Feeling Single, Seeing 1.5: In Which Things Are Insanely Bleak, But Luckily There Are Pictures of Jonny

Ugh. Is our response to most things at the moment. Reading the news? Ugh. Thinking about the future? Ugh. Thinking about the present? Ughhhhhhhhh. Basically, our standard reaction to life is like that of Shewee Fiend Friend's sister upon encountering a non-mixer tap for the first time: weary bafflement.

We're at the point right now where even binge-eating cheese doesn't relieve our heavy-as-a-box-of bricks (though why you'd go to the trouble of filling a box with bricks is anyone's guess) depression. Sparkling wine does seem to momentarily ease the horror, however.

Now then, now then. Let's have some more enlightening pictures. These were sent to us by Dragon-Hunting Friend, from the Cube Design Museum in Holland, which is evidently staffed entirely by riotously festive people:

Festive toilet-related nudity always cheers one up, actually

Woof! We can't wait to visit this festive museum!

We then move on to a philosophical question from everyone's favourite lad-about-town, Jonny:

Woof!

Believe it or not, but we didn't anticipate the answer to that question! For once in our life, we were actually wrong! Let us have a close-up of the picture, for your edification and delight:

Mmm.

We're going to delve deeper into Jonny's recent excursions into bar toilets. That handsome young whippersnapper writes:

Yesterday I visited one of the best toilets I've ever seen 

Foot traffic was heavy as you can imagine in such a magnificent space but I managed to get one photograph off

We replied in the only possible way:

WOOF!

To which Jonny answered, reasonably:

I'll say

Jonny: 

That's a teaser and I'll go back for more soon

The Privy Counsellor: 

WOOOF! 

#HeavyBreathing 

We need to do a blog post soon, but today we're busy getting drunk, so probably tomorrow!

Jonny: 

Yes!! Me too! 

You're an inspiration.

We think we'd better stop there, before things get out of hand. First, though, let's have a Festive Video! This clip from Dirty Dancing illustrates, adequately we believe, how every single one of our readers reacts when having even fleeting thoughts about Jonny. Entirely reasonably, we might add.

Festive Video - Mickey & Sylvia, Love Is Strange, from Dirty Dancing

Related Reading:
That time when we were feeling single, seeing double
All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend
All posts featuring Dragon-Hunting Friend
All posts featuring Jonny
That other post featuring mentions of string vests

Wishing All Our Readers a Towering Great New Year!

Happy New Year!

We shall keep this brief, to give you all more time for drunken revelry and orgiastic carousing, and also because sickness and ill health plague us like syphilis plagues a Romantic poet. Actually we suffer a vast deal, and have done for some time - though of course with the greatest patience in the world, which is always the way with us, for we have, without exception, the sweetest temper anyone ever met with. People often tell their other girls they are nothing to us. 

Be that as it may, we want to get back to drinking vast quantities of tea and watching old episodes of Poirot.

We have a greeting from Dragon-Hunting Friend, who says:

Happy new year from the "loo with a view" (as the lift attendant called it) - floor 68 of the Shard!

We've had some quite worrying conversations recently with Australian Friend about the Shard, and thus find this sight a trifle uncomfortable. But we hope you enjoy it!

That is quite some toilet! And with a mixer tap, too!

We don't have any new year's resolutions, though we do have two mottoes for 2016. And we mean to stick to them. They are:

FEMINISM NEEDS TO BE MORE MILITANT

and

PEOPLE SHOULD FUCK OFF MORE

We don't have a hell of a lot else to say. We meant to do a review of the year's twelve best posts, like we did last year to great acclaim. But we have the kind of headache that feels like you drank a bottle of Bailey's all by yourself, except unfortunately we didn't, or at least not recently. Also only three people have voted in the poll which we announced in our last post, with the intention of defining the twelve best posts of 2015. Clearly our readers are even more depraved than we thought they were, and don't appreciate democracy, or bog blog polls.

So that's it. Happy fucking new year!

Today's festive video is Miranda Lambert at the Grammy awards, because it is our ambition to kick one tenth of the arse she does during the year to come.

