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

Joy in the Morning, Afternoon, and Well into the Night: Caitlin Moran in a Bathroom

We have had occasion to quote, in a previous post, P. G. Wodehouse's Bible paraphrase "Joy, joy, joy in the morning and joy, joy, joy in the afternoon". Well, prepare to clap your hands in unbridled joy again, 'cause we're up to our eyeballs in fabulousness!
We are thrilled to have discovered, probably by accident (our memory being overloaded, we honestly can't remember what the hell we were googling when we found it), a video with Caitlin Moran IN A BATHROOM! Oh, joy of joyous joys, spring must finally be on its way if fabulous things are allowed to happen in this unrestrained manner! We are extra pleased to have figured out the video function on this blog interface thingummajig, since it allows us to encase Caitlin Moran in a possessive, we-knew-about-her-first, hands-off-she's-ours kind of way. Anyway, enough verbal diarrhoea, here's the video of Caitlin Moran IN A BATHROOM:



God, wasn't that just fabulous? Well, quite! And guess what? THERE'S MORE:



Since the above videos feature a celebrity in a bathroom, we're taking the liberty of putting the label "Privy-Counsel Pin-Up" on this post, the current definition of a Privy Counsel Pin-Up being, as regular readers will be aware, "a picture of a celebrity in the bath. Any celebrity, any bath. We're not picky". Also, we reckon our Pin-Ups boast a fair amount of gender equality, and gender equality and fabulousness are what Caitlin Moran is all about!

Oh, joy! Caitlin Moran being a kick-arse feminist - in a bathroom!
Image from img.youtube.com

Related Reading
Sisters Standing up for Themselves
Celebrity Toilet Premiere
Toilet Song: Hitting the Bathtub Gin with Amy
Taking a Gander at Greatness
Taps, Wine and Elvis

A Festive Update

We don't know about you, but we intend to have ourselves one hell of a weekend! In order to share the hilarity we thought we'd do a festive update, which we're writing in advance, as we'll be far too busy having fun to write blog updates!

Image from Profilebrand

We've mentioned Chopper Read and his memorable mantra, Harden The Fuck Up, in the odd post before. We find it inspiring. Now, we are pleased to announce that we have managed to make a not-too tenuous celebrity toilet connection to Chopper Read! Here's a concentrated version of the Chopper Read Wikipedia entry:

"When he was still young, Read was already an accomplished street fighter and the leader of the Surrey Road gang. He began his criminal career by robbing drug dealers, based in massage parlours in the Prahran area. He later graduated to kidnapping and torturing members of the criminal underworld, often using a blowtorch or bolt cutters to remove the toes of his victims as an incentive for them to produce enough money so that Read would leave them alive.
[...] Around this time, Read had a fellow inmate cut both of his (Read's) ears off in order to be able to leave H division temporarily.
[...] Read was ambushed and stabbed by members of his own gang in a sneak attack, when they felt his plan to cripple every other inmate in the entire division and win the gang war in one fell swoop was going too far.
[...] It is alleged that Gangitano burst open the toilet cubicle door with a number of associates and began a serious assault on Read who made his escape but not before spreading his faeces into Gangitano's face."

HTFU!

For your continued delight and edification, here's a cavalcade of amusing toilet signs, which we've collected during our repeated trawls of the arse ends of the internet:

Image from Flickr

Image from 3bp

Image from Toptoilets

Image from Xaxor

Images from Raincoaster

Image from Shadygaff

Enjoy your weekend! Don't forget to HTFU!

Related reading:
A Lovely Cavalcade of Photos
Polite Notice
http://www.chopperread.com/

Jack White on British Plumbing: Unsubstantiated Claims

Being academically trained to the point where we are completely useless to society; over-educated, over-qualified and utterly, utterly unemployable, we like to back up any claims we make and quote references at every opportunity. However, we had a thrilling text message the other day, from Semi-Intellectual Friend. It was regarding Jack White (who we quite like simply by virtue of him laughing very nicely at the end of Loretta Lynn's song Mrs Leroy Brown) of the White Stripes, and said:

You've probably heard this before on the plumbing grapevine (I guess that's a 5/8 inlet pipe?) but, shockingly, Jack White doesn't like British plumbing. Apparently the hot water isn't hot enough. He also has a separate air-conditioning issue.

We threw ourselves at Google, in an attempt to back up this interesting claim. It turned out to be the most fruitless Google search since an elderly lady in Blackpool tried to find evidence of Elvis being alive, and died of heart failure due to the exertion. Further enquiries, however, revealed that our titillating piece of unsubstantiated news stems from a BBC radio programme. Anyone who has time and energy to spare may listen to this no doubt high-quality programme here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00p4l4t.

Usually one gets very interesting results from googling the formula "Celebrity Name +toilet", but it would appear that Jack White has, for unknown reasons, not yet let himself be photographed in close proximity to a crapper. He's probably just waiting for the right moment. Here is a nice picture, though, of Jack White and Loretta Lynn.

