toilets an international news item.

Related Reading
All posts featuring Tudor Friend
All posts featuring unisex toilets
All posts featuring gender equality
All posts featuring Caitlin Moran
All posts featuring Our Favourite Aunt

The Bottom Line Is, There's a Copper-Bottomed Approach to Jeans. Bottoms Up!

So it turns out other people actually manage to wear skirts, and even dresses. (If you haven't read it already, see our rant about the impossibility of wearing skirts (and also jeans) here.) We were having a conversation with some rampant feminazi friends of ours the other day about the struggle to allineate feminazism with the real world. It went like this:

Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend: I like to keep the scales balanced by listening to rap music but never shaving my armpits. 

The Privy Counsellor: We shave our armpits but take a manly interest in plumbing. 

Friend of Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend: I scowl at male babies and drop the word "patriarchy" into casual conversation. But I wear dresses.

Note, here, a) the balancing act that is required to perform gender in a socially acceptable way while staying reasonably sane and maintaining a modicum of comfort, and b) the fact that there are people out there who manage to wear things, perhaps even with tights. However, we find comfort in the fact that Bridget Jones, like us, finds it hard to wear skirts without them riding up:

12.15 p.m. Was bloody Richard Finch yelling: "Bridget. This isn't arseing Care in the Community. It is a television production office meeting. If you must stare out of the window, at least try to do it without sliding that pen in and out of your mouth. So can you do that?"
   "Yes," I said sulkily, putting the pen down on the table.
   "No, not can you take the pen out of your mouth, can you find me a Middle-England, middle-class voter, fifty plus, own home, who is in favour?"
   "Yes, no problem," I breathed airily, thinking I could ask Patchouli in favour of what later.
   "In favour of what?" said Richard Finch.
   I gave him a really quite enigmatic smile. "I think you might find you've answered your own question there," I said. "Male or female?"
   "Both," said Richard sadistically, "one of each."
   "Straight or gay?" I exoceted back.
   "I said Middle England," he snarled witheringly. "Now get on the bloody phone, and try to remember to put a skirt on in future, you're distracting my team."
   Honestly, as if they would take any bloody notice as they are all obsessed with their careers and it is not that short, it had just ridden up.
   Patchouli says it is in favour of the European or single currency, which she thinks means either. Oh fuck, oh fuck. Right. Ah, telephone. That'll be the Shadow Treasury press office.  

(Fielding, Helen. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. London: Picador, 1999. Pp. 80-81)

Luckily, there may be hope for womankind after all. After our recent rant, Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend sent us a sympathetic message about the secret to wearing jeans. It said:

It's hard, this feminism lark, isn't it? Also, my advice re jeans buying. Buy the pair that comfortably fit your legs and arse, and take those motherfuckers in at the waist.

For all fat-bottomed girls out there, this is the only way. I've not bought a pair of pants in ten years that I haven't performed this quick operation upon. Much less stressful!

We have taken these words to heart. Finally, a sensible approach to wearing jeans while maintaining all of one's vital bodily functions! Hurrah! Bottoms up!

We reckon some hardy toilets from a tough, male environment would come in handy right about now. The following photos are from Carspect, a vehicle safety inspection garage in Svågertorp, Sweden. The photographer is Our Mum, who is very ladylike, but totally has this tyre-changing thing down. She also deals with other traditionally male areas like leaky pipes, Latin grammar, and rodent infestations, with style, pizazz, and even brio.

We enjoy this festive green floor and covered toilet-roll holder. There is also disability-friendliness happening,
and the bin is at a very comfortable distance from the toilet.

A lovely sink with a lovely mixer tap, a lovely empty bin, lovely paper towels,
and a lovely, sturdy coat hook on which you can hygienically hang your handbag. Woof!
(See another toilet we enjoyed, that had a very empty bin, here.)

You knew what the festive video was gonna be, didn't you? YEAH.

Festive video - Queen, Fat-Bottomed Girls

Related Reading

Ten Things That Feminism Has Ruined for Me (Guardian article)

A blog post about all the ways in which tights can gang up on you and ruin your day (from Mytightswontstayup.com)

Our massive rant about jeans: All Mouth and No Trousers - Sichuan Food in Singapore

Our most Bridget Jones-esque post ever: "Drunken Routs, in Which More Things Were Broken Than Heads and Furniture, Sister!"

