Saturday Shenanigans at Saks

If you're sitting there slurping your coffee, overcome by ennui and trying to figure out what the hell to do with your Saturday, we have the solution. Eschew the outdoors - beautiful weather is overrated and will most likely either end abruptly and rain all over your expensive new haircut, or give you skin cancer. Not good. Instead, head to Saks in Harrogate - the toilets are to die for! Canadian Friend sent us these pictures, saying, "The toilets were quite chi-chi but I guess that is to be expected at a salon. Still, I thought you might like them."

We don't approve of the unhygienically uncovered toilet-roll, naturally,
but everything else looks wonderfully all right!

You could have knocked us over with a sledgehammer when we spotted this - a mixer-tap!

My, my, is that soap AND lotion we spy?

 Not having seen this ourselves we are unable to award points, but let us conclude that this seems like an excellent and enjoyable toilet!

Saks Beauty
29 Cheltenham Crescent
Harrogate, HG1 1DH
Tel: 01423 569006

Handwashing with Elvis

Yesterday we received an urgent message from Canadian Friend. It read, "Listen to BBC 2. They've been talking about toilets all morning! You could call in!" Unfortunately, "phoning in to radio stations" does not even feature on our list of favourite amusements. However, we still thought that the idea behind the programme was brilliant - apparently the guys and dolls at the BBC rocked away with toilet-related songs!
We intend to continue the rock'n'roll theme of our last update and shamelessly steal the BBC's concept. Hence, let us start the weekend as we mean to go on and rock the night away with the Privy Counsel's very first toilet-related song, I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water, by Elvis Presley!

At the Privy Counsel, we love Elvis only slightly less than we love mixer-taps, our mothers, and chocolate-chip ice-cream. Read more about him here (this is one of our favourite blog updates ever, so treat it with reverence).

Elvis washing
his hands

Elvis getting physical
with some water

Elvis Presley - I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water

I was born in Macon, Georgia
They kept my daddy over in Macon jail
He told me if you keep your hands clean
You won't hear them bloodhounds on your trail

Well, I fell in with bad companions
Robbed a man, oh up in Tennessee
They caught me way up in Nashville
They locked me up and threw away the key

I washed my hands in muddy water
Washed my hands, but they didn't come clean
Tried to do what my daddy told me
But I must have washed my hands in a muddy stream
 
Well, I asked the judge now when's my time up
He said son, oh you know we won't forget
If you try just to keep your hands clean
We might just make a good man of you yet

Oh, I couldn't wait to get my time up
I broke out, broke out of Nashville jail
I just crossed the state-line of Georgia
Well I can hear those bloodhounds on my trail

I washed my hands in muddy water
Washed my hands, but they didn't come clean
Tried to do what my daddy told me
But I must have washed my hands in a muddy stream

Related Reading
Handwashing Extravaganza
Dirty People: We Wash Our Hands of Them

Hurrah! It's Monday!

At the Privy Counsel, we are firm believers in the edict that it's not the chocolate cake you're dealt, but how much rum you have with it that determines how much fun you have in the game of life. At Privy Counsel HQ, it's been absolutely pissing down with rain for weeks on end, we spent most of the weekend wrestling with a sabre-toothed tiger of a hangover that damn near made us go all extinct, and now, to top things off, it's sodding well Monday morning. So we decided to jazz up this hellish state of things with a pair of PINK FLAMINGOES! This is the toilet belonging to Canadian Friend's Canadian friend, in Winnipeg! Canadian Friend's Canadian friend got some plastic flamingoes to brighten up the garden with, and discovered that they worked just as well in the bathroom!

Will this be the hottest interior design trend this year?

We have turned absolutely pink with delight! "Hurrah!", say we, "and bring on the rest of the week!"

Privy Counsel Family Values

You will be relieved to know that the risk of us running out of bog roll here at the Privy Counsel is, for the moment at least, significantly reduced. We went shopping with Canadian Friend yesterday, and were delighted to find this ENORMOUS pack of toilet roll - 24 rolls for £8! Luckily, Canadian Friend has a car...

We are not overly enamoured with the Sainsbury's own-brand toilet tissue - it's bleached and comes in unpleasant colours. But at least it's FSC-marked.

Just as George the Prince Regent enjoyed enormous trousers,
so the Privy Counsel enjoys enormous packs of bog roll

Bach's Bog - Handwashing and Harmony

 Canadian Friend went to Germany to visit a friend, who has since mysteriously become obsessed with toilets. Welcome to the fold, Canadian Friend's German friend!
These two pals went to visit the historical houses of many distinguished Germans, for instance Goethe, Schiller and Bach. Bach's house turned out to have very interesting toilets, and we are delighted to show you Johann Sebastian's actual bog!

