All Flesh is Grass. Also, the Winner of the Toilet-Paper Origami Competition!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the Erfurt latrine disaster is by far the topic that we receive the most messages about. Why this should be, we couldn't tell you, but one might of course speculate. Is it the thrilling combination of sewage and brutal, sudden death? Is it the reminder that life is fleeting, and all flesh is grass? Or is it that satisfying moment of realising that yes, for most people life is one long chain of really, really shitty moments, and it always has been, and it's not just you being paranoid and incompetent? Your guess is as good as ours - or, quite possibly, considering our track record of displaying an appalling lack of judgement, better.

If there is one person who, in stark contrast to us, has a long history of having excellent judgement, it is Our Favourite Aunt. She recently proved the excellence of said judgement by going to visit Monet's house and taking pictures of the toilets.

Enjoy the tulips while you can.

Do these beautiful Delft tiles remind us of something? Why, naturally! They remind us, firstly, of that time when we received a postcard from Tudor Friend, and secondly of Christian IV's toilet in Rosenborg.

Is Monet's abluvium better than Bach's bog? You tell us!

Many thanks to this gem of an aunt - the most splendid of aunts; indeed, the aunt to end all aunts! - for her benevolent toilet photography!

Remember that time when we announced a toilet-paper origami competition, which resulted in people sending in actual photos? No, we didn't either. For this grievous error, we can only offer our sincerest apologies. There is probably an explanation for why this estimable and important project was lost in the mists of time, and that explanation is most likely that said mists of time were mostly opioid mists. However, we have now bribed the judges of our jury to reach a verdict.

We should probably pause, here, to review the entries. And before doing that, we should possibly attempt to explain what the toilet paper origami competition was, when it was, and why. There was a virtual, online event, this being the trend in 2020 for reasons we can't remember, and it was described thusly:

A further description inside the event read as follows:

Scrolling through the archive, we learn that the idea came from Tudor Friend and was thus, in keeping with that friend's personality, funny, creative and devilishly cunning!

The response to this clarion call of bog-related creativity was staggering. Staggering, we tell you! Here are all the entries, in chronological order. (We're not saying that some of the jurors submitted entries but we're also not saying that they didn't. The fact that Jonny entered a photo in a photo competition where the prize was a photo of Jonny dressed as a pirate no doubt says something about the modern era's lack of standards and post-post-modernist or perhaps even post-post-post-modernist atomisation and lack of coherence.)

 

Words cannot adequately express our gratitude to everyone who bravely entered this bizarre competition with such grace and stamina.

Before we tell you who the winner is, let us share the most elucidating comments from our international jury of experts. In no wise must the efforts of both ourselves and the jury be underestimated. This has been a long process, and has involved us insisting on motivations and writing anxious messages saying things like:

I'm going to ask you to motivate your answer, please. (Please. I've been doing this with students wanting a higher grade all afternoon. *it says clearly in the question that you have to motivate your answer, for instance by illustrating it with examples *)

On being told that this particular juror preferred a particular entry, we had to push - yes, even after the heart-rending plea above, we had to keep pushing - for a motivation:

What's good about [this entry]? Is it, for instance, the quality of the origami, or the description and puns?

The reply arrived, without hesitation:

I must admit I let myself be overly influenced by puns. That totally affected my judgement.

Another juror said, about the same entry:

I wonder how long it took to make the rose. I would have developed haemorrhoids. [...] Still, I vote for the rose. Both for creativity and sheer bravado.

And the rose is, indeed, the winner! Here it is again, for your enjoyment:

We shall be contacting the winner and arranging for Jonny to send them a signed photo of him dressed as a pirate. Be warned, however, that last time we arranged a photo competition, the prize was a signed photo of Jonny wearing a trench coat, and it took him four years to send it. 

We would be remiss if we, after this bog-related onslaught, didn't also share the latest toilet photo that Jonny shared with us. Please note that it comes with a trigger warning for royalist sentiments, sartorial genius and unbridled pizzazz:

Since we have established that a) seven people read this blog and b) none of those seven ever listens to any of the Festive Videos, it matters not one whit which video we select to be this post's Festive Video and thus you have only yourselves to blame for us selecting this one:

 

Festive Video: Hailey Whitters, Plain Jane

Related Reading

All posts featuring Our Aunt

All posts featuring Tudor Friend

All posts featuring Jonny 

All posts featuring toilet paper origami 

Last time we arranged a competition: Frame of Mind 

The post in which we remembered we'd forgotten the toilet paper origami competition: Spanish Missteps, Also Other Missteps

Johann Sebastian Bach's Bog 

Our classic post on the correct way to hang your bog roll: Rocking, Rolling, Ranting 

Our classic post on post-post-post-modernism, illustrated using Semi-Intellectual Friend's shower 

Our timeless rant about how everything is terrible, and getting worse, illustrated by little carts rolling down an incline

This one is also quite good 

That time when we had a really terrible experience in a bar

 

Halloween Horror 2022: Can You Believe Your Lyon Eyes?