Festive video - Miranda Lambert, Little Red Wagon (57th GRAMMYs)


Now fuck off.


Related Reading

All posts featuring New Year's Eve
Feast your eyes on another loo with a view here: All Mouth and No Trousers - Sichuan Food in Singapore

Captivating Pictures

Tally-ho and a jolly good International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women to you! In case you are currently scratching your armpits, wondering what the hell such a day is in aid of, ponder the fact that one in three women worldwide has been subjected to physical or sexual violence. We have lit a candle for the survivors of domestic violence - and those who have died.

Gender roles may make people fucked up beyond belief, but we continue our quest, at the Privy Counsel, to highlight how awesome people can be. Mr Smith, for instance, sent us a message that made us laugh so loud we worried the window panes might shatter! That estimable and ventilation-aware gentleman writes:

A selection of toilet facilities courtesy of the state of California's federal penitentiary: Alcatraz

Enjoy...!

Alcatraz! Toilets! Alcatraz toilets!!!

 Dragon-Hunter Friend, also, has been busy on the epistolary front. She writes:

In Malaysia, I've discovered that you have to hope you end up with this...

Malaysian toilet

...and not this.

Malaysian squat toilet.

When I landed, the first toilet I found at the airport was the latter kind...looked all new and shiny, but was hiding the scary truth behind closed doors

 Because we happened to be quite drunk when the missive arrived, we replied enthusiastically:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Asian toilets are AWESOME! So much more hygienic, when you think about it, than sitting on a seat that thousands of people have sat on! And you get a free Pilates workout! 

Dragon-Hunter Friend replied: 

Haha maybe so, but when you're carrying luggage around, and there's just a hole in the ground....lets just say my aim is not so true  ;)

We retorted with:

Eh. I used one in Italy, wearing ski boots, with a recently-torn-to-shreds knee ligament. It's all a matter of determination. 

Dragon-Hunter Friend's final reply was:

Haha

I think I've just got too many memories from French motorway stations when I was little, and getting my socks wet

Which is totally fair enough. NO TO WET SOCKS!

Just say no!

Finally, we have received a letter asking for advice. It says:

Dear Privy Counsel 
I have recently become a manager for the first time, and one of my subordinates is spending an inordinate amount of time on the toilet. How do I broach the subject? I mean, it could be anything from an unputdownable novel, to Chrohn's disease! Then again, perhaps this person has, at almost middle age, still not learnt to regulate his bowels. Please help.

We're fucked if we know. Thoughts? Any advice from our estimable and intelligent readers?

We've got a special treat in honour of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women - a kick-arse song from a kick-arse Australian metal band called The Amazons! This band doesn't exist any more, alas, but from what we've heard they took a lot of shit, while they were around, from men who felt threatened by their kick-arseness. So let's play this video, while snarling like the unapologetically awesome, lip-glossed drummer, and vow to SMASH THE PATRIARCHY YEAH. 

Festive video - The Amazons, Celluloid


Related Reading
Our post on violence against women

How to avoid ending up with wet socks

Our previous post showing prison toilets: When a Voice Behind Me Whispered Low, “That Fellow's Got to Swing” - Australian Friend Visits Beechworth Gaol

All posts featuring Mr Smith

All posts featuring Dragon-Hunting Friend

Laura Bates on violence against women: Women are being assaulted, abused and murdered in a sea of misogyny 

An awesome movement: The White Ribbon Campaign

   

Pressing All the Right Buttons: A Privy Counsel Friend Travels to Japan!

We once famously expressed a wish to receive funding for a research trip to Japan (this, it has been suggested (probably by Tudor Friend), could be combined with unrestrained sake consumption, for an enhanced experience). Another time, we exhorted our readers to come with us on a pilgrimage to the country of famed and weird toilets.

As it happens, we are stuck at Privy Counsel HQ with a cold, experiencing dreary weather, and being ignored by the Danish police, who don't, apparently, give a flying fuck about whether passengers get sexually harassed by staff at Copenhagen Airport. However - before we get sucked into the gloom, let us insert a massive

HOWEVER.

