Where East Meets West

When did you last find yourself explaining the concept of fermented herring to a steel slide player from North Carolina?

We had never, before last Saturday, attempted such a thing either metaphorically or literally, but would like to think that we did rather well, with a little help from a) friends and b) beer. Free speech rights may also have insinuated themselves, as they are wont to do, the wiley devils, into the conversation, but then again that may be pure wishful thinking on our part. Either way, we will surely soon receive a  medal from the Swedish tourist board, in recognition of our efforts to describe the many delights of Swedish culture to said worthy North Carolingian musician - not, we suspect, your typical demographic in terms of Swedish tourism.

Whether freedom of speech was a central part of the evening's conversation, however, or played a more discreet role, confined mainly to the inside of our head, may be a moot point. The important thing as far as we're concerned is that we enjoyed ourselves hugely, from the sneaky can of wine on the train to the last rant over the last beer in the last pub. Since the amount of beer that drives out the toilet obsession from the aforementioned inside of our head has not as yet been determined, despite dedicated empirical research, we took some photos. Here, for your delight and edification, is an illustration of one of the toilets at the Biljardkompaniet sports bar in, of all places, Kristianstad.

Under normal circumstances we would naturally be having some kind of fit at this point, gesticulating wildly while pointing out the manifold horrors of leaving toilet paper about in this cavalier manner, without a proper toilet roll holder. On the other hand, check out the crafty spare-bog-roll-holder in the corner! Then ponder the fact that there was not just one of those, but two! This makes up for many, many, many sins.

We are aware that we have readers who enjoy almost seeing people. (Weirdos!)

This is not good.

Let us move on from the murky world of southern Swedish sports bars, to what Shewee Fiend Friend describes as a "lovely loo in a hicktown bakery".

These taps look like the perverted Danish variety of subjunctive taps. On the other hand, it looks like there might be both soap and hand lotion? As Semi-Intellectual Friend so wisely remarked once: "Real men have hands that are as cracked and tough as the floor of the Gobi if it was made from leather." However, the rest of us rather enjoy a spot of lotion.

We have no idea what's happening here and have no desire to find out.

Clear signage is always, always enjoyable!

We have become accustomed to relaying the less messy and more amusing parts of our conversations with Shewee Fiend Friend, but lately they have centred mostly round a) the inexplicable Spanish inability to find 500 huge stones, and b) the hot priest in Fleabag. Reader, this is not of public interest.

Feisty French Friend sends us a greeting from her travels:

Do not wash feet in toilets!!!

At Vientiane Airport

Does this rampant discrimination against feet remind us of anything? Friends, it reminds us of the car park toilet in Goathland.

Jonny proves, once again, that he is not only devastatingly handsome  but has an uncanny knack for saying what we're all thinking, which is: 

 

Too hot!

So hot.

What our favourite band was doing in a weird sports bar in the southeastern corner of Sweden we will never understand. But we will be forever grateful! Many thanks also to the friend who shall henceforth be known as Waycool Maths Teacher Friend, who not only bravely ventured into a wild and uncharted territory, but who showed unparalleled presence of mind by bringing wine.



Festive Video: Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, (Please Be a) Stranger


Related Reading

All posts featuring Sarah Shook and the Disarmers

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

All posts featuring Jonny

All posts featuring Feisty French Friend

The car park toilet in Goathland

The perverted Danish subjunctive taps 

Gin, Lemons and Mum

It is a truth universally acknowledged that although using a tired Jane Austen pastiche is a terrible way to start a bog blog post, if the alternative is to help one's mother download apps to her phone after having consumed three or possibly more gin and tonics, then frankly my dear, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times and one more chlamydia joke will definitely not kill you.

Having got that off our chest, we feel an urgent need to acknowledge the power and brilliance of Intellectual Friend's latest philological analysis, which landed in our lucky, lucky inbox the other day. It was a tour de force of intellectual vigour, if that's not mixing metaphors with the abandon with which Our Mum mixes drinks, and although we will not be quoting from said philological analysis, as it was very long and very complex and we're definitely not sober enough to divide it into digestible chunks for our regular readers, believe us when we say that it was a thing of beauty. 

Other beautiful objects have turned up on our metaphorical doorstep, as it were in several temporal dimensions at once, which linguistic stratagem is an attempt to gloss over the fact that we're too lazy and disorganised to for instance publish the photos of a cool thing that Italian Friend (who, for reasons lost in time and/or alcohol, doesn't have her own label, but who has been mentioned for instance here and here) sent us in 2019. 