What can one say, about a city that has not one but two Roman amphitheatres, except that it clearly knows what it is doing? It turns out that Lyon is highly competent when it comes to Roman remains. On the subject of rivers, also, the city displays an almost disdainful proficiency, not settling for just the one river but insisting on two.

One area where the former Roman colony of Lugdunum shows simply breathtaking incompetence, however, is public toilets. We managed to find two, having possibly identified a penchant on the part of the city for pairs, but one of them was so appalling that we have decided to categorise it as a rampant Halloween horror. (The other one was also appalling, but not at a "rampant Halloween horror" level. We didn't even bother taking photos of that one.)

If one should peradventure google the phrase "public toilets Lyon", one finds useful advice from helpful people. One guide to the city's pubic conveniences claims that there is a "Turkish" public toilet by the Place Sathonay. Being rather a fan of the allaturca toilet, we ventured forth to explore this delight, and were not disappointed. This Sanitaire Public does indeed exist in the place stated.

Reader, we went here, so you don't have to.

A picture says more than a thousand words. This one says: "Stay away."

Having once come across some excellent public toilets in the southern French city of Sète, however, we remain hopeful that producing proper public toilets is within the zone of proximal development of Lyon. After all, there has been a city here for two thousand years, and presumably, if its learning curve continues rising, maybe one day the city will be as proficient at public conveniences as it is at small charming bistros in picturesque side streets. Like this one, known to its friends as Les Belles Volailles, in the Rue Cuvier.

A reassuring richness of a) toilet roll and b) coat-hooks.

A somewhat surprising aspect of the toilet of a French bistro.

Jonny has been to what we understand was a horror-themed birthday party.

Terrifying.

Mmm, that's better.

This febrile display of candles could be romantic, or creepy, depending on one's predilections. Either way, there appears to be a fainting chair.

Today's Festive Video is about the approaching winter and impending doom. Incidentally, it causes us a certain feeling of déja vu, to use a French expression.

Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got an urgent appointment with an excellent bar called Les Fleurs du Malt.

Festive Video: Margo Cilker, That River

Related Reading

All posts featuring Jonny 

All posts featuring France

All posts featuring Halloween

All posts featuring fainting couches

All of the allaturca toilets we have ever had the joy of coming across.

That time when we reflected on art, in a semi-existentialist, rather French, manner: What A Thing Is and What It Is Not Are Identical In Form. Or So We've Been Told.

That time when we experienced winter, and impending doom, on a Canadian prairie: The Girl Bartenders Hate

Divide [the Toilets] and Conquer [One of a Multitude of Aspects of Women's Subjugation to Male Violence]

Zut, alors! Sacre bleu! Quel fromage! We've been on holiday in the south of France, and our high-school French has come back with rather more force than we are quite comfortable with. If we end up gesticulating in a Gallic fashion, brandishing a large baguette in public places, or insisting on imbibing a pastis in the shade under the plane trees while laconically making ironic remarks about the latest train delays, you will have to bear with us.

Let us symbolically trouver la gare together! Alors, the first toilet in today's continental blog post is from Montpellier Airport, and illustrates that what appears progressive may turn out to be, if one only reflects a moment, horrifyingly regressive.

There were, as far as we could tell, three toilets in the departures hall at Montpellier Airport: one gents', one ladies', and one unisex. Since the ladies' toilet was out of order, we were relegated to the unisex one. Making toilets unisex ticks the "inclusive" box, and makes everyone feel virtuous. We all want to be inclusive, right? God forbid anyone should feel left out! Intuitively, unisex toilets seem like the only progressive option for modern people. Men and women are equal, and there is no reason to segregate the sexes. But stop and think. For instance, think about these questions:

• Do men commit the majority of sexual-violence crimes?
• Are sexual predators opportunists?
• Are women safe in an enclosed space with strange men?

The answers are, respectively, Yes, Yes, and No. There is no lack of evidence of women being at risk from sexual and physical violence from men in unisex toilets. Before the loud manspreader scratching his balls in the back starts yabbering the "Not all men" mantra, no, not all men. But too damn many, and they don't, unfortunately, have a sign attached to them saying "abuser", or it would be easy to weed the bad ones out. Once you designate an enclosed space where women have no choice but to go, unisex, you are leaving them at the mercy of predatory men. There is a reason women want and need women-only spaces, and that reason is to exclude male violence.

On the left is the women's toilet...

...and on the right is the men's. In between is a narrow space with a sink, in which we found ourselves trapped uncomfortably with no fewer than three men, one of whom was wearing chinos.

The coat hooks, to be fair to this execrably bad toilet, are great.

The toilet itself is tiny, and not something you want to shout from the rooftops about.