Another post about shamelessly plagiarising other people's words: Coasting Along: Saving Time and Effort by Plagiarising Our Friends. Also Some Otters.

To be honest, there are quite a few of these. Here's another one: Rampant Titillation - Basically, a Real-Life Epistolary Novel!

There Is Too Much Going On. This Blog Post Will Probably Give You a Migraine.

Following the dramatic reduction in mansplaining levels after our recent rant*, we had intended to spend some time indulging in the kind of hardcore intellectual pursuits which we complained the other day that we were prevented from getting down to, due to being permanently pissed off, because of all the mansplaining. But, as is often the way, we received word of a most exciting cleanliness campaign in India, the festiveness levels of which caused us to yearn, ache and long for tending to our beloved blog.

In a drive called Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, efforts are being made to improve sanitation in India. As anyone who has ever inhaled the smell of sewage, coming from what is supposed to be a river, knows, this is a really, really, really good idea. According to one source,

A United Nations report in May said half of India's population still practises open defecation - putting them at risk of cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid. The resulting diseases and deaths cause major economic losses, and a World Bank report in 2006 estimated that India was losing 6.4 percent of GDP annually because of poor access to sanitation.

Another source tells us that "At least 30 lakh [Editor's comment: that is, if we remember rightly, three million] central government employees working across the country and hundreds of school and college students will take the pledge of cleanliness at different functions". If you've had a rough day and need cheering up, have a look at these pictures, from the Times of India, of said government employees doing just that! We're not sure what the brooms are supposed to accomplish, but you can't deny that any effort to improve sanitation in "the subcontinent" (as India is always, irritatingly, called whenever a journalist needs a synonym for "India" and can't think of one) is worthy of a massive HURRAH!

One Indian administrative officer has reportedly cleaned his office every day since 1993. Every day. Since 1993. You can imagine how clean it must be! This sign, outside his office, purportedly provides information on how often the dude cleans his office, and how long he has been doing it for.

*Said reduction in mansplaining could also be due to the fact that we have been too busy to actually talk to anyone.

We could have ended this blog post here, but why should we?  Remember Exuberant Archaeologist Friend's spirited account from Rome? Let's have more of that! (Also, we know that several of our friends are eager to improve their Scandiwegian, and we reckon this is a golden opportunity for them to brush up on their colloquial Swedish.)

Här är nästa skörd:

De första är från de kapitolinska museerna. Det saknades toalettring på ALLA toaletter. Fanns inga krokar, så det var tur att [min man] var med och kunde hålla grejerna. Tvålet var bra, luktade supergott. Det verkar som att de lagt alla pengar på väldoftande tvål istället för på toalettringar. Skabbigt deluxe.

(Here is the next crop: 

The first ones are from the Capitoline Museums. There were no seats on ANY of the toilets. There were no coat hooks, so it was lucky that [my husband] was there and could hold all my stuff. The soap was good; it smelled really nice. It seems they spent the entire budget on fragrant soap instead of toilet seats. Minging deluxe.)

We like these taps, but this kind of modern basin gives us the shivers:
surely it makes it really hard for the cleaners?

We usually reason, pragmatically, that a toilet that HAS NO FUCKING SEAT is actually more hygienic,
as the surface which can be dirtied is smaller.
It is still no pleasure having to use a toilet with NO FUCKING SEAT, though, obviously.

Oh, dear. A pipe disappearing into the wall?
We're stupendously glad that we won't be around when this set-up, inevitably, goes to shit and has to be repaired.

Nästa är från ett kafé vid Piazza Navona; Tre Scalini. Jämfört med alla andra toaletter i Rom så var detta ett högteknologiskt tempel. OCH DET FANNS EN RING!! Dessutom reste den sig automatiskt när man ställt sig upp och sprutade sedan ut sanitetsvätska på ringen**. Utmärkt. Tvålet luktade gott. Detta var den klart bästa toaletten.

Mer följer!

(The next set of pictures is from a café at the Piazza Navona, Tre Scalini. Compared to all the other toilets in Rome, this was a temple of high-tech. AND THERE WAS A SEAT!! Also, it was folded up automatically when you got up, and sanitiser was sprayed onto the seat**. Excellent. The soap smelled nice. This was totally the best toilet. 

There is more coming!)