Here is, at any rate, an amusing sign from whichever part of Asia that Feisty French Friend is currently gracing with her presence and which demonstrates the universally acknowledged truth that on this subject, there is only one possible position, morally as well as intellectually.

Now, down to brass tacks. Italian Friend, visiting a book fair in Boston in 2019, saw this curious object, apparently called The Pouch, and, in her kindness and generosity of spirit, thought of us. In response to our hypothesis that the object of the object is for people to put their possessions in it hygienically, Italian Friend said:

Yes!! 😂 they have a hook on the door and then this thing that you can you use to put your jacket or bag in. They say it’s clean and secure, I thought was very handy!

We find the reference to kangaroos sympathetic, but otherwise remain baffled.

There was mention, some weeks ago, of petrol stations. Tudor Friend, at some point in time that remains unidentified, sent us this helpful link to an article about how service station toilets used to be clean, and now aren't, and which makes a thrilling reference to venereal disease, which may or may not surprise you.

Jonny, that loveable rogue, has outdone himself and sent us pictures of his handsome self in no fewer than three different outfits, one of which involves a moustache. We are weak-kneed from a feeling we have identified, with eighty percent certainty, as gratitude.

Jonny says, with his usual charm and effervescence:

Erm, Peak and Pods in Settle

Really lovely place

Would we really be so cruel as to deprive you of Intellectual Friend's philological musings? Of course not. Grab a glass or four of whatever alcoholic beverage is accessible to you, and join us on this rollicking journey on the roaring seas of etymological musings! (Please note that this is a short extract from a very long series of linked and thrillingly intertwined reflections.)

From there of course I sprang to check what the situation might have been 4,000 years before, in Proto-Indo-European. But I'd dabbled with PIE paradigms before, so I had a wild surmise. And there it was. Back then already, in the hunting and gathering wilds of the Stone Age, when folk had all the space and time in the world to chat in long and complex and variously specific and crazily inflected words, with subtly or unsubtly different endings by the myriad, back then already in our proto-language, in the nominative/vocative, THE NEUTER PLURAL OF ADJECTIVES WAS THE SAME AS THEIR FEMININE SINGULAR!!! (Well, at least in the relevant declension type; but that's the one that would elbow the others out and over time spread everywhere. And so this weird thing got passed on to Latin, and separately to Old Norse as well, so that Icelanders are actually affected too, by the same thing in the same way.)

WHY???

And was that a good thing or bad, anyway?

The key to retaining some minute shred of sanity, we find, is to give up all attempts at finding answers to impossible questions and instead focusing on imbibing as much gin as possible while the world burns.

Today's Festive Video suggests itself to us by virtue of its relation to time zones, ghosts, caffeine, and Oscar Wilde's mother.

 

Festive Video: The Smiths, A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours 

Related Reading

 

Friends Who Send Toilet Pictures, and Other Literal Life Savers

In Which the Privy Counsel Goes Ballistic 

Echoes of Edgar Allan Poe 

All posts featuring Our Mum

All posts featuring Feisty French Friend 

All posts featuring Jonny

All posts featuring Tudor Friend

All posts featuring Intellectual Friend

If musings on Proto-Indo-European are your thing, here's your chance to really let yourself go: Moving Heaven and Earth: Polarisation and Proto-Indo-Europeans

Should you have an inexplicable fondness for petrol stations, here's another one: At Your Service 

Dark Nights, Bright Lights

Ho-ho-ho-horrifyingly early mornings, increasing Weltschmerz and snowballing weariness to you all! We bring tidings of, if not good cheer, at least sturdy common sense.

Feisty French Friend sent us a picture from the social media platform we love to disdain and avoid, featuring a toilet sign which helpfully clarifies what one should and should not do with the water in the toilet:

Do not drink toilet water!

Social media platforms in general contribute to the sum total of darkness in a cold and merciless universe, not only with the unchecked abuse directed towards women and minorities but with the silencing and policing of their thoughts and opinions. If you want to read about why it is bad that a woman, pointing out that a creepy man who harasses women is in fact a man, has been banned from Twitter, here's a great article from After Ellen. You may also wish to read about why transsexual Miranda Yardley got permanently banned from Twitter for stating that an adult human male is a man.

