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.

In Which We Introduce the Concept of the Vulture of Doom

You know when you have a thousand things to do and it feels like there is a giant bird of prey hovering just above your head, clawing rudely at your ears and coughing up fur balls? We like to refer to this feeling as the Vulture of Doom. It is likely to follow us around, snapping its beak in a horrifying manner and exposing us to the kind of breath that makes pericoronitis appear, by comparison, like a field of lavender on a sunny afternoon. The Vulture of Doom cares not a jot if it is a high day or holiday, or an ordinary work day; neither does it discriminate between toilet blogging duties and other types of work, for instance the legitimate kind for which one gets paid. It tends to get more persistent when we have a large amount of toilet pictures lying around unsorted and unpublished. Sometimes, just to fuck with the Vulture of Doom, we will procrastinate wildly then sit back with a rum (or, by all means, whisky. We're not likely to turn down a whisky) and coke, and mentally taunt the flea-bitten old scavenger by NOT GIVING A FUCK.

However, we are diplomats by nature at the Privy Counsel, and we reckon life is easier when the Vulture of Doom isn't depositing fleas in our hair. Hence, let's have a look at this picture from Australian Friend! 

MY THRONE 

Feel free to share. 

You will note the brand new oak toilet seat; 

the Andrex quilts, rolling the correct way (from above);

the oil burner for minor indiscretions;

and the reading material (ELLE UK).

Also note the proximity to fresh air, supplied by that tree outside. 

I'm not partial to the tiling, but one can hardly re-tile a rental property. 

We love everything about this picture, not least the stripy shower curtain!

We are grateful to Australian Friend for supplying this charming view of her domestic arrangements.

As regular readers are aware, our friends are pretty notorious when it comes to sending us pictures from the world over. Nor do they stop at sending photos - they send videos, too! The one we are about to show you is from an intellectual friend of ours with whom we share a fair amount of witty and enjoyable banter online but who we will not necessarily recognise immediately when meeting in real life (what's real, anyway? As Australian Friend once said, memory might simply be an illusion, and we may have literally just been thrust into this existence seconds ago), and was captioned with the pithy comment "German. Obviously".

We are going to treat you, here, to the actual conversation that followed the sharing of this video:

Intellectual Online Friend: There's some kind of liquid coming out of the thing that sticks out over the seat. Possibly something antibacterial.
Privy Counsellor: Amazing.
Intellectual Online Friend: It is. I want one for work. Possibly one that also cleans the pee-stained floor.
Privy Counsellor: Yes! That's just what we were thinking! Although something that would be even better would be a contraption that gave people who piss on the floor electric shocks while they're doing it - that would teach 'em. 

(Read more thoughts on this matter here.)

Hurrrah for the self-cleaning German toilet!

The German toilet video is fascinating in many ways, but one thing it is not is musical. Hence we need a Festive Video. Because one third of women worldwide have experienced sexual or physical violence, mostly by an intimate partner; and because of all women killed in 2012, almost half were killed by intimate partners or family members, here is Miranda Lambert's Gunpowder and Lead.

Festive video - Miranda Lambert, Gunpowder and Lead

Related Reading

The right way to hang toilet roll: Rocking, Rolling, Ranting
How to deal with people who piss on the floor: (Don't) Aim for the Stars

Cracking Some Suds in Kreuzberg

Tally-ho and a spanking good evening to you, dear readers! The bird cherry is in bloom, blackbirds or similar are tweeting and flapping in the shrubberies, and we've had just enough beer to enthuse exuberantly about our recent toilet pictures from Audiologist Friend! (But not enough to cause us to spend tomorrow affectionately clasping the toilet bowl. We might give it a friendly nod, at most.)

As you might be aware, the night which is, above all others, dedicated to fire and pagan rituals - Walpurgis Eve - was celebrated recently. Audiologist Friend joined the festivities in Berlin, and indulged in the pleasures of toilet photography while she was at it. She did right to indulge. After all, das Leben ist wie ein Kinderhemd - kurz und beschissen!