**Because we weren't sure how this worked, we asked for clarification, and were given the following explanation:

Sanitetsvätskan sprutades lite snett uppåt så att det skulle typ falla ner på ringen när den rest sig. Vätskan kom från den delen av toaletten där spolknappen skulle ha suttit om det varit EN NORMAL TOALETT!

(The sanitiser was sprayed sideways upwards, in order to fall onto the seat when it had been folded up. The fluid came from the part of the toilet where the flush button would normally be, if it had been A NORMAL TOILET!)

The toilets in the Tre Scalini café in Rome: laudably hygienic!

WE LOVE TOILET SIGNAGE CLARITY

There is no hot water, but on the other hand there is no non-mixer tap insanity happening, either.

Another pipe in the wall.

These instructions are very, very clear.

We bloody love covered tissue!

Did the mention of the Piazza Navona set off a bell in our head? Did it ever? Bridget Jones is a label on this blog, after all, so here, for your reading pleasure, is an extract from The Edge of Reason (as in the book, obviously. The film, as every right-thinking person knows, doesn't count):

"Hello, Bridget, this is Colin Firth." We all jumped a foot backwards. It was Mr Darcy. The same posh, deep, can't-be-bothered voice that he proposed to Elizabeth Bennet in on the BBC. Bridget. Me. Mr Darcy said Bridget. On my answerphone.
"I gather you're coming to Rome to interview me on Monday," he went on. "I was calling to arrange somewhere to meet. There's a square called the Piazza Navona, sort of easy place to find in a taxi. I'll meet you about 4.30 by the fountain. Have a safe journey."
"1471, 1471," gabbled Jude, "1471, quick, quick. No, get the tape out, get the tape out!"
"Call him back," screamed Sharon like an SS torturer. "Call him back and ask him to meet you in the fountain. OhmyGod."
The phone had rung again, we stood there rigid, mouths open. Then Tom's voice boomed out, "Hello, you pretty little things, it's Mr Darcy here just calling to see if anyone could help me out of this wet shirt."

(Helen Fielding, The Edge of Reason. London: Picador, 1999, 159-160)

We reckon this is as good a time as any to revisit the wet-shirt-scene from Pride and Prejudice.

Festive video: Pride and Prejudice, wet-shirt-scene


Related Reading
A Mr Darcy Pin-Up: It Is Tolerable, We Suppose - A Privy Counsel Pick-Me-Up
And another one: Privy Counsel Pin-Up - Colin Firth
All previous Bridget Jones-related posts
All posts from India
All posts from Italy
Up in the Air - Introducing Exuberant Archaeologist Friend
More information on why sanitation is so important:
Good Deeds
Oxfam Build a Bog

A Life-Affirming Experience

Hangovers, in our experience, are great for creativity. Nothing inspires rampant joie de vivre as much as the feeling of the vicious clog-dancing trolls departing from the inside of one's head, and the ability to actually hold down food. It is also, in our opinion, a meditative experience to lie in bed a whole day, thinking about nothing, and doing, crucially, absolutely fuck-all, lest one set off an avalanche of bodily fluids. It is a great exercise in remaining philosophical in the face of adversity: we should all do it more often. After all, as Lord Byron probably said, "There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion".

We developed, during our most recent hangover, a desire to share with the world the lovely toilet photo that a friend sent us from Iceland. This picture is called Diagonal toilet, and comes in two versions: "hipster bleak" and "artistic black and white". As usual we're publishing both, being fundamentally unable to make decisions.

As Bridget Jones so memorably said, "I don't want to be tortured. I want to lie on the bathroom floor with my head near the toilet bowl, like normal people". This looks like an excellent floor for being normal on.

Rarrr! Do you feel the artistic juices flowing?

Let's have a jolly festive video. Then we're off to bathe the burst blood vessels round our eyes with lavender water.


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Festive video: Monty Python, Philosophers' Song

Related reading
Another memorable hangover: Tømmermænd at Café Jorden, or, Sleepless in Aarhus, or, Fear and Loathing in Jutland

One of Monkey's worst hangovers ever: The-Day-After-the-Night-Before Toilet Musings

Another instance of us being unable to choose between two photos: Arachne-Philia and German-Induced Euphoria
The German Existentialist Toilet is possibly our favourite toilet ever, and is also hangover-related: The German Existentialist Toilet Is, Perhaps, Here

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Copenhagen

As regular readers may remember, we spent some time in Copenhagen last year, with Australian Friend. In fact, Australian Friend, a keen patron of art and science, funded our stay in a luxurious hotel! We seem to remember doing all kinds of fun things, like going to a kick-arse concert, ogling naked Greeks [in the shape of statues], eating burgers, and accidentally brutally getting into the Tivoli gardens for free! (Like the name and address of our lovely mystery celebrity, information on how to accidentally brutally get into the Tivoli gardens for free is available to the highest bidder.)

