Bears, Baubles, Booze. Merry Christmas!

Is it time to pour the hot chocolate with bourbon yet? Is the Pope Catholic? Do bears crap in the woods? Can I avoid these distressing and vulgar rhetorical questions and make up my own? The answers are, respectively, yes, yes, yes, and Should men's rights activists be locked into a dark dungeon with only each other and an Elton John Greatest Hits CD for company?

Many people whom we respect and admire, for instance Shewee Fiend Friend, swear by the coffee-with-Bailey's method of maintaining one's sanity and possibly even the illusion of Christmas cheer, but we have no Bailey's and you can't buy booze in Scandiwegia at the times when you need it the most: at night, and during holidays where you are forced into close proximity with your relatives.

In order to prepare ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually (well, we did bring a thermos full of hot chocolate with bourbon. Seriously, try it - it tastes like bourbonny velvet) for the onslaught of holidays lurking in the calendar, we spent yesterday in the woods, far away from our fellow human beings. We didn't see any bears, alas, but what we did find, about halfway along the trail, was an earth closet! This delightful rustic Scandiwegian speciality is a boon to hikers who have consumed half a litre of hot chocolate containing really rather a lot of bourbon.

No, you are not mistaken - that is indeed a strand of twinkly seasonal fairy lights on the door!

The inside of this hygienic rustic crapper offers hand sanitizer!

There is also toilet roll and arm support if you need it.

As regular readers are aware we are, despite everything, kind-hearted, generous souls here at the Privy Counsel, and we would not want you to be left to your own devices this Christmas without pictures of Jonny to fortify your spirits! We therefore went straight to the source and made known our Christmas wish:

The Privy Counsel: I'm doing a Christmas bog blog post. Do you have a recent photo with which to delight and edify our readers?

Jonny: Hmm, let me check the archives
This was outside the toilets

"Perfect. Thanks!" we said, not expecting, even in our wildest dreams, that things could get any better than that. But lo and behold! The delightful Christmas parade of Jonny's toilet photos continued!

At this point we exclaimed, quite understandably dizzy with delight:

Equally offensive signs for both sexes, and a picture of your actual nether regions - I love it!
AND A COWBOY HAT?
Where have these pictures been all my life?

Reader, IT DIDN'T END THERE.

 Jonny replied, with characteristic forthrightness:

That’s all I got
Sure there was more
Yeah it was a mirror placed too low to the ground
But meant a coat hook existed
So guess it was for the greater good
Plus I never really look at my legs so it was refreshing

We replied, almost tearful from gratitude:

Most refreshing!
Also the jacket that was tragically lost.
Thank you!

To which Jonny in his turn answered:

It brings back painful memories
But may it spread joy in the babe parade

Readers, we will leave you here. Don't forget that - as we never tire of reminding our readers - Christmas is celebrated, in all civilised parts of the world, on the 24th! We finish with a Festive Video reminding us of the gender pay gap, and the fact that women still perform the lion's share of domestic and emotional labour. You probably get the gist even if you don't speak Scandiwegian.
God jul!

Festive Video: Siw Malmkvist, Mamma är lik sin mamma


Related posts:

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

All posts featuring Jonny

All posts featuring Christmas

A selection of Christmas posts containing devastatingly handsome pictures of Jonny:

Balls! It's Christmas!

"My Friend Runs a Toilet Blog" - A Canoodling Kind of Christmas

Aloha! From Hawaii! 

God Jul! from Gothenburg! 

Piss-Poor Performance

The German Bildungsideal has a lot going for it, comprising, as it does, not only formal training in scientific methods but a wider cultural education. When striving for Bildung, as opposed to mere training, one acknowledges that the world is a diverse place with innumerable strands of history, all equally worth pursuing, and that knowing something about things that perhaps at first feel unfamiliar may enrich not only one's life but one's research. This is what Nazis and misogynists the world over fail to understand - that diversity is a strength, not a threat, and that homogeneity stifles academic pursuits.

In short, hanging out with different kinds of people will most likely enrich one's life, in ways one cannot foresee. We have the great fortune of spending a fair amount of time hanging out with awesome Swedish teachers, who seem to be in possession of arcane, almost occult, knowledge. For instance, one of them pointed out to us the other day that Swedish reggae is a real thing. We embraced this factoid with gusto. Enthusing about it in a social media forum, another awesome Swedish teacher of our acquaintance informed us that not only has Swedish reggae been around for yonks, there are even diverse kinds, including feminist Swedish reggae!

As we pointed out in a previous blog post, "We like, at the Privy Counsel, to be seen as competent people. When you are a self-professed intellectual, you set your standards high. [...] in most areas of life we like to think of ourselves as clued-up and capable. Our source criticism is rigid, our soap is the monkey-friendly kind, and we wouldn't dream of using a semi-colon where a colon is clearly indicated." However, in our ongoing efforts to achieve Bildung, we are ever delighted to come across something we didn't know existed, especially when it is something delightful like - raarrrr! - kick-arse feminist Swedish reggae!