Image from this blog: reference.

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

Toilet-Related Celebrities

We've been rather wholesome lately, and now have an itch for some celebrity toilet images. Our recent forays into Google hyperspace have luckily given us a fine harvest of weird and disturbing pictures and facts, for your edification and delight.

The night before her wedding, Kate Middleton stayed in a disturbingly vulgar and tasteless suite in some hotel or other. Poor Kate didn't even get mixer taps in the bathroom! However, she at least had the comfort of being able to do her business in a genuine Crapper toilet, the Venerable! Lucky, lucky girl! The Sun did a revolting, sycophantic reportage on the suite and its toilet which you can, if you wish, read here. The pictures are copyrighted to the fifth dimension, but luckily we are rather resourceful and found you a picture of an identical toilet here!

The Venerable - fit for a princess

In other, related, news, Tori Spelling has been promoting Thomas Crapper Day, nobody seems entirely sure why. But here she is, posing with her husband and some puppies. Read all about this exciting event here.

Squeezing out some enthusiasm

We found this picture funny.

Well, that scratched our celebrity itch nicely!

Who Knew That Going to the Toilet Could Be So Dangerous?

We love Google. And we just adore Wikipedia. Frankly, how did people amuse themselves before it was possible to waste unbelievable amounts of time looking up random facts? Faint memories stir at the back of our cerebellum: possibly people used to talk to each other. Or read books. Or give money to charity. Anyway, who cares? We've got some seriously random information for you - about famous people who died on the toilet!

Let's start with the main man, shall we? The King! Of Rock'n'Roll! Elvis! The Pelvis! He popped his clogs and joined the heavenly choir on August 16, 1977. Not a glamorous way to go, perhaps, but then again a toilet is a good a place to pass on as any.

Elvis: Hunk-a hunk-a burning... Well, let's leave it at that, shall we?

Elvis on the toilet. Believe us, there are many tasteless toilet-related Elvis images floating around
on the net. We content ourselves with this one, from bdembroidery

Edmund II of England, known to his pals as Edmund Ironside, is rumoured to have been stabbed while going to the bog in 1016.

Edmund II: If he looks startled it's because he was unexpectedly stabbed while on the toilet.
Image from thepeerage.com

King Wenceslaus III of Bohemia was killed by having a spear thrust through him while on the bog in 1306. Ouch.

King Wenceslaus III: Killed while seated on his, er, throne. Image from Wikipedia.

George II (father of the mad one) met the Grim Reaper, in the shape of an aortic dissection, while in the water closet in 1760. Wikipedia tells us that, "According to Horace Walpole's memoirs, King George 'rose as usual at six, and drank his chocolate; for all his actions were invariably methodic. A quarter after seven he went into a little closet. His German valet de chambre in waiting heard a noise, and running in, found the King dead on the floor.'"

George II: Splendid-looking man, weak interior plumbing.

Also, says Wikipedia, "In 1945, the German submarine U-1206 was sunk after the toilet malfunctioned, and a crewman's botched repair forced them to the surface". (Read all about it here.)

When going to the bog on one of these, proceed with caution. Image from wrecksite.eu

Really, where would we be without Wikipedia? Here are some fascinating facts we found entirely by mistake, from the Wikipedia page about the tv program QI (starring, of course, the inimitable Stephen Fry) :

The number of people killed by sharks since records began (roughly 2,200) is equal to just five per cent of the number of toilet-related injuries in the United States in 1996. The total number of people injured by toilets was 43,687.

The toilet paper capital of the world is Green Bay, Wisconsin.

George III's last words were "I think I'll have another one of Mr. Bellamy's pork pies". He died on the toilet, like Elvis Presley.

Like father, like son!

George III: Mad as a box of frogs. Died, reportedly, on the toilet. Image from Wikipedia (where else?)

Statistical Musings

  A close relative of ours is doing a PhD involving statistics. This may be why we are currently philosophising on this subject quite a lot.
  You may not be aware of this if you are not a blogger yourself, but Blogspot allows you to see statistics of which posts are popular; in which countries people have been reading your blog (hence our recent Germanic outburst); which websites have guided readers to it; and, interestingly, which Google search keywords have directed people to your blog. Mostly, these keywords and search phrases are fairly straightforward: "how to use chamber pots", "did roman soldiers use vinegar and sponge for toilet paper", "viking lavatory", "stages of handwashing", "action soldiers", etc. However, recently we have noticed celebrity culture seeping in, resulting in registered searches involving "celebrity toilet" and "celebrities on the toilet". (This is naturally due to the fact that a dear friend of ours is a real, bona-fide celebrity, who graciously granted us access to her inner sanctum.) While these search phrases perhaps betray a higher than usual interest in the intimate doings of celebrities, they are not as disturbing as the one that has been puzzling us most of all: "celebrity toilet camping". "Celebrity toilet camping" doesn't even yield any results on Google. Nothing. Zilch. And to be honest, we are quite grateful for that - does one want to see pictures of anyone, never mind a celebrity, on a rudimentary camping toilet? No, one doesn't.
  Do not despair, however: if your happiness depends on seeing celebrities on the toilet, the words "celebrity toilet" are most productive as Google search words, generating a wealth of images, from Kate Moss and Elle McPherson literally on the toilet to a toilet that once belonged to John Lennon, and of course the odd image (actually, quite a few images, we note proudly) from this very blog.