Lovely red toiletries - what's not to like!

Exemplary clean and stylish sink

We love black tiles! And water-saving toilets!
(Did you know that the water-saving flush is an Australian invention?)

We are pleased to note that the toilet roll lives up
to the Olivia Joules Hotel Criteria (not that we personally give a damn).

Shower with mixer tap - we couldn't agree more!

The Crowne Plaza hotel has, apparently, some serious green credentials ("That's environmentally green, Bridget," said Richard Finch, "not green coloured"), to which one can only say hurrah!

Crowne Plaza Hotel
Ørestads Boulevard 114-118
2300 Copenhagen
Denmark
http://www.cpcopenhagen.dk

Related Reading
Literary Hotel Musings
Reminiscences of Nice
Blogging Something Rotten
Waltzing around Amalienborg
Sing If You're Glad to Be a Dane

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.)

The-Day-After-the-Night-Before Toilet Musings

There was quite a party in the jungle last night, and today Monkey, quoting Bridget Jones, just wants to be left with his head near the toilet, like normal people. We'll leave him to it.

Happy new year, everyone!

Good Deeds Galore! Oxfam Unwrapped: Build a Bog

Today we find an excuse to start with our favourite Bridget Jones quote:

Dread the exchange of presents with friends as, unlike with the family, there is no way of knowing who is and isn’t going to give and whether gifts should be tokens of affection or proper presents, so all becomes like hideous exchange of sealed bids.  Two years ago I bought Magda lovely Dinny Hall earrings, rendering her embarrassed and miserable because she hadn’t bought me anything.  Last year, therefore, I didn’t get her anything and she bought me an expensive bottle of Coco Chanel.  This year I bought her a big bottle of Saffron Oil with Champagne and a distressed wire soap dish, and she went into a complete grump muttering obvious lies about not having done her Christmas shopping yet.

(Bridget Jones’s Diary, Fielding 1996, 293)

It has recently come to our attention that there are worse privations in life than having to use a toilet with a cumbersome horizontal lever flush, or opening doors with your elbow to avoid touching door handles after the OCD voices in your head have made you wash your hands three times.  These privations, our sources tell us, include not having a toilet at all, or not having clean water to drink, never mind wash your hands with.  Luckily, however, there are clever people working night and day to overcome these privations, building toilets and doing good deeds left, right and centre!  And not only do these good and clever people build toilets, they can also help you reduce stress this Christmas!

If you're struggling to think of what to give loved ones for Christmas, Oxfam will sort it for you!  Buy their “Build a Bog” card (£50), and someone you love gets a lovely card and a warm fuzzy feeling inside, and a toilet-deprived person receives a toilet!  How's that for multitasking!  If your finances don't quite stretch to building a bog, the Oxfam Unwrapped gifts give you many other options, for instance “Safe Water” (£9), “Hygiene Kit” (£14),  “Rainwater Collection” (£18), and “Fix a Well” (£22). We are all guilty of buying presents just for the sake of it, thus perpetuating the guilt-fuelled cycle of giving away unwanted presents. This wastes energy and increases landfill. But with Oxfam Unwrapped, you don't generate any plastic!

Isn't it fantastic!  You can now stop worrying about Christmas presents, and instead walk around with that smug, serene feeling of having done a good deed!  So practise your Princess Diana smile, give a friend a lovely card and a warm feeling inside, and give Hygeia, the goddess of health, sanitation and hygiene, a helping hand!

Build a Bog: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-unwrapped-diy/OU5008WS

Oxfam unwrapped: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-unwrapped

Also, remember that Friday is World Toilet Day! For more information, and a luscious quote by Stephen Fry, see the Wateraid website: http://www.wateraid.org/uk/get_involved/world_toilet_day/default.asp

Christmas is coming, but there's no need to panic!

Bridget Jones quote:

Fielding, Helen. Bridget Jones’s Diary. London: Picador, 1996.