This is one of those times when we are able to offer our readers a chance to practise their colloquial Swedish. As usual a translation follows below the original. Audiologist Friend writes:

Första maj-firande i Kreuzberg; Berlin bjöd på många överraskningar. En var denna - en trevlig bar mitt i Görlitzer Park där toaletten varit ett tvätteri? Eller är det bara en retro skylt som hängts upp? Trots jacket i toastolen gick det mycket bra att använda toaletten. 

(Celebrating May Day in Kreuzberg; Berlin offered many surprises. Among them this - a nice bar in the middle of Görlitzer Park, where the toilet is in an old laundry? Or maybe it's just a retro sign they've put up? Despite the cracked seat, using the toilet was a straightforward business.)

Fully signed up to the hipsterish retro laundry concept

We're calling this Stilleben with Sink, Mirror and Quite a Full Bin.

Kreuzberg toilet seats - cracking under the strain?
We embrace this social-realism take on toilet photography.
(For an even less glamorous bog, see this one photographed by Justin Townes Earle.)

As all our regular readers know, we are ardent fans of Germany (except, obviously, its inhumane and repugnant policy on prostitution), and its weird and wonderful inhabitants. One of our keenest contributors, German Friend, has been delighting us with tales about German underground bars for years! Er hat Haare auf den Zähnen, as the saying goes. We are happy that Audiologist Friend, of whom we are very fond, had a good time in Germany, of which we are also very fond (except, obviously, etc.).
Audiologist Friend has actually been very busy lately, jetsetting around several parts of the world, acing exams, and leaving gnomes and feminist treatises outside the Privy Counsel door.

Hot dog! but we were excited to find this waiting for us
when we walked through that door!
The gnome's name is Baltazar.

We are great fans of feminist treatises at the Privy Counsel. Struggling to achieve gender equality (and all other kinds of equality) in a world populated by loafer-wearing, overly-familiar-term-using, mansplaining asshats can sometimes feel like fitting wheels to a tomato - time-consuming and completely futile. It can feel, at times, like one has toted lots of weary loads, and is going to keep on toting for the foreseeable future. However, as we all know, das Ei will kluger als die Henne sein!

A reasonably intellectual member of the Privy Counsel,
showing off this joyfully rampant feminazi t-shirt saying
"Ich fänd's unanständig, keine Feministin zu sein".
(Get it here.)

There has been some rather rampant misogyny happening in our immediate vicinity recently. This nuisance must now cease! In the meantime, let's have a festive feminazi video.

Festive video - Sookee, Vorläufiger Abschiedsbrief
(Sorry, mum, we know you don't like rap. Here, watch an interesting and rampantly intellectual interview with Sookee instead. You might like it. It's in German.)



Related Reading
That time two years ago when we got very enthusiastic about spring:
In Which We Indulge in Poetry and Out-of-Context French Expressions

Our favourite piece of Germany, ever, helpfully imparted by German Friend:
The German Existentialist Toilet Is, Perhaps, Here

Another German Friend highlight:
Put Him in a Longboat Till He's Sober: Sail-loo-rrr Lingo with German Friend!

Jesus Christ we have so many German Friend highlights we are unable to restrain ourselves:
Tod und Verzweiflung, But Also A Rampant (If Temporary) Triumph

Some information about Germany: A Germane Issue

All posts featuring Audiologist Friend

All posts featuring Germany

Tod und Verzweiflung, But Also A Rampant (If Temporary) Triumph

You know how, some days, the only combination of words that accurately describes one's existence is Tod und Verzweiflung? Today, however, is a great day, for today we can say, with utter confidence: "Pah! We laugh in the face of danger. We drop ice cubes down the vest of fear!"

We have defeated the vicious attempts of the Privy Counsel archive to confuse us, ruin our equanimity and make us into gibbering wrecks (or "a gibbering wreck", depending on how many of us one decides there are, and whether we are using the royal we or just an ordinary plural). We have found the elusive "New Year's email"! As regular readers will remember, pictures from the famed New Year's email turned up during one of our archive raids back in August, and we wrote, on the occasion, with touching bewilderment:

As you may suspect, the Privy Counsel picture archive is a total fucking mess. (Read all about the pheasant situation here and here.) There is stuff that's been in there so long we can no longer identify it. Like pictures from German Friend labelled "New year's email", for instance. "What email?" we ask ourselves, squinting in the light of the guttering candle. "And, crucially," we further ponder, taking a quizzical swig from our hipflask, "from what year?"