Bach's actual bog! Says Canadian Friend philosphically: "His poo actually dropped there and he probably piddled on that seat, if he was like other men. But he wasn't, he was a genius!!
And if he peed with the dexterity that he played the organ, he probably had excellent aim."

Imagine! This man used that toilet!

Images from the museum toilets, which seem very modern and excellent:

An admirable coat-hook

Canadian Friend: "These toilets really were spotless and spiffy."
Water-saving flush and covered bin, though the loo roll is only half-covered, alas!

A mixer-tap and roll-away towel - we weep with joy!

A polite notice to turn the tap off:
"Liebe Besucher, wir Bitten Sie, den Wasserhahn nach Gebrauch zu schließen. Vielen Dank!"

 As you can see, these are absolutely tip-top toilets 
and get a gob-smacking twelve points!

Well done, Germany!

Related Reading
All Posts by German Friend
Blogging Something Rotten

The Keen Cast of Toilet Tales

As we doubt not that our vigilant and intelligent readers have noticed, there has been an addition to the Toilet Tales cast! Canadian Friend kindly presented us with Tubby the Bathtub, who starred in the gripping drama Jane Eyre - Plunging into Passion, the other day. We thought we'd introduce the full cast, for your edification and delight!

From left to right: Tubby the Bathtub, Flushie the Toilet, and Professor Plunger

The knitting patterns of these fabulous creatures are available here.

Safe Water for Ten People

We are working on a rather exciting blog update today, for you edification and delight, but in the meantime, let us just boast that Canadian Friend kindly gave us Safe water for ten people for Christmas! Thank you, Canadian friend!

Knitting-Pattern Good Looks: A Very Handsome Toilet

In our last update we mentioned toilet-related crafts, specifically toilet-paper origami. Canadian Friend went one step further and KNITTED A TOILET. This is, apparently, Flushie the Toilet and Professor Plunger (knitting instructions here).

Gobsmacking: A knitted toilet. And plunger.

Our jaw has dropped so far we resemble nothing so much as a slack-jawed yokel: we are awed to the point of speechlessness.

Respect, Canadian Friend!

'Twas the Night before World Toilet Day

Don't worry, we intend to amaze and dazzle you with a spectacular story tomorrow, to celebrate World Toilet Day! (It's only once a year, so you might as well mark the day with a bang.)
In the meantime, Canadian Friend has been hiking, and engaging in covert toilet journalism! Here's what she says:

Here are the Swainby loos from the pub there. I can't remember the name of the pub. I think it had the word horse in the name.
These loos were very clean, classy and elegant. It was a pleasure to pee there.

According to our friend Wikipedia, the pub was most likely The Black Horse, and very nice it looks too.

A classy decoration of some kind

Woof! A mixer tap and a creepy mannequin! What more can you ask on the night before World Toilet Day?

We love disabled toilets - they're always cleaner, better and less annoying than ordinary toilets

We don't however, love separated taps. Please stop this nuisance.

Canadian Friend, armed with dog and poo bags, enjoying the scenery around Swainby

At the risk of contradicting ourselves: lots of style points for the classy toilets and the mixer tap, and lots of minus points for the separated taps! Woof!

Trust the National Trust to Have an Alright Toilet

 We are indebted to Canadian Friend for this update. The below pictures are from the National Trust Tea Room in York. Our friend was most impressed with this toilet which, although bog-standard and by no means fancy, has a mixer-tap, covered toilet-roll holder, well-filled soap dispenser and coat-hook! Moreover, this is a disability toilet (which might be the reason it's got a mixer tap), so everyone can have a go. The flush handle, however, looks like a traditional British flush requiring large mechanical strength to turn, and therefore disability-hostile.

Covered bin which doesn't look as though it would get uncomfortably close, and a covered bog-roll holder. However, the flush handle looks like it might not be easily manoeuvrable, and therefore it might not be disability-friendly

A mixer-tap!

Paper towel dispenser. Paper towels are hygienic, and much preferable to air-dryers, unless of course there is a hygienic, low-energy one available (read more about them here)

This looks like an excellent coat-hook. And the door opens outwards!

We meant to quote a Morrissey song which we seem to remember having the words "National Trust" in it, but we're too hungover to remember which one it might be. If you happen to know, please drop us a line.

