We Cheer Ourselves Up Using Pictures of Roman Plumbing, and Caitlin Moran

You know when you end up having to spend 27 minutes looking at pictures of Caitlin Moran on the internet just to be able to get on with the rest of your day?
As you know, we don't like to complain, but there are moments when one wishes that there was a lot less mansplaining happening, and a lot more syphilis. If the crotch of one's tights would stay in the position intended for it, and not slide down to one's knees, that would also be great. (One can dream, can't one?)

Incidentally, before we go any further, here is an emergency picture of Caitlin Moran. (We can't sit down and drink ourselves into a stupor while enjoying a spirited rant with all of you, so this is as close as we can get to providing spiritual solace.)

Caitlin Moran makes everything better.

Now exhale. Feels better, doesn't it? And guess what. It gets even better! It's dark outside, and there's all kinds of doom happening left, right and centre, and also there's something really weird going on with the Privy Counsel HQ toilet, which we hope will sort itself out before anything distressing happens. But we had a cheeky pint (and, incidentally, some seriously calorific pastries and, funnily enough, an extended spirited rant) with Exuberant Archaeologist Friend today, and realised that we haven't posted all her Rome photos. So here are more of Exuberant Archaeologist Friend's Rome photos! Huzzah!

Exuberant Archaeologist Friend writes, in her bold, plucky style (a translation follows, as usual, below the original, but do take the opportunity, if the mood takes you, of brushing up on your colloquial Swedish):

Detta är lite annat smått och gott:
Vad vi tror var ett avlopp som vi hittade på Colosseum. Synnerligen intressant. Kanske har det sköljt bort mer blod än avföring men det lämnade dock ett bestående intryck.
Vi fann en offentlig dryckesfontän i Ostia samt vad vi tror var ett annat avlopp. Detta var trevligt. I synnerhet som detta avlopp var klädsamt täckt av rik grönska. Vi blev en aning poetiska. Fontänen var mycket rar och vi önskade innerligt att den fortfarande fungerade. Men ack, den var snustorr och detta beredde oss en viss sorg.
Mera bilder följer.

(Here are a few more titbits:
What we think was a drain, that we found in the Colosseum. Singularly interesting. It might have drained away more blood than faeces, but it still left an indelible impression.
We found a public drinking fountain in Ostia, and what we think was another drain. This was nice. Especially since the drain was becomingly covered in lush greenery. We waxed somewhat lyrical. It was a very dear fountain, and we heartily wished that it still worked. But alas, it was bone dry, and this caused us a certain sorrow.
More pictures coming.)

ZOMG A DRAIN. IN THE COLOSSEUM. IN THE COLOSSEUM!

Huzzah - a drinking fountain in Ostia!

Another drain. This one is becomingly covered in lush greenery.

That's all we have energy for now - we have to watch a frivolous tv programme, then get on with some grammar and maybe bash our head against the wall for a bit.

There are lots more exciting posts coming up, though - Bogsley Hansson Friend sent us an awesome picture of a ventilation pipe (and also a water-saving sink!), and there is one more Italian instalment from Exuberant Archaeologist Friend coming, in which she loses her shit over Italian plumbing, in a manner which inspires feelings of courage and valour in one's breast.

Today's festive video is, inevitably, going to consist of a melodramatic country song.

Festive video - Miranda Lambert, Mama's Broken Heart

Related Reading

All previous posts about Caitlin Moran:
Joy in the Morning, Afternoon, and Well Into the Evening - Caitlin Moran in a Bathroom

In Which We Indulge in a Feminist Rant and, of Course, Incontinence

Caitlin Moran - Our Favourite Non-Toilet-Related Person

That time when we were enormously excited by a drain in Athens:
The Ancient Agora Museum in Athens - Unbridled Stoicism

That time when we tried to cheer ourselves up with a picture from our mate Jonny:
We Clutch Desperately at Straws, and Try to Cheer Everyone Up with One of Jonny's Pictures

Another post in which we bitch and moan a fair amount, about, among other things, grammar:
"Oh for Shame, How the Mortals Put the Blame on Us Gods" - We Indulge in Melodrama

All previous posts from Exuberant Archaeologist Friend

"Oh for Shame, How the Mortals Put the Blame on Us Gods" - We Indulge in Melodrama

One likes to think that, as one grows in age and maturity, one learns how to handle life's inevitable problems and conundrums in a sensible, productive manner. The problem is that, when one sobers up after an evening of sensible productivity, the shit that life has thrown at one is still there, sticking to one with malicious tenacity. Take one thing, for instance, that is prone to following us around to the point where we are considering applying for a restraining order - grammar.
It turns out that the normal elements of it aren't enough - people have been sitting around deliberately inventing additional grammar.  For absolutely no purpose whatsoever, as far as we can deduce, other than torturing people with bilge!
We have been informed, for example, that there is something called "aspect". Having never encountered this diabolical invention before, we were both confused and horrified, and asked Shewee Fiend Friend for her opinion on the dreary business. Our superbly cerebral friend gave us a piece of wisdom which impressed us with its brilliant simplicity, and which we would hereby like to share with our readers (you're most welcome):

I started learning Greek a few years ago. What is this "aspect" thing? why does it exist? I wondered. And then I quit learning Greek.

However, pieces of wisdom will only get you so far when it comes to negotiating the skerries and rocks which the universe amuses itself with placing in one's way. Sometimes, the only goddamn thing that helps is a good mixer tap. How lucky, then, that Tudor Friend had just such a thing up her sleeve! Tudor Friend wrote to us in our need, in her inimitable way, oozing kindness while somehow simultaneously dripping with sarcasm:

I hereby send you The Prettiest Mixer Tap in Great Britain. It sounds like you could use something shiny and hope-giving.