 We won't go into details of the bravery displayed by the Head Privy Counsellor as we battled against skeletal hands, spiders, and mysterious murderous monks (fuck knows what they were doing in our archive) - suffice to say, we found the email! Behold - an amusing vignette from German Friend! (Look out for interspersed Scandiwegian vocabulary; German Friend is multi-lingual and multi-talented. Oh, and did we mention he just got a dog? We don't know a lot about it at present, only that it isn't called Doris. We'll keep you updated.)

[...] Meanwhile in [German Friend]-land the Christmas and New Year edition 2013 was pretty good. 

I can put some blame on Blighty for blighting a small portion of my stay back home, as on December 23, still in London, I had to pedal through puddles of monstrous extent, errands, presents, etc, you know, and the shoes, the brown shoes got soaked. Horror.
Never really recovered, not till the next day, departure day, anyway, and so, as a good man only owns two pairs of shoes at most at any one time, I had worn "them ole boots", looking strong and masculine, but under the surface, literally, having a blister party! A 5-hour walk with hyperactive 70-year-old min pappa in Berlin didn't help the matter. New shoes were bought on New Year's Eve (how come nobody ever mentions New Year's Adam? Not fair!). 

Anyway, back in Hamburg for nyår, some peeps from here (London) and there (Germany) joined me and we partied on down in the Washington Bar (you don't have to know this place, but if you are ever in Hamburg looking for a spot to party, I can recommend it. "Klein aber oho", as we say in tyska!). 

[...] A pink-tinted necessary with head rests for male customers! "Kopf hier." Don't fall asleep though, the room is fully armed, pistols dangling menacingly overhead! 

A DJ's wild phantasy at Hamburg's Washington Bar. Blue is so 2014. We love the look. And the decks. And the Boombox. Not so much the blur of the pictures. Sorry. Poop.

"Kopf hier." Jawohl!

One could, if one were so inclined, make any number of rude jokes 
incorporating the word "gun".

Close-up of the simple but poignant instructions.
We do love clear signage!

We have no idea what's going on here.

Or here.

Or, for that matter, here.

This isn't, frankly, much clearer.
It looks, however, like German Friend had an excellent Silvester!

We had an amusing and oh! so intellectual conversation with German Friend recently about the German word Trümmerfrauen, and are delighted to note that the word Trümmer is incorporated in the libretto of today's festive video! We're at risk of feeling so smug about this that we have to stop writing immediately, before our head explodes.

Festive video - Patricia Petibon, Der Hölle Rache Kocht in Meinem Herzen (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

Related Reading
Last time we mentioned German Friend, and discovered the concept of the mysterious New year's Email: A Blog Post of Astonishing Clarity
A very German post: A Germane Issue
One of the most exciting things to have happened during 2013: The Existentialist Toilet Is, Perhaps, Here
Another post with a festive Mozart video: Up in the Air - Introducing Exuberant Archaeologist Friend
All posts about German Friend

In other news:
CHRISTMAS IS COMING
Have you considered turning your back on mindless consumerism and instead benefiting mankind by spending a penny on Oxfam Unwrapped, WaterAid, or ToiletTwinning? Or why not donate to Amnesty International, or your local women's shelter?

De Consolatio Philosophiae

Things tend to be rather hectic at the Privy Counsel. Moving through life at breakneck speed while being rampantly intellectual, we don't always have time to appreciate the thoughtfulness, kindness and intelligence of our friends, and often have to content ourselves with stuffing their generously proffered pictures into our archive (the pheasant situation has, by the way, still not been resolved), vowing to give them more attention the second things slow down. However - you may have noticed it too - life only rarely changes gears from "really fast and terrifying" to "slow and pleasant", and the amount of time left over for contemplating artistic toilet pictures remains deplorably small.
(Possibly it doesn't matter. As someone once said, "I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations - one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it - you will regret both".)
Today we celebrate having time to enjoy the finer things in life by posting German Friend's kind contribution from ages ago. As usual, German Friend offers a glorious blend of pithy prose and thought-provoking pictures. Thank you, German Friend!