Thankfully, we have toilet photos of Jonny up our metaphorical sleeve to pour, to super awkwardly mix metaphors and also paraphrase an author who deserves better, into the wounded bosoms of each other the balm of privy consolation. The below photos are entitled "loo with a view". The title is of course derivative and lacks originality, but full points for the effort at wit and also gracious thanks for sending pictures of toilets and vulgar desk dinosaurs to brighten the darkness and ameliorate our ever deeper despair.

A shining light of toilet humour, rugged good looks and a jacket that looks seriously comfy: Jonny.

The darkness is opaque, but there is also light.
We made a joke about the tallness of the building which we will not reproduce in this forum.
(You can probably imagine it without taxing your intellect too much.)

We seize this opportunity of expressing our awestruck gratitude to the friends who make everything bearable with their ruthless piss-taking, sparkling wit, and plethora of deeply disturbing photos.

Last, but not least, remember to be kind to your mother. She has endured a lot for your sake, and she has endured it while navigating the vast and terrifying maze of a hostile patriarchy.

Festive Video: Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Make It Up to Mama


Related Reading:
All posts featuring Feisty French Friend
The post in which we explore our dislike of Instagram
All posts featuring Jonny
More on the patriarchy and women being erased, literally and figuratively: Halloween 2018: Raped and Murdered Women, and Statistics. It Doesn't Get Scarier Than This. 

Twitter Bans Meghan Murphy, Founder of Canada’s Leading Feminist Website, article from AfterEllen

Why I Am Permanently Banned From Twitter And Why This Should Make You Worry, blog post by Miranda Yardley

The Hours and Minutes Ticking Away

You know how sometimes you're just kicking back, having a perfect orgy of feminist literature and throwing back gin and tonics like there's no tomorrow, and then suddenly tomorrow is right there, in front of you, staring at you with bleary eyes and giving off a really funny smell? And, to make things even worse, there's a tick sucking blood from your left knee (like that particular knee didn't have enough stuff going on already), and you realise you have to go back to work? In our neck of the woods, tick bites involve a real risk of getting Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis, both of which diseases indicate a severe reduction in alcohol consumption for the foreseeable future. Having to go back to work is a global affliction that affects people in all walks of life. There is no known cure.

This kind of situation requires nerves of steel and preferably a hip flask that is likewise made of sturdy, buckle-free metal. If you also happen to have friends who a) are happy to talk you through every single neurosis and crisis of confidence, and b) send you multitudes of toilet pictures, then you can count yourself lucky.

Continuing our work of using up old pictures from our archive, here's one from May last year. Thank you, Feisty French Friend, and may your mojito always be poured by a reckless bartender with a shifty eye and a grudge against the management.

This is probably in Cambodia. As regular readers are aware, we love clear signage!

We reserve a special kind of aversion to Instagram here at the Privy Counsel. We went on it once, and it was literally spewing out distasteful pictures of food, slimy babies and engagement rings, and simply preposterous gym selfies. It took us several days of earnest meditation, purification rites, and self-medication involving the really cheap, nasty kind of rum before we recovered. However, when Feisty French Friend sent us a toilet video via the afore-mentioned repulsive social media site, we of course ventured bravely out to retrieve it. Here it is. You're welcome. *shudder*

Video @lucalocatelliphoto for @natgeo. Guess! Where is the highest bathroom in the world!? It's in the highest building in the world, the Burj-al Khalifa, at the highest livable floor in the world in Dubai! The running joke in Dubai is that it holds the world record for being the city with the most world records. But the most difficult world record Dubai wants to accomplish is to turn this notoriously unsustainable city to be one of the greenest in the world in the next decades. If they will get this, then there will be no excuse for the rest of the world. We got this exclusive access while on assignment for @natgeo and my assistant @matteoperniconi can't resist to make this video. Follow me @lucalocatelliphoto to see more photos and videos of Dubai project.

Ett inlägg delat av National Geographic (@natgeo) Aug 1, 2017 kl. 8:16 PDT

Let us swiftly move on to these pictures from a special someone who counts as a friend for administrative reasons, namely that young stripling known downtown as Jonny. We have it on good authority that the following photos are from the Botanist restaurant in Leeds.

A sturdy, rustic door!

Oho! What is this? Some kind of branded toilet?

Jonny and a rustic selection of cocks and valves.

