Good Times, Good Friends, Good People

You know how you spend some days wishing you lived in the same country as your friends, so you could take diclofenac and eat cheesy popcorn together? The world got a lot darker last week, and it looks like it will continue getting darker for the foreseeable future. It feels more important than ever to stay close to, and drink alcohol with, those friends that light up the darkness with their wit and their kindness. Many of our friends live in a different country or even a different continent from us, which means that we spend a disproportionate amount of our time being sober, and hanging out on social media at odd times of the day, ranting about the patriarchy with equal parts belligerence and sleepy-eyed incoherence. It is a good thing that we have the internet, and the Privy Counsel, to keep us connected! As you all know, the Privy Counsel is an international community of intellectuals, giving counsel, advice and information on toilet-related topics. We also care deeply about human rights, and will continue bellowing about the equal value of all human beings, regardless of sex, colour, and sexuality. (Though we draw the line at hanging out with people who listen to Coldplay.)

Today is the 19th of November which, as all regular readers are aware, is World Toilet Day! Hurrah! It is surely no coincidence that the birthday of the person who suggested we start this blog, in order to get all the toilet whingeing out of our system and stop annoying our friends with it, falls on WORLD TOILET DAY? We think not! Happy birthday, Enlightened Friend! These past six years of delightful ranting would never have happened without you! It is actually also our own birthday - we turn six years, one month and one day today! Hurrah!


Also, we received a message from Shewee Fiend Friend this afternoon! That fierce feminist is presently in Canada, and writes thusly:

I was in a delightful bathroom today!

We went to a Cajun themed restaurant

Bon temps

Which locals pronounce 'bone tempts'

Because they are ignorant farmers who think 'French' is a strange illness

Anyway, we had awesome brunch

You know my feelings about brunch

Crayfish eggs Benedict

Mmmmmmmmm

Mmmmmmmmm

Mmmmmmmm

With a morning cocktail

Here's the bathroom

 Lousy blurry picture for the men's

Because who cares about them

We love almost seeing people!

Obviously there's mixer taps. It is a developed country

I love the mirrors everywhere

We once spent a very memorable evening - in the sense that we can't remember very much of it - with Shewee Fiend Friend in a pub with an awesome ceiling in Winchester.

 Awesome roof

Both stalls wheelchair accessible

I suppose the coat hook was so cool someone was inspired to tear it off and take it home

That's all I got for you

 Woof! Many thanks to Shewee Fiend Friend! Another friend, who we know through Shewee Fiend Friend, sent us this festive link to celebrate World Toilet Day! The link leads to a site that - how fabulous is this! - tells you how to review a toilet from a disability perspective! Said friend says:

It's world toilet day! We were sent an email at work about accessible loos! I thought of you...

As you know we care deeply about disability friendliness at the Privy Counsel, and not only because, in that vast and inhospitable desert of fucked-up toilets known as Britain, the disabled toilet is usually much cleaner and has a much better tap than the ordinary toilets. Certain members of the Privy Counsel suffer from a chronic RSI which has at times been so crippling that they have been unable to turn flush handles or taps, and we thus tend to note whether a toilet is disability friendly or not.

Before we break off to go ogle pictures of Justin Trudeau - so lithe! and so deliciously feminist! - let's have a festive video that reminds us of our friends! Hurrah!

Festive Video - Little Big Town, Good People

Related Reading
A pub in Winchester with a very creepy ceiling, where we went once with Shewee Fiend Friend: Hallowen Horror - Drunken Graffiti and Mindless Lurching in Winchester
All posts featuring Enlightened Friend
All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend
All posts featuring Canada

A Friendly French Toilet - Bordering on the Boisterous in Bordeaux

You know when you start the weekend with a breakfast of the strongest painkillers you can lay your hands on, and all of the leftover nachos from last night, because what the hell - we're all fucked anyway. The most powerful nation in the world decided it couldn't handle the idea of a woman for president, and instead elected a racist, sexist, hate-mongering horror clown. The way things are looking, we're all going to hell in a handcart.

Here's a bright spot, though: According to Australian Friend, monosodium glutamate turned out not to be so dangerous after all! Apparently, the whole scare originated with the fear of the Asian "other" in the 1980s. There is now no impediment to eating sickening amounts of supermarket-own-brand nachos - yay! (We have no verifiable source on this factoid about monosodium glutamate, but we are happy to take Australian Friend's word for it. We have been taking this amazonean antipodean's advice since about 2007, and she has never steered us wrong yet!)