Brewery-looery

Well, credit where it's brew... At Brauerei Ganter in Freiburg (Black Forest megalopolis). Beer, urine, the ying and yang. It's all one.

Another philosophical benefaction:

Mirror, mirror on the wall ... who (insert inappropriate object/action) of them all?!

Freiburg again. What a source of material...
Her citizens had never struck me as outright narcissists before - despite their city always boasting the best weather in the land - but this takes some beating: Full frontal, width and height mirror. A periodic flush in the form of a gentle waterfall down the looking-glass.We are impressed. And can't stop taking photos.

Let's finish with a philosophical video, which has the added attraction of being totally toilet-related.



Philosophical festive video: Miranda Lambert, Bathroom Sink

Related Reading
One of our favourite philosophical posts ever:
The German Existentialist Toilet Is, Perhaps, Here
More German Friend action from Freiburg, home of serious toilets:
Dread, Rage, and Out-of-Order Urinals

Put Him in a Longboat Till He's Sober: Sail-loo-rrr Lingo with German Friend!

As regular readers are aware, we have a hoard. A hoard not of dragon gold, but of fabulous toilet pictures from German Friend. We go round thinking about posting more of them pretty much constantly (that is, during any time we can spare from thinking about cholera, syphilis, and Richard Armitage), but somehow we don't very often get around to it, most likely due to laziness or, if we're engaging in self-deception and ascribing ourselves more flattering motives for our actions, a selfish desire to hoard the German-Friend-pictures, hugging them close to us and never, ever letting them go.

Be that as it may, we received a message from German Friend the other day. "With so much Armitagery," it read, "is there still space in your heart and head for new loos?" We told German Friend to not be a silly chumps! Armitagery or no Armitagery, there is ALWAYS space for new loos at the Privy Counsel!

So, all aboard - here's German Friend's rampantly festive notes on his latest find!

Have you found syphilis yet? [Editor's note: Yes, it really did begin like this. We do love our friends!] Loved your cholera babes (not literally or physically). [Editor's note: the Cholera Babes are coming to the Counsel soon - all will be explained!]
All aboard here, ahoi and all that shanty.
Nipped back home to Hamburg last weekend and did some home-tourism, found this in a nice, nautical-themed hotel, the submarine-style toilets were, fittingly, in the basement. The gender signs read "beards" and "broads".
As garnish, here is some Sail-loo-r lingo:
Ahoi, all rolls on deck.
Turd over board!
Abandon shit or stem the tide!
So.
There :)

It DOES look like the inside of a submarine!

No idea what's going on here, but it looks surprisingly hygienic.

Are those flowers? Or some kind of fungal growth?

What the hell?

Because a man without a beard isn't really a man.

Broads ahoy!

We should maybe add that last time we met up with German Friend we had a very jolly time, and festive, nautically-inspired rum was in no way not on the agenda.

You'll also be delighted to learn that we have, after scouring the seven seas, found a festive video, for your delight and edification! We have no idea what's going on - three accordion-wielding peasants in knee-socks thrash about while performing a sea-shanty - but the festiveness levels are through the roof!

Festive video: Rapalje, Drunken sailor

Related Reading

Why going aboard (so to speak) a submarine may be a dangerous business:

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

Intellectual Friend investigating Polish feminine endings and vocative cases in a maritime setting:

Dirty Toilets and Dirtier Minds - A Nautical Theme

Australian Friend's foray into the world of nautically themed toilets:

HTFU - A Journey through an Australian Dunny
Another email we received with a forceful, festive intro:
We Go Underground

We philosophise on why our friends spend so much time and effort sending us shit:
Rumours, a Teaser, and More Epistolary Action (With Useful Facts about Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country)
All previous posts from German Friend:
German Friend

Dread, Rage, and Out-of-Order Urinals

Have you noticed it too? The heavy feeling of dread? The cold crawling into one's flannel undergarments, faster than a crab louse on speed? The pissing rain? (Pun totally intended, always.) The perfectly reasonable violent rage, sometimes directed at innocent shoe stands, at the sodding pissiness of the universe? Dear friends, winter is here.
But do please remain calm. Help is at hand! We've got some more amusing pictures from German Friend. Hurrah!