Did we mention that we adore clear signage? Binary-categorised toilets are not de rigeur in this day and age, but frankly, we can't fucking stand unisex toilets, and celebrate being able to shut the door on the male gaze. Hurrah!

If you enjoy almost seeing people, you can almost see Jonny in this air dryer!

Sometimes we wake up in the night and worry that the hipsterisation of the world's toilets will eventually lead to a bleak and uniform world where all sinks look like cattle troughs. Read more about sinks looking like cattle troughs here.

A festive duo of urinals.

Jonny says:

I tried to get a shot of the nice toilet seat but someone was waiting outside
It's in The Botanist - Leeds
Really nice inside and insane belly pork...

We don't even want to think about how the insanity of belly pork would manifest itself. Let us quickly move on. We reckon these rustic toilets require an equally rustic, countrified kind of Festive Video. A festive duo, perhaps? You're welcome!

Festive Video - Nashville, Ho Hey.
(Doesn't the chick with the glasses look a bit like Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend? Yeah, we thought so too!)

Related Reading

All posts featuring Feisty French Friend
All posts featuring Jonny

Various posts where we explain why unisex toilets are the embodiment of screaming bloody horror, at least if you're a woman (an affliction that affects roughly 50 % of the population):

Stockholm Central Station: The Trauma Is So Great We Are Brought To Quoting Cicero  

Unisex Toilets - This Shit Gets Political 

Hungover Ranting: Festschrift to Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend

Examples of well-designed unisex toilets that we do like:

Unisex Toilets - This Shit Gets Political 

Shooting the Shit - Let Us Get Rid of Transgender Bathroom Bigotry

Plus Ça Change - On Clutching One's Head and Crossing One's Fingers

Change. It happens all the time, whether we want it or not. Some changes are universal, like the ageing process. Inevitable and merciless, it keeps happening on the sly, slowly but inexorably, until one day one realises that actually, one is not 25 any more and can't drink that amount of wine without spending the next day clutching one's head and wishing for death, or quietly has a heart attack one morning when looking in the mirror and wondering who that rabid old hag with the beard is, only to conclude that it is the reflection of one's actual face.

Other changes are more specialised, like for instance realising that you are now the kind of person who takes pictures of toilets. Many of our contributors have commented on this phenomenon. The latest person to experience this very specific trauma is Meandering Friend, who sent us this invigorating stream-of-consciousness commentary on a picture of a urinal (as usual, in case you are too hungover to want to practise your colloquial Swedish, an English translation follows):

Vet inte om det är lite FÖR... Men är det något för bloggen? Svårt att veta
Vidare läsning gav att de små färgglada plupparna på gallret är någon slags doft-kompositer
Okänt för oss obehängda
Usch det är en förjävlig bild nu när jag kollar igen
Uuuu kanske skippa? Kommentaren var dock lite kul... "detta må vaere en nord-Trönder"
Ok anyhow... Cheerio på dig - hörs och ses! 

(Don't know if this is a bit TOO... But is it something for the blog? Hard to know
Further reading revealed that the small colourful blobs on the grid are some kind of scent composite
Unknown to the uninitiated
Urgh, it's a bloody awful picture now I look at it again
Ummm, maybe skip it? Though the comment was quite fun - "detta må vaere en nord-Trönder"*
Ok anyhow... Cheerio - see you soon!)

*The comment is in Norwegian

A Norwegian (?) urinal! What everyone is of course wondering,
is what kind of contacts Meandering Friend has on Facebook.

Many changes are taking place at the Privy Counsel at the moment. Two of our members started, for instance, a blog devoted solely to sexism. (Yes, we know. A blog without a single toilet picture - weird!)  The accompanying Twitter account indulges in their wildest pick-up-line-related fantasies, and is rather a hoot if you have the energy.

Feisty French Friend is embarking on a rather huge adventure, and we look forward to many exciting toilet pictures from her new abode!

Shewee Fiend Friend has a new cat. The cat, we are happy to say, enjoys huddling next to the toilet, just like we do after drinking too much wine. Actually, speaking of cats, and wine, a recent acquaintance of ours, a young lady who likes pretending that she is either a cat or a dog, asked us the other day if she could taste our wine. On us explaining that wine is only for grown-ups, and not suitable for three-year-olds, said lady launched forth the theory that cats have to drink wine, as otherwise they get sick and die. We look forward to spending a lot of time with this ragingly intelligent girl when she is old enough to drink.