At other times, one learns things that are in no way surprising or new, but are nonetheless incredibly depressing, such as the fact that there are 35 urinals for men in Amsterdam, but only three for women. A Dutch woman was arrested for urinating in public the other day, and was reprimanded by the judge, who claimed that she should have used a male urinal. Clearly, Bildung is not a requirement for Dutch judges. If it were, the judge in question might have realised that actually, there are numerous anatomical, social and safety-related impediments to women who wish to use a urinal designed for men. We once tried to use a urinal in Hoxton Square, London, one new year's eve, but had to give up, despite being armed with a Shewee. There was also the time when we almost got in trouble with the police for urinating in Golden Square. And another time when we faced the dilemma of not finding a toilet in a park, and worried about perverts hiding in the bushes. Really, the lack of female-friendly facilities in the world's public places is upsetting. As anyone will testify who has ever squatted behind a shrubbery in mid-winter, worrying about being raped, there is a massive need for public urinals for women.

Before we combust with rage over the rampant misogyny in evidence everywhere, let us enjoy some soothing pictures from a very dear Lithuanian friend of ours, who recently experienced numerous adventures in Belgium:

Beer and books! Is this the perfect toilet??

Lithuanian Friend says:

Wonderful local bar in Belgium and it felt so nice in this toilet with [a book wallpaper]

As everyone who lives with a chronic pain condition is aware, sometimes a hot bath is the only thing that helps. As, further, everyone who does daily battle with the fuck-ups that comprise the world we live in is aware, sometimes a hot bath, preferably with a glass of wine, if one can get over one's paranoid fear of ending up an alcoholic, is the only thing that helps. We love this picture from Lithuanian friend of a bath tub in a Belgian hotel room. And yes! that's right! That is Emer O'Toole's Girls Will Be Girls on the bathside table.

A bathtub, and Emer O'Toole's Girls Will Be Girls - is this the perfect hotel room??

Let us move on to today's Festive Video. Feminist Swedish reggae. You're welcome.

Festive Video - Syster Sol, Bland Dom

Related Reading

 All posts pertaining to public urination:

Shewees Are a Girl's Best Friend!

A Morally Improving Story for World Toilet Day

An Annoyingly Long, But Brilliantly Clever, Post, Including Shewees, Beer, and Some Other Stuff

On dealing with fuck-ups:
If You Can Meet with Triumph and Disaster

(Don't) Aim for the Stars

As our regular readers are well aware, we receive a fair amount of correspondence here at the Counsel. In light of our recent musings on incontinence (see for instance Shewees Are a Girl's Best Friend, and In Which We Indulge in a Feminist Rant and, of Course, Incontinence), we thought we'd highlight an issue raised by Shewee Fiend Friend, who writes:

My roommate who pisses on the floor is pissing considerably less on the floor since I spoke to him. However, he has started regularly having this friend over who does not seem to even aim for the toilet. He creates small pools.

The "flatmate who pisses on the floor" is, of course, a common theme in urban lore. One wonders what these boys' mothers were up to during their formative years. Presumably they were too busy, to quote Caitlin Moran, "giving birth on the kitchen floor – biting down on a wooden spoon, so as not to disturb the men’s card game – before going back to quick-liming the dunny" to teach their sons to aim straight.
We thought long and hard about how to help Shewee Fiend Friend, who is one of the best ("brilliant, but unsound", to quote the Rev. Aubrey Upjohn) and shouldn't have to put up with his kind of bullshit but, short of rigging the wiring so as to electrocute anyone careless enough to create a puddle, we couldn't think of anything more constructive than the passive-aggressive note. The passive-aggressive note being, as all educated people know, a reliable staple in every dysfunctional household.

Here are some helpful passive-aggressive signs to aid the navigationally challenged:

Ever a concern at the Privy Counsel!
Image from thumbs2.ebaystatic.com

The man who inspired this note
would perhaps benefit from using a shewee?
Image from static.someecards.com

While urine is not only (usually) sterile but also a damn useful substance, 
one nonetheless sympathises with the woman who taped this passive-aggressive note to a bottle of bleach.
Image from i.imgur.com

What more mothers should be doing.
Image from static.someecards.com/

Can we get one of these displayed in every office on the planet?
Image from static.someecards.com

This is our personal favourite.
Image from flickr.com

Here is an old warhorse, which we have displayed before.
Image from images.justbathroomsigns.com

If you have advice for Shewee Fiend Friend, on how to train her flatmate and his friend to refrain from pissing on the floor, do please leave a comment, or email us at theprivycounsellor@gmail.com!

Related Reading

A Brief Guide to Public Toilets

We Aim to Please: Interactive Toilet Game

A Festive Update

Polite Notice

Shewees Are a Girl's Best Friend
Semi-Intellectual Friend offers a startling and weird solution to the problem of male incontinence: An Annoyingly Long, But Brilliantly Clever, Post, Including Beer, Shewees, and Some Other Stuff