Let us not get too carried away, however; excessive optimism could prove dangerous not just for one's personal health but for one's friends and acquaintances, who really, really, really don't need cheerful platitudes, on top of everything else, on a rainy Tuesday in November. So let's be careful with any potential exuberance. German Friend says:

This? This is toilet humour? I am not amused. At my (work's) local. In oh-so-swish SW6 (that's Parsons Green, London, for you, honey). On a Friday night. I repeat. I am not amused.

Let's carefully try another toilet description, slightly more optimistic:

Who else but Freiburg?
Again punching above her weight, this time in the wannabe-urban league.

A slightly technocratic jab in the shape of "Urimat" receives a mighty left hook of a counterpunch, with "Urban shit".

The K.O. comes by means of an emphatic "The City is full of Urbanshit" (note the ever so German capitalisation).
POW! Freiburg, undefeated!

Now let's go punch something.

Related Reading
The German Existentialist Toilet Is, Perhaps, Here
Jane Eyre - Plunging Into Passion
Finnish Mania: Despite Negligence, We Forgive Intellectual Friend
German Friend Has Adventure, Is Delighted
A Germane Issue

The German Existentialist Toilet Is, Perhaps, Here

Is there anything more suitable, on a hungover Sunday spent in the grips of a dark, sardonic mood, and in expectation of an actual hurricane, than a German existentialist toilet ? Well, quite! German Friend has sent us an excess of interesting, thought-provoking toilet pictures to titillate one's intellect and spur one's musings, and among them was, finally, after months of agonising suspension, the German existentialist toilet! German Friend says:

Yes!
Finally, here it is.
Total toilet existentialism in Berlin - this "smallest room" served as the privy at a photography exhibition in trendy Mitte district's out-of-function Postfuhramt (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postfuhramt).
It was a busy winter's Sunday and I did look rather silly taking pictures (does the blogger and other contributors ever get caught in the act, as it were?), but just had to take this with me for the benefit of mankind.
Anyway, finally here.
We have nothing.

"You have nothing". German existentialist toilet.

Does your mind feel boggled? Ours feels five kinds of bamboozled. Time for some cheese and a lie-down.

Actually, this rampant existentialism gives us occasion to ponder a favourite song of ours again:

"You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing!"

Related Reading

A Lovely Cavalcade of Photos

Arachne-Philia and German-Induced Euphoria

German Friend Has Adventure, Is Delighted

A Lovely Cavalcade of Photos

Ho-hum. Here we were, trying primarily to a) relax and CTFD, but getting increasingly anxious and resorting to b) getting some sodding work done, when we were, predictably, side-tracked by people sending us lovely photos. (We're not complaining!)
So, since it is, after all, Saturday night, let's get a little bit festive! Behold, a lovely cavalcade of photos!

German Friend offered this glimpse of things to come:
"A little preamble to the still missing existentialist toilet...
That theme seems to be all the rage in Deutschland!"
We caper with joy at the thought of the forthcoming existentialist toilet,
and are simultaneously reminded of the large amount of
Uzbek material still lurking in the Privy Counsel archives!
Readers are advised to hold on to their hats, as there
is severe fabulousness coming!
(For a similar amusing image, see A Festive Update.)
Image from StreetArtGermany.

This lovely bamboo bath comes from Tudor Friend, and rather reminds
us of another spiffing tub that came our way once!
Image from Guadua Bamboo.

This beaut was sent to us by Czech Mate, and introduced to us with the words,
"Behold, the from-within-illuminated wash basin from a Leeds buffet place"!
Are you feeling the warm and friendly karma emanating
from  the motion-sensor mixer tap? We are! Woof!

Finally, lest we get above ourselves: a simple but functional
bog from the Guild 45 Cinema in Seattle.
Loving the rough cement floor  and Tork bog-roll holder!
Image by Bogsley Hansson Friend.

Having enjoyed the crap out of this festive cavalcade, it is now time to sigh wistfully and get on with some rather high-falutin' and morally rigid Anglo-Saxon poetry. Wæs hæl!