Incidentally we were, as you can see if you go back through our Unisex Toilets label and read older posts (for instance this one), originally in favour of trans inclusivity. Being inclusive seemed to be a matter of human rights; both men and women are at risk of male violence, and if some men who look like women are at an even higher risk of violence, then surely letting them share a toilet with the women makes perfect sense? Unfortunately, however, it's not that simple. It turns out that there are plenty of men (again, not all men) who are prepared to argue that they are trans women in order to gain access to spaces where women are vulnerable, for instance rape crisis centres, domestic violence shelters, changing rooms and, yes, toilets. Robbing women of the right to banish men from women-only spaces renders them powerless to protect themselves against male violence.

In one of our first posts about unisex toilets, we gave expression to our fear of being trapped in an enclosed space with strange men by flippantly describing the bearded hipsters crowding the sink. We have since had cause to drop the flippancy. We empathise with trans women and -men, but fail to see why supporting them must endanger women. 

Luckily the internet is, just about, a place where women can talk about things that affect them, and there are many brave radfems (or, as some people label them, TERFs) out there conducting an intellectual debate about the difference between sex and gender. Some of our favourites are Jean Hatchet, Lily Maynard and, of course, gender-critical transwoman (oh, that this epithet even exists) Miranda Yardley (who, incidentally, has been permanently banned from Twitter for saying abusive things like "an adult human male is a man").

We shall no doubt keep talking about the screaming bloody horror that is unisex toilets, but let us for now move on to something potentially more festive - French public toilets!

Strolling along a promenade in the charming southern French town of Sète, we were delighted to spot a sign pointing to a public WC! Our disappointment was in proportion to our initial excitement: the door was locked. Two friendly French dudes relaxing on a bench informed us that c'est fermez, and our French companions explained that since nobody in their right mind goes out in the middle of the day, everything including the toilets is shut until 3 pm. This seemed fair enough considering the blistering heat, and the fact that the toilets were still closed at 4 pm was surely just an anomaly.

A resolutely closed door

A supremely exciting sign!

To be honest, we weren't brave enough to ring the bell - maybe if we had, a friendly toilet attendant would have let us in?

Here's what the public toilets in Sète look like as you are walking away from them in disappointment.

The public toilets may have been shut, but fear not! we stop at nothing to procure pictures of toilets, and ventured into the bar next to the local hôtel de ville in order to satisfy our readers' voracious hunger for images of French facilities.

So far so good

This charming sign says "Laissez les WC dans l'état où vous souhaiteriez les trouver en entrant", which we can all agree with!

This toilet is rich in signage; this one says "Ne jetez pas vos lingettes et autre au les toilettes! Une pubelle est prévue à cet effet"

"Respectez ce lieu propre comme vous le trouvez quand vou rentrez. Merci." Ah! Gallic gallantry!

Here by the sink, which has no soap, is the poubelle in which one is supposed to deposit one's lingettes et autre.

We naturally didn't spend our entire holiday lounging around Sète, guzzling pastis and ogling athletic French men engaged in nautical jousting. No, indeed! We made sure to attend the Le Corum concert hall in Montpellier, where we found the facilities unproblematic and reasonably cultured. Hurrah!

Last but not least we visited, for our readers' delight and edification, the toilets in the Galeries Lafayette in Montpellier. This was not without difficulty - on following the signs pointing towards the WC, one was led first along the entire gallery, then down the stairs and finally up a minuscule lift. We are nothing if not dedicated to our cause of describing toilets in an obscure and mildly amusing bog blog!

The hand dryer, we suppose, could have been worse.

The coat hook was the best thing about this toilet. Have we identified a trend?

There is no toilet seat, but the toilet roll is all present and correct so that is, presumably, something to be grateful for.

The soap supply is adequate and so is that of lukewarm water.

Readers, we have reached the end of the road: this is where we stop ranting. We hope that your hypothetical question Où est la gare, s'il vous plaît? was answered. Festive Video? You bet!

Festive Video: Time,
"Swedish Woman Stops Plane To Temporarily Halt Asylum Seeking Man's Deportation To Afghanistan".  
(Incidentally, Elin Ersson did not succeed in stopping the deportation of Ismail Khawari, but this does not lessen her bravery.)


Related Reading

All posts featuring Unisex Toilets

One distressing unisex toilet in particular is described here: Stockholm Central Station: The Trauma Is So Great We Are Brought To Quoting Cicero

An excellent public toilet in Athens that we enjoyed immensely but where we also had occasion to ponder the safety issues that being a woman (a calamity affecting roughly 50 % of the population) in public spaces necessitates pondering: Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts, But Totally Trust the Toilet Attendant

A blog critiquing gender ideology, including documented harm to women brought on by a lack of women-only spaces: The New Backlash

Some gender-critical bloggers who argue intelligently (there are many more):
Jean Hatchet
Lily Maynard
Miranda Yardley

Also, don't miss the festive heroes at Man Friday

Last but not least, if you prefer your radical feminism served French, there is Féministes radicales

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