A sympathetic cat, huddling behind the toilet.
Shewee Fiend Friend would like to clarify that
"That's not mold, just old crumbly paint. I checked. The apartment is old".

Other friends are launching into various new adventures. Adventures are exciting, obviously, but can lead to a lot of anxiety, hair-tugging, and accidental over-consumption of alcohol. Fear is a perfectly rational response to many human experiences, and quite often one finds oneself wishing that one was small enough to be able to huddle behind the toilet, not in plain sight next to it. However, here is a reminder that you can learn to fly on the way down. Go ahead, leap! (And remember that ultimately, everything you do is futile. The universe is a vast and terrifying void, containing a tiny, habitable speck of dust which we seem hell-bent on destroying. We are, essentially, short-sighted monkeys with computers. Now relax, and stop giving a fuck. Have a drink, maybe.)

Festive Video - Maddie & Tae, Fly

Related Reading

The new blog by two Privy Counsellors: Out of Lines

All posts featuring Meandering Friend

All posts featuring Feisty French Friend

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

Plus Ça Change - On Clutching One's Head and Crossing One's Fingers

Change. It happens all the time, whether we want it or not. Some changes are universal, like for instance the ageing process. Inevitable and merciless, it keeps happening on the sly, slowly but inexorably, until one day one realises that actually, one is not 25 any more and can't drink that amount of wine without spending the next day clutching one's head and wishing for death, or quietly has a heart attack one morning when looking in the mirror and wondering who that rabid old hag with the beard is, only to conclude that it is the reflection of one's actual face.

Other changes are more specialised, like realising that you are the kind of person who takes pictures of toilets. Many of our contributors have commented on this phenomenon. The latest person to experience this very specific trauma is Meandering Friend, who sent us this invigorating stream-of-consciousness commentary on a picture of a urinal (as usual, in case you are too hungover to want to practise your colloquial Swedish, an English translation follows):

Vet inte om det är lite FÖR... Men är det något för bloggen? Svårt att veta
Vidare läsning gav att de små färgglada plupparna på gallret är någon slags doft-kompositer
Okänt för oss obehängda
Usch det är en förjävlig bild nu när jag kollar igen
Uuuu kanske skippa? Kommentaren var dock lite kul... "detta må vaere en nord-Trönder"
Ok anyhow... Cheerio på dig - hörs och ses! 

(Don't know if this is a bit TOO... But is it something for the blog? Hard to know
Further reading revealed that the small colourful blobs on the grid are some kind of scent composite
Unknown to the uninitiated
Urgh, it's a bloody awful picture now I look at it again
Ummm, maybe skip it? Though the comment was quite fun - "detta må vaere en nord-Trönder"*
Ok anyhow... Cheerio - see you soon!)

*The comment is in Norwegian

A Norwegian (?) urinal! What everyone is of course wondering, is what kind of contacts Meandering Friends has on Facebook.

Many changes are taking place at the Privy Counsel at the moment. Two of our members started, for instance, a blog devoted solely to sexism. (Yes, we know. A blog without a single toilet picture - weird!)  The accompanying Twitter account indulges in their wildest pick-up-line-related fantasies, and is rather a hoot if you have the energy.

Feisty French Friend is embarking on a rather huge adventure, and we look forward to many exciting toilet pictures from her new abode!

Shewee Fiend Friend has a new cat. The cat, we are happy to say, enjoys huddling next to the toilet, just like we do after drinking too much wine. Actually, speaking of cats, and wine, a recent acquaintance of ours, a young lady who likes pretending that she is either a cat or a dog, recently asked us if she could taste our wine. On us explaining that wine is only for grown-ups, and not suitable for three-year-olds, said lady launched forth the theory that cats have to drink wine, as otherwise they get sick and die. We look forward to spending a lot of time with this ragingly intelligent girl when she is old enough to drink.

A sympathetic cat, huddling behind the toilet.
Shewee Fiend Friend would like to clarify that
"That's not mold, just old crumbly paint. I checked. The apartment is old".