Related Reading:
A Festive Update
Rock'n'Roll

Bach's Bog - Handwashing and Harmony

 Canadian Friend went to Germany to visit a friend, who has since mysteriously become obsessed with toilets. Welcome to the fold, Canadian Friend's German friend!
These two pals went to visit the historical houses of many distinguished Germans, for instance Goethe, Schiller and Bach. Bach's house turned out to have very interesting toilets, and we are delighted to show you Johann Sebastian's actual bog!

Bach's actual bog! Says Canadian Friend philosphically: "His poo actually dropped there and he probably piddled on that seat, if he was like other men. But he wasn't, he was a genius!!
And if he peed with the dexterity that he played the organ, he probably had excellent aim."

Imagine! This man used that toilet!

Images from the museum toilets, which seem very modern and excellent:

An admirable coat-hook

Canadian Friend: "These toilets really were spotless and spiffy."
Water-saving flush and covered bin, though the loo roll is only half-covered, alas!

A mixer-tap and roll-away towel - we weep with joy!

A polite notice to turn the tap off:
"Liebe Besucher, wir Bitten Sie, den Wasserhahn nach Gebrauch zu schließen. Vielen Dank!"

 As you can see, these are absolutely tip-top toilets 
and get a gob-smacking twelve points!

Well done, Germany!

Related Reading
All Posts by German Friend
Blogging Something Rotten

Some German Toilet Paper Trivia

Today is one of those days when we shamelessly steal content from another website. We found this amusing titbit on a random blog. What can we say? We continue to be blessed with a lot of German readers, and we find ourselves irrevocably inspired!
Before you write us a fuming e-mail about the sanctity of international copyright, bear with us and you will see that this article is actually relevant to yesterday's toilet paper rant.

German toilet paper. Über-German, even!

Image from deutschland.

According to News.com.au, German soldiers use 800 million rolls of toilet paper a year. Former soldiers said the number is actually a lot higher. That equals to 10 rolls of toilet paper a day per soldier.

One blogger recalled that elite mountain troops are given a roll a day as part of the basic equipment, as are troops stationed in Afghanistan.

There is a historic precedent for such consumption. German corporals used to drum into their recruits: 

"Wohin und wieweit ich marschier'
ich geh' niemals ohne mein Klopapier".

("Wherever and however I march, I never go without my loo paper.")

Personal hygiene, a problem in the World War I trenches, was given a high priority when the Germans mounted the Blitzkrieg of World War II.
One soldier in an internet chat room revealed, "The grey recycled paper is the best way of cleaning small-calibre weapons - every soldier knows that."

More German toilet paper. For premium small-arms care.
Image from hamburgpapier.de.

A guaranteed happy end with German toilet paper!
Image from andrewhammel.typepad.com.

Related Reading
A Germane Issue

A Germane Issue

We are delighted to note that we have had a lot of German readers this week. To make our Teutonic friends feel properly welcome, we thought we'd share some English humour involving hammy German accents and toilets. Alles klar, here's an extract from Blackadder (which, we must not forget, starred Stephen Fry as the unforgettable Colonel Melchett), season 4, episode 4!

(Captain Blackadder and Private Baldrick have been shot down and captured by Manfred von Richthofen, the Red Baron.)

von Richthofen 

So! I am the Red Baron von Richthofen and you are the two English flying aces responsible for the spilling of the precious German blood of many of my finest and my blondest friends. I have waited many months to do this.

[von Richthoven kisses Blackadder on both cheeks.] 

Blackadder 

You may have been right, Balders. Looks like we're going to get rogered to death after all. 

Baldrick 

Do you want me to go first, sir? 

[von Richthofen laughs.] 

von Richthofen 

You English and your sense of humour. During your brief stay I look forward to learning more of your wit, your punning and your amusing jokes about the breaking of the wind. 

Blackadder 

Well, Baldrick's the expert there. 

Baldrick 

I certainly am, sir. 

[von Richthofen laughs.] 

von Richthofen 

How lucky you English are to find the toilet so amusing. For us, it is a mundane and functional item. For you, the basis of an entire culture.

Roger that.

For these people the toilet is the basis of an entire culture

Watch Baron von Richthofen strutting his stuff here.

Related Reading
Some German Toilet Paper Trivia
The German Existentialist Toilet Is, Perhaps, Here
Arachne-Philia and German-Induced Euphoria