If there is one thing that makes us feel marginally less bewildered in a dark and terrifying world full of bigots and non-mixer taps, it is looking at toilet pictures from happier times. Here are Australian Friend's photos from her roadtrip through Europe this summer!

Australian Friend writes:

L'Autre Petit Bois in Bordeaux

 Excuse the blurriness but I was acting fast!

This picture reminds us of a favourite quote from Caitlin Moran:
"Just resolve to shine, constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in the corner, and people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy, and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux, and this will save you the anxiety of other, ultimately less satisfying things like ‘being cool’, ‘being more successful than everyone else’ and ‘being very thin’."

We might as well continue with the CatMo quotes. Because we can (almost) see one of our best friends in this picture, this one feels relevant:
"Choose your friends because you feel most like yourself around them, because the jokes are easy and you feel like you’re in your best outfit when you’re with them, even though you’re just in a T-shirt. Never love someone whom you think you need to mend – or who makes you feel like you should be mended. There are boys out there who look for shining girls; they will stand next to you and say quiet things in your ear that only you can hear and that will slowly drain the joy out of your heart. The books about vampires are true, baby. Drive a stake through their hearts and run away."

This picture in particular makes us feel safe and loved.

This is also very comforting.

We're not sure about the gunk on this tap. But, come the zombie apocalypse, we will all be grateful just to have running water at all!

Caitlin Moran:
"Babyiest, see as many sunrises and sunsets as you can. Run across roads to smell fat roses. Always believe you can change the world – even if it’s only a tiny bit, because every tiny bit needed someone who changed it."

Caitlin Moran again:
"Think of yourself as a silver rocket – use loud music as your fuel; books like maps and co-ordinates for how to get there."

More Caitlin Moran:
"Life divides into AMAZING ENJOYABLE TIMES and APPALLING EXPERIENCES THAT WILL MAKE FUTURE AMAZING ANECDOTES. However awful, you can get through any experience if you imagine yourself, in the future, telling your friends about it as they scream, with increasing disbelief, ‘NO! NO!’"

Another lamp in a corner! And our last CatMo quote for today:
"Always remember that, nine times out of ten, you probably aren’t having a full-on nervous breakdown – you just need a cup of tea and a biscuit. You’d be amazed how easily and repeatedly you can confuse the two. Get a big biscuit tin."

I think you can see the key points
Surplus pink toilet paper
Mixer taps
A chandelier

At this point we replied:

These are what we would call the themes of the toilet #englishteacheroverload

After making the appropriate chortling noises, Australian Friend continued:

The pic with the candles is outside the door
There was only one toilet and due to etiquette I had to move fast so as not to hold any other patrons up
Also note the magazines
The food was good!
I had a Sicilian tartine

I had to visit twice
(8 hours in the car)

 

Many, many thanks to Australian Friend! Friends really are amazing. It's when you have the kind of friends who message you, just as you are tearing your hair trying to think what to make for dessert, saying "Shall we bring dessert?", that you know that, although the road may be long and weary, full of sharp rocks and occasionally bordered by insane horror clowns, you will ultimately be alright.


Let's finish with a Festive Video.

Festive Video - Kacey Musgraves, Silver Lining

Related Reading
All posts featuring Australian Friend
All posts featuring France
All posts featuring Caitlin Moran

Some useful advice from the always excellent Bust magazine:
Here's how you can help someone who is being subjected to racist or sexist abuse 
Six rules for dealing with an autocrat
Why you should start wearing a safety pin 
Ten ways to use your anger against Donald Trump 
And finally:
If you see a swastika, turn it into a friendly old-school Windows logo 

Happy Pedalling in Berlin

Tally-ho! It's been a while since our last post, but your favourite feminist bog blog is back! With, if not a vengeance, at least a hangover. We spent yesterday evening in a bar with the most amusing beer names, and if there is one thing we at the Privy Counsel enjoy, it is beer and amusing names!

Today we are mostly enjoying total silence, and tea, but if you fancy it we might also enjoy some kick-arse toilet pictures together. Audiologist Friend writes:

Tänkte att Tyskland kan väl inte ha något att komma med efter alla roliga badrum i England och Wales men måste dela med mig av denna hygieniska konstruktion!!! Händerna är fria eftersom man trampar för att spola toaletten, spola kranvatten SAMT öppna båda skjutdörrarna! Baren Haliflor.