Since we haven't been to this toilet ourselves we find it hard to review, but we estimate that it gets roughly 9 points out of 17.

National Trust Tea Rooms
30 Goodramgate
York YO1 2LG
01904 659282
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk

We Enjoy Ourselves, If Not Royally, So at Least Ducally

 Our life has been pretty rich in social events lately. We even went to a club one night, returning home no earlier than 2 am - pretty rock'n'roll for a provincial town! The club in question is called The Duchess, and is extremely rich in rocking and rolling.
We have very little experience of clubs in provincial towns, but one thing is certain: the toilets in this one are a godsend to the pissed! We have in all honesty never seen a cleaner club toilet - this is very different from the seedy London establishments we used to frequent in our salad days! One could, without giving the matter a second thought, kneel on these floors and place one's head in the vicinity of the toilet bowl, then return to the dancefloor without worrying about bits of rotting rats' corpses sticking to one's hair.

We didn't, in all honesty, expect anything other than separate taps.
The sink was extremely clean, though, and the soap in plentiful supply.

We didn't in all honesty expect anything other than an air-dryer either.
Check out the emptied bin and the clean floors, though!

The pièce de résistance: the toilet! So clean! Covered loo roll holder,
and even a bloody toilet brush, indication that these toilets are actually cleaned, probably even regularly!

Alas: there was once a coat-hook here!

Canadian Friend striking a Debbie Harry pose in the toilet, and looking so hot we had to mask her identity for fear of love-struck males setting up camp outside her house!

Unfortunately the taps, air-dryer and lack of coat-hooks drag the score down so low we are loath to post it, as we really enjoyed ourselves and had a cracking time in the toilets!
If you fancy a night out on the tiles we really can't recommend the Duchess enough - the staff are friendly, the music is great, and the toilets really, really, really clean!

The Duchess
Stonebow House
York YO1 7NP
http://theduchessyork.co.uk/index

Re-Cycling at the Blue Bicycle

We would of course never detract from the intellectual and artistic value of Semi-Intellectual Friend's reportage from the Blue Bicycle, but we were lucky enough to end up there ourselves, after a drink or four, with a very dear friend from Canada (whom we may have mentioned in a previous update), and thought we'd share our increasingly erratic thoughts with those desperate enough to care.
The Blue Bicycle is a gem of a restaurant, bursting with yummy food (especially the bread, which made us erupt into distressingly Homer Simpson-esque behaviour), fantastic staff (who gallantly remained polite and friendly despite our increasingly, erm, jolly behaviour), and delicious soap, but we do wish they'd reconsider the colour of their toilet walls.

Lovely Molton Brown stimulated our soap glands

Sigh. Although we approve of the general layout of the toilet,
we find ourselves unable to approve of either the uncovered toilet rolls
or the unfortunate colour of the walls

An unspeakably vulgar statuette, which we hope and pray is ironic

A perfectly decent bin, sink and second bin, but the taps make us want
to tear our hair out and kill small, fluffy animals slowly

A gratuitous soap-and-lotion glamour shot

Nothing offensive about this tissue shelf

Film icons and ancient fan

Despite the extra point earned for providing lotion as well as soap, and the said soap being extremely luscious and yummy, we can only award 7 points out of 17. Separated taps and uncovered bog roll drag you down, folks.
We cannot speak highly enough of the staff, though, and the food is seriously delicious. Ghhllllllhhhhhlll.


The Blue Bicycle Restaurant
34 Fossgate
York, YO1 9TA.
Tel: 01904 673990
info@thebluebicycle.com

Fountains Abbey: A Fun Day Out But Dear Oh Dear, Those Taps

Since we've been toiling away and leading a most mundane and ordinary existence recently, we're too knackered to cook up an enraged rant or a fascinating new toilet fact, and so, dear readers, you'll have to make do with leftovers from the archive today.
We made an excursion to Fountains Abbey some time ago, with a dear friend from Canada. It was a most splendid and awesome day: we saw cows, a Saxon arch, wild garlic, and a Georgian folly. Oh, and toilets, of course!

A most admirable and sturdy coat-hook

Clean, but the bin's a bit too close and the flush is a disability-hostile lever

The bog roll is hygienically covered and plain white

Forgive them, for they know not what they do: your average British public toilet taps

A curious arrangement of unhygienic and energy-consuming hand-dryers...

...however, as well as hand-dryers there was some tissue

Fountains Abbey: How it might have looked in days of yore, before the Reformation

Even with an extra point for the spurious claim of providing nice soap, these toilets are positively medieval and gain a meagre 4 points out of 17.