Other friends are launching into various new adventures. Adventures are exciting, obviously, but can lead to a lot of anxiety, hair-tugging, and accidental over-consumption of alcohol. Fear is a perfectly rational response to many human experiences, and quite often one finds oneself wishing that one was small enough to be able to huddle behind the toilet, not in plain sight next to it. However, here is a reminder that you can learn to fly on the way down. Go ahead, leap! (And remember that ultimately, everything you do is futile. The universe is a vast and terrifying void, containing one tiny speck of dust to which we are clinging, and ultimately destroying. We are, essentially, short-sighted monkeys with computers. Now relax, and stop giving a fuck. Have a drink, maybe.)

Festive Video - Maddie & Tae, Fly

Related Reading

The new blog by two Privy Counsellors: Out of Lines

all posts featuring Meandering Friend

All posts featuring Feisty French Friend

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

Parisian Chicness, Disease Prevention, and Unrestrained Language Nerdery. Oh, and Some Dogging.

The weather is finally showing an inclination to stop being freakishly nice, and to behave in a way that causes us not to scowl suspiciously. 

Nothing works our paranoia into a frothy, lathery sweat like an uninterrupted series of nice days. What's this in aid of, then, we ask ourselves, peering moodily at the blue skies. This feeling of ease and well-being is usually a sign that things are about to go tits-up, we mumble, giving the merry sunshine the evil eye. This will never end well, we whisper gloomily, and mentally throw rocks at the provokingly perky songbirds. 

The great thing about shit weather is that it gives one licence to drink obscene amounts of tea and huddle in a dark room, without having that irritating feeling that one should be doing something healthy and productive outdoors, like taking one's heart and arteries for a brisk walk, or declaiming Shakespeare sonnets to orphans in a wooded glade, or gawping at knuckle-bitingly ugly pieces of sculpture at the local park, while placing bits of wood in strategic places to provide shelter for a near-extinct species of beetle. (Read about a similar feeling of sunshine-related angst here.)

When the skies are grey and one can practically hear the werewolves howling on the moors, one can quite legitimately give the world outside the finger, sit down with a large whisky, and concentrate on looking at pictures of Caitlin Moran, and sending toilet photos to one's local bog blog. Here's one that Feisty French Friend took recently at the Musée du Quai Branly, in Paris:

Nobody does chic like those pesky Parisians! We find ourselves emitting a rugged Woof! In fact, a woof might not be enough to express the strength of our feelings about this stylish and pleasant bog - we might need to resort to a lusty HOWL!

Other things that can occupy one on dark autumn days is observing linguistic intricacies on signs inside toilets, and giving in to heedless, reckless, unrestrained language nerdery. (Our unrestrained-nerdery juices got flowing to a quite staggering extent at the weekend, when we engaged in an epic tour of medieval churches with Tudor Friend, which may or may not have included semi-perverse ogling of medieval wall paintings and church-wall graffiti.) This sign, for instance, observed in a staff toilet in a school in Malmö, says:

Hygglo! Vinterkräksjukan är på väg! Det enda och bästa sättet att skydda sig [mot] smitt[a] är enkel[t][:] Tvätta händerna noga efter varje toalettbesök.

(Be a brick! Winter vomiting disease is on its way! The only, and the best, way to protect yourself from infection is simple: Wash your hands carefully after you've been to the toilet.)

Hygglo! Wash your damn hands!

The word "hygglo" denotes a person who is decent, hygglig. It is unfortunately not listed in the Bible of Swedish-language nerds, SAOB, being presumably a recent creation; probably a 20th-century one. (Work began on SAOB in 1898, and the editors are currently at the letter T. The comparisons to Rowan Atkinson's frenzied attempts to rewrite Dr Johnson's dictionary in Blackadder, agonising over the word aardvark while going quietly insane, are naturally numerous.) 

Hygglo, ending with an o, follows the same pattern as other descriptive nouns like fyllo (short for fyllerist, "drunk"), miffo (short for missfoster, "freak"), fetto ("fatso"), lyllo (short for lyckost, literally "lucky cheese", or, rather more prosaically, "lucky person"), favvo (short for favorit, "favourite") and - a favourite of ours - pretto (short for pretentiös, denoting a pretentious person). The state of being a hygglo is perhaps best translated as being a brick. Hygglo, in short, when spotted on a toilet sign, is the kind of word that causes your average language nerd to do a little handwashing jig and start whistling, then walk around in a suspiciously jaunty way for the rest of the afternoon.

Speaking of winter vomiting disease, we couldn't believe that all of the internet hadn't managed to come up with a winter vomiting disease meme, so we made one, just for you:

Someone had to.