I thought that Germany wouldn't have anything to offer after all the amusing bathrooms in England and Wales, but I have to share this hygienic construction!! Your hands are free, since you  push a pedal to flush the toilet, operate the tap AND open both sliding doors! The Haliflor bar.

Schiebetür! Woof!

We love this more than words can express.

Woof!

There is only one word that covers this, and that word is WOW!! with two exclamation marks.

Happy pedalling in Berlin!

That's about all we have energy for right now; we require urgent contact with the floor, and maybe some cheese.

Today's Festive Video is neither festive nor a video, but it does contain a large dose of, as our students would no doubt say, BADASS. Our friend Rebecca Nice was sexually harassed by her tutor at university. Sexual harassment is more common than most people realise. The reason we don't usually hear about it is because victims are often too scared to talk about what has happened, and because employers are inclined to protect offenders. It's funny, for instance, how often an employer will claim to take sexual harassment seriously, and to have a zero-tolerance policy towards it, yet not conduct any proper investigations when a complaint is made.
Rebecca, however, has refused to be silent, and speaks up on Radio 5: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07y68xz

You can read more about Rebecca Nice and her sexual harassment case at the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/07/abuse-at-university-case-study.

Medievalist Musings

We are not fond, as regular readers are aware, of religion at the Privy Counsel. We do however like churches, provided they are old and of historic interest.
Neither are we fans of the institution of marriage, but we do acknowledge that many people consider lurching down the aisle to be a reasonable use of their time. We are therefore happy to announce that a member of the Privy Counsel has gone and got hitched - congratulations, Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend! From what we can tell from the photos, this Roman archaeology enthusiast looked, on her wedding day, as beautiful as the dawn breaking over Istanbul, and radiated intellectualism!

One church we have mixed feelings about is the one in Uppåkra, outside Lund. We like that it is situated on the site of the ancient pagan centre of what was once part of a Danish kingdom, and which is today the site of extensive archaeological excavations. However, we are distressed that the church was built in the 1860s, replacing the previous church from the Middle Ages. Brutal 19th-century cultural vandalism aside, one thing speaking in Uppåkra church's favour is its toilet. It is very, very clean, and is open to visitors, whether they are into invisible sky beings or not.

A no-nonsense tap, soap, and paper-towel dispenser combo.

The toilet is also straightforward and to the point, with a water-saving flush and easy-access cleaning products.

This sign uses the first line of a well-known prayer for children and other gullible people,
to politely remind persons using the facilities to close the lid. We approve!

We enthused last week about it being the season for bird cherry. The wonderful white blooms have now nearly all gone, but instead lilac season has kicked off! Let us enjoy some pictures of these sweet tokens of spring, while it bloody lasts.

Lilacs!

Lilacs by night!

Cherry blossoms are also happening.

There has been a lot of sexism this week. Can we all please agree that in order to do anything - anything - to another person or one of their body parts, one must have their permission?! If you are one of the many people who apparently find consent a difficult idea to get your head round, try watching this video.

The rest of us, meanwhile, will get on with today's Festive Video. This song has been playing on repeat at Privy Counsel HQ this week. It explores a familiar concept - that of the dude who WILL. NOT. TAKE. A. FUCKING. HINT. If you have ever restrained yourself, despite grave aggravation, from pushing a mansplainer into a lake, out of a window, or over a cliff - you have our admiration and respect.

Festive Video - Maddie & Tae, Shut Up and Fish

Related Reading

The festschrift we wrote to Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend 
when she finished her PhD:
Hungover Ranting: Festschrift to Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend

All posts featuring Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend

A particular toilet that we happen to know that Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend is very fond of

All posts featuring Weddings

Our classic post about the dawn breaking over Istanbul: 

Rosy-Fingered Dawn (But No Bloody Lock on the Door) in Istanbul

Another church we visited semi-recently:

Perhaps Our Most Rampant Fit of Escapism Ever

All posts featuring church toilets

Love, Politics and the Revolution

Did you hear that? That was the sound of us exhaling, immediately followed by the sound of us glugging wine in an unrestrained manner.

As we hinted the other week, in an annoyingly cryptic fashion, things have been pretty provoking of late. But today, lo and behold, we find ourselves, not perhaps stomping our boots uproariously and waving balloons, but at least wiggling our toes pleasurably and winking roguishly at postmen. Also we've had some rather encouraging news which made us inclined to consider engaging in an activity not dissimilar to breakdancing.