  In celebration of statistics and celebrity toilets, here are some of our favourite pictures from our own celebrity toilet Google search!

This type of merchandise if fairly predictable, but still amuses us: a toilet brush in the shape of George W Bush!
Image from gosublogger.com.

The Toilet of Bathsheba by Rembrandt. In this case, of course, the toilet is in the older sense "the process of dressing, later also of washing oneself" (OED).
Image from public-domain-images.blogspot.com.

A toilet with a picture of Kate and Wills! Marvellous!
Image from oddee.com/item_97703.aspx.

And, last but not least, a young Prince William cleaning a toilet! Hurrah!
Image from toiletmuseum.com.

Rejoice, for We Bring You Another Celebrity Crapper!

Our toilet celebrity has recently moved house (you can view the old toilet here), and we, in our capacity of toilet reviewer to the stars, were naturally invited to view the toilet as soon as it was ready.
Creeping in with our camera, we were overwhelmed by this toilet's loveliness. It is rich in light and ceiling height, and that aura of glamour that celebrity toilets always have pervades every nook and cranny. This is no ordinary crapper - it's a star-dusted celebrity crapper!
We chided our famous dusky beauty, who remains anonymous, for not having mixer taps in the bathroom, casting her suggestion that period properties shouldn't have them on the dungheap, where it belongs! We would go so far as to say "pish and piffle" to that idea! Also "stuff and nonsense". Be that as it may, there is at least a mixer tap in the kitchen, a picture of which we include below to calm and reassure sensitive, high-strung readers.
Let the loveliness begin!

A vision of loveliness

The sink. Hygeia, naturally, frowns at the separated taps and has to fight the urge to rip them out with her teeth

Regular readers will recognise these prints

A lovely toilet...

...and it's got a water-saving flush!

A saucy print from the Arabian Nights, adding that je ne sais quoi so essential to the celebrity bathroom

Many, many mirrors! Eight of them, in fact.

The kitchen mixer tap. You can all breathe again now.

All in all we enjoyed our latest celebrity toilet jaunt very much, and look forward to bringing you many more in future!

Related Reading
Celebrity Toilet Premiere
Coming Soon: Celebrity Toilets!
For more mirror bedazzlement: 
Czech Mate (Yeah, Yeah, We Know, Sorry)

Celebrity Toilet Premiere

The day has finally arrived when we can present to you, our loyal readers, our celebrity toilet reportage! How we have been dreaming of this day!   

We happen to be acquainted with a certain luscious lady of Emmerdale fame, and managed to persuade this starry-eyed beauty to let us photograph her toilet.  We are proud and a little awed to be able to present these pictures to you today.

There is one slight hitch, however: our celebrity decided, in the end, that having photos of her seductively draped over a toilet posted on the internet would not only be weird and slightly repulsive, but would most likely end her career and brand her a freak and a basket case forever.  We can only conclude that she has her head screwed on right.

In order not to totally disappoint our readers, however, we have introduced this rubber chicken as a replacement for our luscious beauty in the photographs:

When you see this, imagine a dusky beauty

One day we may be able to reveal to you the name our celebrity, but until then, our lips remain hermetically and hygienically sealed.
 

The entrance into the inner sanctum: a charming vision in red and white

A cheerful sign reassuring one that one has come to the right place

The toilet itself

An oh! so stylish pull chain handle

Chain, cistern and rubber chicken

Stylish toiletries on a shelf

A stylish sink (though of course separated taps set our teeth on edge, and Hygeia hops up and down with anger)

Some charming knick-knacks

A full view of the sink

A saucy print on the wall

The keyhole shape of this picture uncomfortably brings to mind
the eccentricity of our toilet photography obsession

Naturally an actress must have a movie poster to gaze at while seated on her toilet

No celebrity actress toilet is complete without a picture of Sophia Loren!

A most charming and stylish tile

Another risqué print...

...and a slightly weird one involving ice-cream

A super-stylish lampshade!

Only the best for our celebrity: luxury toilet paper

And finally: a beguiling glimpse of our raven-haired beauty!

Bet you're dying to know who our "sleb" is!

Related Reading
Rejoice, for We Bring You Another Celebrity Crapper!
Coming Soon: Celebrity Toilets!