A friend, who we may tentatively refer to as Dragon-Hunting Friend, has sent us pictures from Japan! This cheerful and intelligent friend writes:

I'm in the land of the weird and wonderful toilets!

Remember that time when we indulged in dreamy fantasies of breezy Alpine bogs? Dragon-Hunter Friend had sent us, on that occasion, a link to a site providing pictures of toilets in the Swiss Alps. It was fucking amazing.

DRAGON-HUNTER FRIEND HAS NOW BEEN TO JAPAN, FOLKS.

Did this ever cheer us up? Woof!

Yes. The buttons say "front" and "rear".

So many buttons!
And sound effects too

It's anyone's guess what the last icon is supposed to represent.

The toilet in my hotel room has a heated seat
Quite strange the first time you try it
But rather nice
Less strange than the bidet button (which nearly made me giggle out loud at the airport toilets; I just had to see what it did! ;) )
Love the retro yellow '^^

Remember that time when we went to watch the rugby in a pub and Wales won, or lost,
or disappeared in an earthquake, or similar, and there was a yellow sink?

Do you feel spiritually revived? We certainly do! We are grateful to Dragon-Hunter Friend for these stupendously festive pictures!

We ought to have a festive video as well, of course, although today's festive video is not actually festive.

There are, when you think about it, an extraordinary number of songs about domestic violence. (Here are just a few.) This would indicate that the issue is a common one. As a society, it behoves us to do more to prevent domestic violence than, for instance, quoting bullshit statistics from so-called men's rights activists. Get, for a start, some hard-hitting statistics from the UN here: Facts and Figures: Ending Violence Against Women.

Let us repeat, also, some statistics from our last blog post:

In Britain, two women die from domestic violence every week. Imagine the outrage if it were two lawyers who were killed every week by violence directed specifically against them, or two postmen, or two office workers.

In Australia, domestic violence is the leading cause of death and injury in women under 45, with more than one woman murdered by her current or former partner every week. A woman dies every three weeks from domestic violence in Sweden.

Yes. It is grim reading.

Here is the video - a classic from 1994, by Swedish folk-metal-fusion band Dia Psalma (with special greetings to Fictional Friend, Tudor Friend, and Australian Friend). The lyrics narrate the story of a man pleading with a woman called Emilie to leave her abusive partner, "before it is too late".

Video - Dia Psalma, Emelie


Related Reading

Dragon Hunter Friend's previous post:
Remembering to Breathe

All posts featuring Japan

On Violence Against Women

Thinking about Caitlin Moran makes everything better

Another yellow sink: Foul Play, Also Fowl Issues

A yellow toilet! For Better or Worse: A Wedding Review

We also once famously argued that the Japanese bottom-cleaning toilet is a direct descendant of the Asian toilet shower. Remember that you read it here first: Toilet Showers - Reaching the Bottom

Remembering to Breathe

Gaaah. It's so easy to get stressed beyond all reason, sense and comprehension. Things have been rather hectic at Privy Counsel HQ lately and, finding ourselves gabbling breathlessly on about dirty Indo-European poetry, we suddenly realised that we had allowed ourselves to get into what psychologists call "a state". It was time, we realised, to remember to breathe. What better place to do it in than an alpine glade or, if you're that way inclined, peak? Luckily a friend of ours, a keen dragon-hunter from the remote, mountainous parts of Europe, sent us a link to this lovely site just the other day. It's got pictures of toilets! In the Alps! Hurrah!

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/Mountain_relief_the_art_of_alpine_lavatories.html?cid=35458616&rss=true

A bog with a fabulous view!
Image from Farm1.

If you, like us, aren't likely to get to an Alpine glade
any time soon, you can get one of these instead
to bring a fresh, yodelly breeze to your bathroom.
Image from Farm7.

Related Reading
On Her Majesty's Privy Service 
The Best Urinal View in the World?
Dizzying Heights of Toilet Perfection
A Black Run: The Best Wallpaper Ever
Alpine Escapism