We are not, furthermore, the only ones in a genial mood. Our contact at the sewage treatment plant in Källby - that queen among sewage treatment plants - went there this afternoon, to indulge in some sludge inspection, or a similar happy activity. She had to wait for a bit for the person she wanted to speak to as he was busy. However, the jovial sewage engineer then treated our friend, as if to make up for the wait, to an impromptu memory cavalcade about said sewage engineer's childhood, including tales of going to Denmark to buy sugar, or possibly beets.

(We are rather jovial ourselves at the moment, being wined up to the gills, and can't quite remember what the Danish produce in question actually was, only that in those days you apparently got 100 Danish kronor for only eighty Swedish ditto - a fairly fascinating factoid for a Monday night.)

As if to complete the general feeling of geniality, Audiologist Friend has sent us pictures of a lovely unisex toilet in Luleå! She writes:

Dags att visa upp det moderna Luleå. Det nyrenoverade badrummet i Smedjan är den perfekta mellanlandningen efter en förmiddagspromenad på isvägen, på vägen hem.
Jag vet att du inte är ett fan av unisextoaletter men var ändå tvungen att fota och skicka till dig.

(Time to demonstrate the modern Luleå. The newly renovated bathrooms at Smedjan [a shopping centre] are the perfect stopover after a forenoon-walk on the ice road, on the way home. I know you're not a fan of unisex toilets, but I still had to take photos and send them to you.)

As regular readers are aware, we are deeply committed to protecting the rights of transgender people. However, we have a massive problem with unisex toilets, at least if they are designed wrong. We love sharing a toilet with transgender people, and fully understand the dilemma of having to choose one of two gender-assigned doors, when one doesn't identify with either gender, or not with the gender one most resembles physically.

However, we do not, under any circumstances, want to share a public toilet with cis men. (Especially not if said cis men are bearded hipster dudes, as reported previously in a tale of spine-chilling horror.) This means that, if a unisex toilet is designed in such a way that women have to share a space, including the space by the sink, with men, then we are against it.

We have never felt threatened by a transgender person. However, we have often felt threatened by cis men. We are of the opinion that public toilets should be safe spaces, where a woman may let her guard down without being threatened, assaulted, sexually harassed, or mansplained at. A unisex toilet with a sturdy, lockable door, noise insulation (all toilets should have this anyway), and its own sink, is perfectly fine by us. A unisex toilet with uncomfortable stalls and shared, mix-gender sinks will be hated by us until the sun explodes and turns the Earth into tiny specks of dust.

We have mentioned, in a previous post, the sheer evil of certain American politicians, depriving transgender people the use of public toilets due to a professed concern for women's safety. As it turns out, reports Patheos, the number of transgender people to have been arrested for sex acts in bathrooms in the States is currently zero. The number of Republican senators to have been arrested for sex acts in bathrooms is three.

Committing a (presumably consensual) sex act in a bathroom is obviously not the same thing as committing an act of sexual violence, but we maintain our stance that the most common danger to women and children is cis men, i.e. normal dudes.

This unisex toilet looks like it might have its own sink behind a lockable door,
making it an acceptable option, unisex-toilet-wise.

A friendly and welcoming, and hopefully privacy-shielding, screen.

This picture gives us the jitters. WILL WE HAVE TO SHARE THIS SINK WITH BEARDED HIPSTER DUDES? is what we are asking ourselves. Hopefully there is a separate sink behind each of those doors.

We have a treat for you, Festive Video-wise! We went to our favourite rock'n'roll club, Rock'n'rollklubben in Lund, the other night, and had the very great pleasure of seeing and hearing a band called Amaroka. They had come all the way from Belarus! And they kicked arse! (We have some rather splendid photos from Rock'n'rollklubben to show you, by the way, in the near future.)

Amaroka represent "positive punk rock" and their songs, as far as we can tell, are 50 % about love, and 50 % about politics and the revolution. Amaroka in fact played in Kiev during the Ukrainian revolution, and were consequently banned by the Lukashenko regime.

The following video kicks arse on so many levels one loses count - it features a dog, a girl with awesome eyeliner, and a young man flipping pancakes! Enjoy! (We also enjoyed this song, and so did our mum.)