Behold! The prettiest mixer-tap in Great Britain!
Its legendary healing powers are in no way exaggerated!

All this is particularly pertinent because, the other day, we received some advice from a 95-year-old granny of whom we are particularly fond. She said, "Take care of your friends".

Pretty astute, hey, even for us? It doesn't end there: we have a festive video with which to delight you as well. Because where would we all be without festive videos? Well exactly - up shit creek, that's where. Tudor Friend sent us this video ages ago but we were very busy having a prolonged nervous breakdown at the time, and never got around to viewing it. Better late than never - here, for your viewing pleasure, is a CNN video about a science museum in Tokyo doing a super-festive toilet exhibition!

Related Reading
Café Treff: The Best Toilet in England

Some of our favourite rants about taps:
A Note on Desperate Measures
Les Conduites Dangereuses: For Once It's Not Just Us Ranting
Are You British? Does Tap Sanity Elude You?
Tap Into Pain
Terminator Toilet

Some soothing tap-related loveliness from Tudor Friend:
We Receive a Postcard
Taps, Wine, and Elvis!

Some other random legendary healing powers

Cuteness, Intellectual Solace, and a Correction

We're not usually humble at the Privy Counsel, contriteness being contrary to editorial policy, but we know when it's time to admit that someone has a bloody good point. Like with this whole cute palaver, for instance. You will remember our razor-sharp jibe at Intellectual Friend in our last post, when we questioned "Intellectual Friend's use of the word 'cute' with a severity not tempered by a long and fond friendship". We still maintain that Intellectual Friend's way of expressing himself was vulgar and loathsome in the extreme, but we do acknowledge the validity of the subsequent justification, it being based on sound etymology and philosophical musings. It is also a sheer bloody joy to read. We don't know what your life has been like lately, but at Privy Counsel HQ we've been plagued by all manner of vile things like illness, neurotic outbursts, and grammar. This missive from Intellectual Friend, however, soothed our soul and enveloped us in a cloud of bliss and joyfulness. You're welcome:

Ha! Quite cool! And the etymological roots of the word paragon [we referred to Danish Friend and Intellectual Friend as "paragons of romance"] sprout from the sense 'sharp'. Which might seem like a gratuitous and worthless remark, except that I'm about to try to make a subtle, potentially intellectually amusing, point, or two; let's see if I get there... 

So, I don't know what has bitten me into using the word 'cute' in that Norwegian toilet blurb of mine, and it is probably reprehensible on most accounts and from most angles. Nevertheless, a posteriori, as a post factum kind of commentary, if not justification nor excuse ('a posteriori' probably suggests in fact not only spuriousness but also arse-talking), I was vaguely amused to discover that 'cute' is an aphetic form of 'acute' and that it was used, originally, in the sense 'sharp', too! ('Sharp, quick-witted' etc.) (And I would further surmise that cute is, via acute, actually cognate with the -agon of paragon.) Though of course apheticism is presumably reprehensible in itself, and one is not surprised to find that this particular aphetic development, along with its later semantic developments and crazy perversions, came from overseas. Though, and this may return us to less theoretico-linguistic and more down-to-earth matters, in this case to that earth-embedded Norwegian fjell-toilet, one might be also amused by one of the OED's citations for the word cute, which perhaps evidences a semantically transitional stage, and optionally one might also be intrigued by its potentially uncanny relevance to all this irrelevant rambling:

1900 Daily News 15 Nov. 6/5 A small and compact wooden house, what the Americans would call ‘cute’.

So as you see, Intellectual Friend's use of the word "cute" was entirely justified, at least in hindsight, and with a good deal of learned ramblings attached.

Our good news and general cheerfulness don't end there! We've got a highly encouraging picture of a young man, the son of good friends of ours, tending to his hygiene in a most laudable manner! This enthusiasm for handwashing is surely to be encouraged in these times of influenza and probably (it wouldn't surprise us if it were lurking) cholera, and if one is lucky enough to have access to a mixer tap, then so much the better!
In the interests of privacy we have taken the liberty of adding certain, er, accoutrements to the young man's appearance. This has the added effect of helpfully showing his parents what he will look like when he's grown up. Lo and behold!

When the little fellow is a bit older we hope he may enjoy
the moral of our exciting drama Alien vs. Predator: Blood, Gore and Mixer-Taps,
which features, in a minor role, a young person tending to their hygiene.

Wasn't that great! Let's have a festive video, to celebrate how much better everything feels now!
Blaze Foley's Big Cheeseburgers and Good French Fries:




Related Reading
Norwegian Wood
Alpine Escapism
Academic Excesses
Snyrt, Snyrt: Landnámssýningin

Alien vs. Predator: Blood, Gore and Mixer-Taps

Nunc Est Lavandum - Bath-time!

We had planned yet another delightful article about toilet paper today, but something happened that, believe it or not, entirely took our mind off cellulose and virgin fibres. It was pointed out to us that another Roman Bath has been found in York; in the civilian part of town this time.  We learn from the BBC website that it was briefly exposed by vandalising Victorians building the train station in the 19th century, but has lain undisturbed ever since. Being fans of Roman plumbing, we find this terribly exciting, and caper with unbridled joy at the thought of seeing another Roman bath!

Image from www.bbc.co.uk

To enjoy a soak in our post about the Roman Bath museum in York, see http://theprivycounsel.blogspot.com/2010/10/roman-baths-museum-crap-on-stick.html.

Our desire to experience modern British plumbing as good as that of the conquering Romans two thousand or so years ago remains, needless to say, futile.

Postscript 
Thanks to Mother and Quasi-Intellectual Friend for helping us with our Latin grammar