You're welcome.

At the risk of changing the subject abruptly (no, no, it's ok - we mentioned Caitlin Moran at the beginning of the blog post, meaning this qualifies as a continuous theme, or leitmotif), we just wanted to share this picture of Caitlin Moran's column in last Saturday's Times Magazine. 

As CatMo points out, the Times puts its writers' words behind a paywall in order to ensure that plebs like us can't read them without paying, with the rather marvellous result that journalists continue to get paid and are able to produce quality work without starving to death in the gutter, or being replaced by robots. The picture is therefore quite grainy, and the words are not available in an online form. But if you have the patience, enlarge it on your screen and enjoy the sheer holy joy that is a newspaper column by Caitlin Moran. (Or, if you don't have the patience, join your local library, like Jonny just did, and enjoy all of CatMo's columns for free, while vigorously appreciating the tax-funded miracle that is a public (or indeed pubic) library.)

What men need to know about women: 1) We're scared of you, and 2) Fuck off.

Oh hell, we need a festive video. Here's one incorporating a new word that we learned while playing Cards against humanity with Tudor Friend and some of her excellent and highly festive cronies last weekend. We'd say dogging is an admirable activity for rainy days, wouldn't you?

Festive video - Fascinating Aïda, Dogging

Related Reading

All posts featuring Feisty French Friend

All posts featuring Caitlin Moran

That feeling when it's sunny out and everyone is enjoying themselves, and you wish it wasn't, and they weren't:

Det lille Apotek: Big Beers and Small Toilets in Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country

If you enjoy linguistic musings, get more here

A Glorious French Manifestation of Intellect Combined with Stylishness

Well, strike us pink with a medium-sized bath towel if there isn't a lot of stuff happening! We thought things couldn't get any more exciting after Feisty French Friend sent us photos of her renovated bathroom, and Tudor Friend shared an article about what happens when you run out of toilet roll onboard a Virgin train - and then, whoosh! even more events occurred! Being protective of our readers' mental health, we won't overload you with everything all at once, but rest assured that there are lots of posts, full to the brim with rampant enthusiasm, vim, and brio, coming in the near future.

For now, let's quickly look at Feisty French Friend's renovated bathroom, before we get too distracted and/or our short-term memory deteriorates even further. France is in the news today, and we reckon French intellectualism could do with some solidarity.

We just learned a new French expression, and we're not afraid to use it:
Putain de bordel de merde, but that is a lovely toilet! Note the water-saving brilliance!
(See more examples of the indiscriminate use of French expressions here.)

We approve hugely of this shower, which has two shower heads! This arrangement gives one the option of using the stylish-but-impractical-for-people-wearing-glasses-or-not-wishing-their-hair-wet wall-mounted shower head, or the sane and normal attached-to-a-flexible-hose variety. (Get more ranting on this subject here.) 

We wonder if it takes a French person to renovate a bathroom into a glorious manifestation of intellect combined with stylishness? Perhaps we are confusing Feisty French Friend with her bathroom (for Feisty French Friend can, verily, be described as "a glorious manifestation of intellect combined with stylishness"), but this ability to achieve chicness fused with rampant intellectualism appears to us particularly French.

However, that's not to say that a similar design can't be achieved by other nations - does Feisty French Friend's bog remind us of something? Of course it does! It reminds us of a photo by Justin Townes Earle, that notorious American singer of songs, which we published back in the days before we ran out of songs we could denominate Toilet Songs, and write special posts about. This particular Toilet Song post was called Toilet Song - Harlem River Blues, and was pretty festive, as Toilet Song posts go. The toilet in the photo is, as you can see, remarkably similar to the French one above, with its practical yet beautiful tiles. However, its charm is perhaps best described as rugged, rather than intellectual.

That time when Justin Townes Earle posted a picture of a toilet on Twitter.

In other news, the inherent misogyny of toilet queues is finally being discussed in the international media (thanks, Tudor Friend!), and not merely in terms of examining the lunacy displayed at every level by those dirty old Victorians. We'd love to do a more in-depth analysis of this subject, which is both important and interesting, but we can't be arsed right now. Also, bad things tend to happen when our posts get too long.

Hastening towards the end of this blog post, therefore, we've got a festive video which we find corresponds well with reality, especially the bits about how beer is good and people are crazy (you know what we mean, you darling, fucked-up bitches).