Festive video - Amaroka, Разрываеш

Related Reading
Our rant about the word forenoon: High Noon, Hell, and High Water - A Very Long Linguistic Rant
Our rant on why we don't like unisex toilets, if designed wrong
Our review of a unisex toilet we really liked, at Bee Bar in Malmö
Our classic rant on mansplaining
All posts featuring Audiologist Friend

We usually feel compelled, when ranting about the patriarchy, to point out that we have many male friends who would never dream of acting in a sexist or boorish manner. Some of them may be found featured under the following labels (in alphabetical order):

Bogsley Hansson Friend
Czech Mate

German Friend

Intellectual Friend

Mr Smith

Obsessive Emmerdale Fan Friend
Semi-Intellectual Friend

Uncle Sean

On Machiavelli, Venereal Disease, and Cat-Sitting

It is when you find yourself reading Machiavelli, genuinely hoping to pick up some advice on how to sort out your life, that you realise there is no progression happening anymore - you have already gone to hell in a handcart.

Leaving aside, however, the existential aspects of reading Machiavelli, here are the main tips we have picked up from this Renaissance mover and shaker:

1. Don't ever let your soldiers put their loot in a bank, or bury it. Make sure they spend everything they've got, so that they will always be hungry for more fighting.

2. Don't ever build a fortress on high ground, as this is easier to mine, and thus break into. Build your fortress on a plain, and dig wells, to channel the blast from any mines placed under your walls.

3. Don't be changeable, frivolous, effeminate, cowardly, or irresolute.

4. When invading a country, remember that a state with one strong ruler (like for instance Turkey) will be harder to take, but easier to hold. In contrast, a country with a weak ruler and many regional lords (think France) will be easier to take (there will always be a discontented baron who can be bribed), but harder to hold (you then have to put all the barons in their place and make sure they don't betray you in turn).

5. Don't let the children of your dead enemies live, out of misguided mercy. They will inevitably try to kill you in ten or twenty years' time. Off with their heads!

6. It is better to be feared than to be loved. At least if your aim in life is to rule a Renaissance-era city-state, or equivalent. (Machiavelli is firm on this point. Fear, not love.)

Machiavelli offers no advice on how to deal with syphilis, which is odd, considering this is a disease that plagued all strata of society in the 16th century, not excluding, of course, the Vatican. If we may offer you our personal advice in this area, it is this: Syphilis isn't that bad these days, but, whatever you do, don't catch gonorrhoea.

Moving on to more toilet-related concerns, we asked Meandering Friend if she still had the video of the famous disco toilet of Stavanger. However, it turned out she had only recently deleted it from her phone, in order to free up space! This is a tragedy of Titanic proportions, but never fear! We will simply have to conduct a field trip to Stavanger to drink beer and go to the toilet - let us know if you're keen to accompany us.

Meandering Friend writes:

Här kommer ett random toafoto istället från min nuvarande position som kattvakt i Lund (kanske kan göra nåt av det bloggmässigt? )

1. Smart konstruktion gjord av billigt-flygbolagstejp och toarulle för att alltid, när en inte är där, hålla toadörren öppen (#ingenjörskonst)... 

(Here is a random toilet photo instead, from my current position as catsitter in Lund (perhaps you can make something of it, blog-wise?) 

1. Smart construction made of cheap-airline tape and an empty toilet roll in order to always, when one isn't there, hold the toilet door open (#EngineerArt)...)

2. Gå på toa med en fyrbent kompis? (#neverwalkalone)

(Go to the loo with a four-legged friend? (#neverwalkalone))

Meandering Friend adds that there may be a film clip from a random waste disposal centre in Norway coming, if she can find a way of sending it via her phone.

We are not naturally of a Machiavellian bent at the Privy Counsel (except of course when people hang the toilet roll the wrong way round - there is no limit to how long we can carry on a toilet roll feud). Sometimes one needs to remind oneself that it's ok to stop trying so damn hard, and just drink some beer.

(Unless of course you are running a Renaissance-era city-state (or equivalent). All the bodily idioms apply here - you need to be on your toes, looking over your shoulder, keeping a firm grasp on your accountants, and steering everything with a steady hand. No beer for you!)

Festive Video - Billy Currington, Pretty Good at Drinking Beer

Related Reading

Ok, so actually, we sometimes get paranoid and say things like "the enemy is mobilising", which is fairly Machiavellian.

Previous posts featuring Meandering Friend:

A Picture of Johnny Not Holding a Fruit Pie

Disco Fever in Stavanger

Our favourite cat blog is still, by the way, Catstrophil. It has many pictures of cats.

Don't forget that there is a right way and a wrong way to hang toilet roll.

Remember that time when we visited a sewage treatment plant and managed to philosophise, while there, on how to avoid catching syphilis?

You Only Live Once, And Sometimes Even That's Too Much

We are prone to vaguebooking at the Privy Counsel. We admit it. More than once (for instance here, here, and here), we have been guilty of unleashing a full-on vague-whinge, mournfully hinting that things are "a bit grim right now" but refusing to specify what ails us.

Well, guess what. Things really have been grim - so, so, so, so grim - lately. We would actually quite like to tell you just how grim. But, this being a blog devoted to a) toilets and b) rampant intellectualism, we make a point of not boring our readers with tedious details about our personal life (except of course in the case of Jonny, who is, by the way, still single). So instead, we are going to forget our troubles by enjoying a rant related to a toilet which one of our correspondents experienced at a feminist conference not too long ago.

Said feminist conference took place at a place called Malmö Live. For readers who don't regularly keep up with the goss from southern Scandiwegia, Malmö Live is an incredibly ugly conference centre in Malmö, Sweden, which cost staggering amounts of the taxpayers' money, and now constitutes a daily blot or haemorrhage on the Malmö skyline.

Right up until the moment when some edgy young architect decided to outdo Hieronymous Bosch in nightmarish visions, and went and designed this, it was literally impossible to imagine an uglier building than Malmö Live. It seems that Malmö politicians like to pretend that they live in Sydney, or downtown Miami, and thus encourage the erection of gut-punchingly ugly wannabe skyscrapers, to help maintain this illusion. Thus, the historic harbour area of Malmö is rapidly being clogged up by hideous constructions of glass, steel and brick. The brutalisation of this culturally significant area will no doubt be regretted by future generations, nauseated by the sheer hideousness of Malmö Live and surrounding areas, but by then it will of course be too late.

Nonetheless, though the outside of Malmö Live is so ugly it makes you want to rip out your eyes and throw them in a vat of acid, the inside isn't bad. The conference areas are actually rather stylish and pleasant, with ear-friendly acoustics, and the toilets could be a lot worse.

This coat-hook passes our rigorous quality standards, being sturdy
and able to support a stuffed-to-bursting bag on a wet day.

The sinks are rather small, but the mixer taps are beyond reproach, and the soap smells nice.

Normally, the only colour we hate more than orange is brown, but we don't mind these orange doors. In fact, we find them rather festive. 

This toilet-roll holder is also beyond reproach, though the toilet paper is bleached.

Our correspondent indulging in a fulsome toilet selfie.

When things get really bad, we at the Privy Counsel look at pictures of Caitlin Moran until things feel better. Today, we felt the need to watch actual videos. Here's one that we found really helpful. If you, too, are struggling, have a cup of tea and watch this soul-soothing interview.

Festive video - Caitlin Moran's Moranifesto

Related Reading

All posts featuring Caitlin Moran

When things get REALLY bad, we especially recommend this post, in which we describe the group hug we once enjoyed with CatMo:
Caitlin Moran Really Does Make Everything Better

All posts featuring Malmö

Two posts featuring the colour brown:

Jazzing Things Up in Oslo
Brownian Motion, or, Brownout, or, A Brown Study - Semi-Intellectual Friend's Shower

Go, Just for the Record

How are you, dear readers?
This is obviously a rhetorical question, since a blog is mostly a one-way communication channel. Still, how the hell are you? If you are unhappy, for instance if you live in a country where mixer taps are rarer than a unicorn in a paddling pool in Alaska after a nuclear meltdown, write to us and tell us about it! Or if you are happy, perhaps because you are in a country where hot water is pumped from underground and transported across the country in a massive communal grid, then don't hesitate to get in touch. As did for instance Audiologist Friend, that scion of hearing aids and toilet photography!

Audiologist Friend writes:

Här kommer veckans fångst. Det nya helt veganska fiket, praktiskt nog har det placerats granne med vår lägga* i rvk. Vad det heter? Vinyl såklart. 

(Here is this week's catch. The new totally vegan café which has been conveniently placed next to our pad in Reykjavík. The name? Vinyl, of course.)

*We have never actually seen the word lägga used in this way before. We reckon it is either a colloquial term for lägenhet, "flat/apartment", or an autocorrect error. If you are familiar with this term, either because you are linguistically aware or because you are one of the cool kids, do not hesitate to get in touch and reduce our ignorance.