Festive video - Billy Currington, People Are Crazy


Related Reading

A similar water-saving toilet from the Museum of Wine in Chinon, photographed by Quasi-Intellectual Friend: On the Nature of Academic Friendships
(This is rather a favourite post of ours, actually - it's the one in which we describe our friends as "fruitcakes". Because what's not to love about fruitcake!)

Another water-saving toilet, at the Arcola Theatre in London, kindly shared by Bogsley Hansson Friend: Let's Party Like It's World Toilet Day!

A gorgeous contribution from Feisty French Friend - an actual video! Of a toilet!
Musings on Labels. Oooh, Hang on, "Label" - That's a Whisky, Right?

That time when Australian Friend broke the toilet at Feisty French Friend's wedding:
Amie Australienne Va au Mariage, Casse Toilette (Australian Friend Goes to Wedding, Breaks Toilet)

More pictures from Feisty French Friend's wedding, and more misapplied French interjections: 

In Which We Indulge in Poetry and Out-of-Context French Expressions

Musings on Labels. Oooh, Hang on, "Label" - That's a Whisky, Right?

As we may have gone on and on about to the point of insufferability on many, many previous occasions, we are blessed with extremely lovely friends at the Privy Counsel. (All our friends who contribute regularly have pseudonyms, in order to protect them from embarrassment in the real world, and their own labels; locate these in the "labels" list below on the right. Jonny counts as a friend for administrative reasons.)
What with life veering towards the batshit-crazy end of the spectrum, we lack the spiritual strength (is that a thing? If it's a thing, we lack it) to pull our own photos from the archive (also, remember that thing we mentioned the other week, about the dwarves and the pheasant? That situation's still not been resolved), so it's lucky that our friends are so vigilant and generous with their time and intellectual resources. Here's a contribution from Uncle Sean, a very, very, very old friend, who contributed so memorably to our last post. Behold - poetry, art, genius.

The urinal was not particularly noteworthy, however a mirror at face level is always good fun, particularly one that spews out, "SKUMFARTS", where scum is debauched by trading a little rounded "c" for the imposing angularity of a "k", where the "a" is represented as a stubby cock and balls, and the exclamation at the end is a steaming or perhaps radiant pile of dung.

As someone said, "I love the spoken and written word! It makes me feel so free!" Skumfarts is probably our favourite word, right after rampant, festive and megalomania.

The fun doesn't end there, however. Our favourite French person in the whole world, who we can, due to the aforementioned unsound work-life balance and ensuing reduction of our short-term memory and strain on our spiritual strength, call Feisty French Friend (you can, in a sense, read about this feisty firecracker's wedding here), shared this lovely video. It's from a French B&B! Voilà, pour votre plaisir.

Related Reading

Amie Australienne Va au Mariage, Casse Toilette (Australian Friend Goes to Wedding, Breaks Toilet)

In Which We Indulge in Poetry and Out-of-Context French Expressions

Graffiti in Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country

Our recent post from Denmark, Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country, whetted our appetite for more. Quite a few of our experiences in Denmark have been hangover-related, and considering we're in rather a rotten state today, we thought another Danish post would be appropriate. As we mentioned a little while ago, we have been known to drink champagne (among other things) with certain French people of our acquaintance, and we had the very great fortune to be able to indulge this penchant again this summer. The Privy Counsel and aforementioned French people stayed in a flat in Copenhagen's trendy Nørrebro area. Imagine our delight when we found this totally awesome bathroom!

Danish people have a flair for tiny but awesome bathrooms.

The shower, unfortunately, didn't work.
But it's nice to look at, n'est-ce pas?

Totally awesome graffiti

"Fuck yeah" is rather a favourite motto of ours.

Lovely soap and mixer tap!

Drunken Danish ramblings.

We do enjoy a good Sator square.

We couldn't have put it better ourselves.

This is where we'd normally finish on a pun or amusing quip of some kind, but we're just too hungover. Undskyld.

Related Reading
Det lille Apotek: Big Beers and Small Toilets in Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country

Tømmermænd at Café Jorden, or, Sleepless in Aarhus, or, Fear and Loathing in Jutland

We Basically Haven't Slept Since Wednesday

In Which We Indulge in Poetry and Out-of-Context French Expressions

Those French People Are Crazy!

A Fine Example of Practical Danish Design