A charming vista of a hygienic and festive toilet

A friendly ladder serves as a reminder of the fallibility of human nature

Hubba! A close-up of the actual vinyl player with an actual speaker! One is highly likely, on regarding this picture, to erupt in an exhortation along the lines of, "Slave, cease your cymbal-playing this instant and book us a flight to Iceland!"

We have had occasion to reflect, recently, on the subject of family. Ours isn't prone to owning wicker, but otherwise we subscribe to many of the views expressed in this Festive Video.

Festive video - Kasey Musgraves, Family is family

Related Reading

The post in which we waxed lyrical on the topic of the hot-water system in Iceland:
Power Trip: Hellisheiðarvirkjun

Posts featuring another lovely vegan café, Goji in York:
Goji in Goodramgate - Come for the Tea, Stay for the Toilets

Goji: Returning to the Scene of the Cake

All previous posts featuring Audiologist Friend:
A Ray of Light from Spain

Þórsmörk, Iceland: Some Light Relief

A Fatally Fascinating Sequel

Jazzing Things up in Oslo

Cracking Some Suds in Kreuzberg

How to Love Handles

Apparently There Was a "Best Norwegian Café" and "Best Latin Translation" Competition, and Here Are the Winners!

A Life-Affirming Experience

Educational Cake

Tally-ho, gentle readers, and congratulations - you are reading another post from your favourite bog blog!

Sexism is thick on the ground as ever, and the world continues to be plumbing-challenged, but here at the Privy Counsel, we keep fighting the good fight to bring you rampant gender equality, quality pipes, and amusing bloggery.

As our fans and friends know to their chagrin, a toilet blogger's life is filled with many, many non-toilet-related activities. Life and limb must be kept together, and bread for the day must be procured through toil and trouble and through much sweating of one's brow. Nonetheless, every now and then, when one is in the middle of procuring bread and wiping sweat from one's toiling brow, something amazing and plumbing-related happens. Like when this cake, to celebrate World Plumbing Day, suddenly turned up in our workplace, for example. That's right. A CAKE. TO CELEBRATE WORLD PLUMBING DAY! We didn't even know there was such a thing, but luckily, others did!

Cake! WORLD PLUMBING DAY CAKE! We didn't even know there was such a thing as World Plumbing Day, and then we found out through CAKE!

We have Tudor Friend to thank, as so many times before, for the following bog pictures. Let us get cracking without further ado! Tudor friend writes:

The tragic toilets at the Derby Indoor (Down-market) Market... Getting the loo roll from that place works best if you happen to be a contortionist. Not sure what the logic was there.

One could write a kick-arse country song about this, called "(I Am Not a) Contortionist Blues".

Meanwhile, in the Derby local history centre... That is not a filter, that's what happens when you walk in. Blue ultraviolet light. It's either pretending to be disinfectant, or they have raves often.

As far as we know, this kind of blue light generally indicates
a wish to prevent people from injecting intravenous drugs.

Tudor Friend has been very active in her toilet-informational activities lately - here is another gem from that delightful procurer of plumbing lore: Bathroom For Service Dogs Opens In Chicago Airport.

We don't know about you, but we feel an urgent need for a Festive Video featuring non-racist, non-homophobic, non-sexist and non-ageist sentiments. These kinds of sentiments are, in our world, the hallmarks of sane and normal people, but seem to be under threat all over the place.

The Brothers Osborne have been criticised for doing a music video featuring non-heteronormative love. Social media resounded, when the video was released, with the unstructured rantings of homophobes and haters. Rolling Stone magazine, indulging in more covert criticism, called the video "unorthodox". What they meant, of course, was "normal" - white, young, heterosexual love not being the only type of love that exists in this world.

So let's have a taste of an actual non-heteronormative country song, and rejoice in the possibility of sanity and normality. And rum, of course. We think that non-racism, non-homophobia, non-sexism and non-ageism should be celebrated, preferably often and preferably while consuming rum. AND CAKE.
Also we totally fancy the pants off the Brothers Osborne.

Festive video - Brothers Osborne, Stay A Little Longer

Related Reading
All posts featuring Tudor Friend

Two posts featuring our favourite Brothers Osborne song ever, Rum:
A Moderately Cheerful Update
Five Fabulous (And Frightening) Years: The Story of the Privy Counsel