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

The Bottom Line Is, There's a Copper-Bottomed Approach to Jeans. Bottoms Up!

So it turns out other people actually manage to wear skirts, and even dresses. (If you haven't read it already, see our rant about the impossibility of wearing skirts (and also jeans) here.) We were having a conversation with some rampant feminazi friends of ours the other day about the struggle to allineate feminazism with the real world. It went like this:

Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend: I like to keep the scales balanced by listening to rap music but never shaving my armpits. 

The Privy Counsellor: We shave our armpits but take a manly interest in plumbing. 

Friend of Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend: I scowl at male babies and drop the word "patriarchy" into casual conversation. But I wear dresses.

Note, here, a) the balancing act that is required to perform gender in a socially acceptable way while staying reasonably sane and maintaining a modicum of comfort, and b) the fact that there are people out there who manage to wear things, perhaps even with tights. However, we find comfort in the fact that Bridget Jones, like us, finds it hard to wear skirts without them riding up:

12.15 p.m. Was bloody Richard Finch yelling: "Bridget. This isn't arseing Care in the Community. It is a television production office meeting. If you must stare out of the window, at least try to do it without sliding that pen in and out of your mouth. So can you do that?"
   "Yes," I said sulkily, putting the pen down on the table.
   "No, not can you take the pen out of your mouth, can you find me a Middle-England, middle-class voter, fifty plus, own home, who is in favour?"
   "Yes, no problem," I breathed airily, thinking I could ask Patchouli in favour of what later.
   "In favour of what?" said Richard Finch.
   I gave him a really quite enigmatic smile. "I think you might find you've answered your own question there," I said. "Male or female?"
   "Both," said Richard sadistically, "one of each."
   "Straight or gay?" I exoceted back.
   "I said Middle England," he snarled witheringly. "Now get on the bloody phone, and try to remember to put a skirt on in future, you're distracting my team."
   Honestly, as if they would take any bloody notice as they are all obsessed with their careers and it is not that short, it had just ridden up.
   Patchouli says it is in favour of the European or single currency, which she thinks means either. Oh fuck, oh fuck. Right. Ah, telephone. That'll be the Shadow Treasury press office.  

(Fielding, Helen. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. London: Picador, 1999. Pp. 80-81)

Luckily, there may be hope for womankind after all. After our recent rant, Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend sent us a sympathetic message about the secret to wearing jeans. It said:

It's hard, this feminism lark, isn't it? Also, my advice re jeans buying. Buy the pair that comfortably fit your legs and arse, and take those motherfuckers in at the waist.

For all fat-bottomed girls out there, this is the only way. I've not bought a pair of pants in ten years that I haven't performed this quick operation upon. Much less stressful!

We have taken these words to heart. Finally, a sensible approach to wearing jeans while maintaining all of one's vital bodily functions! Hurrah! Bottoms up!

We reckon some hardy toilets from a tough, male environment would come in handy right about now. The following photos are from Carspect, a vehicle safety inspection garage in Svågertorp, Sweden. The photographer is Our Mum, who is very ladylike, but totally has this tyre-changing thing down. She also deals with other traditionally male areas like leaky pipes, Latin grammar, and rodent infestations, with style, pizazz, and even brio.

We enjoy this festive green floor and covered toilet-roll holder. There is also disability-friendliness happening,
and the bin is at a very comfortable distance from the toilet.

A lovely sink with a lovely mixer tap, a lovely empty bin, lovely paper towels,
and a lovely, sturdy coat hook on which you can hygienically hang your handbag. Woof!
(See another toilet we enjoyed, that had a very empty bin, here.)

You knew what the festive video was gonna be, didn't you? YEAH.

Festive video - Queen, Fat-Bottomed Girls

Related Reading

Ten Things That Feminism Has Ruined for Me (Guardian article)

A blog post about all the ways in which tights can gang up on you and ruin your day (from Mytightswontstayup.com)

Our massive rant about jeans: All Mouth and No Trousers - Sichuan Food in Singapore

Our most Bridget Jones-esque post ever: "Drunken Routs, in Which More Things Were Broken Than Heads and Furniture, Sister!"

Another post about shamelessly plagiarising other people's words: Coasting Along: Saving Time and Effort by Plagiarising Our Friends. Also Some Otters.

To be honest, there are quite a few of these. Here's another one: Rampant Titillation - Basically, a Real-Life Epistolary Novel!

All Mouth and No Trousers - Sichuan Food in Singapore

It is a truth universally acknowledged that women's jeans are the tool of the devil.

We have access to excellent advice here at the Privy Counsel, what with being in communication with so many intellectual people, and one piece of advice that has really stayed with us comes from Australian Friend and goes, "When buying jeans, go for the tightest you can squeeze yourself into. They will stretch". This is good, solid advice, and was confirmed by the semi-hot dude who sold us a pair of very nice and very tight jeans once.

There is, however, a problem with this approach. It impedes breathing, blood circulation, and digestion. It became apparent, for instance, that wearing the jeans mentioned above caused us stomach pains and shortness of breath. (Seriously, one might as well be wearing a fucking corset.)

A trifle! you might jeer, derisively, while sipping your fennel twig tea, sitting down carefully, lest your jeans split, on a velvet chaise-longue from which you will not be able to get up due to your poor circulation and propensity to faint. Well, at the Privy Counsel we like to stay not just intellectually, but physically active (within reason). We are rather fond of breathing, and doing stuff, and eating things. So for a while we took to wearing skirts.

This constitutes a change, rather than a break - you still get misery, but at least it’s a different kind of misery. A skirt usually doesn't have pockets, meaning you have nowhere to put the random, crumpled-up post-its that are the basis of survival in this perilous world; it necessitates the wearing of tights, which will leave your crotch sweaty and uncomfortable; and it will worm its way around both horizontally and vertically, requiring you to keep pulling the fabric into place in the manner of a Tourette’s-addled drug addict, scratching and yanking at random parts of your body, lest you abandon your skirt to ride up to just below your arse, leaving all of your thighs bare for pervy old men to leer at. (Try keeping this up while running for the bus.) Also, when teaching, a skirt that keeps riding up is a seriously uncomfortable thing to be wearing, on so many levels. Skirts, like jeans, are not good.

It's not just us. Tight jeans are DANGEROUS.
Image: doctorsrepublic.com

So we bought some less tight jeans. (This was not easy, by the way. Have you tried looking up women's jeans online to see what's available in the shops? There is a plethora of jeans, sure, but they are all modelled by skeletal women with the kind of shape that means you might as well have put the jeans on a pair of stilts, or a baby giraffe, for all the good it will do you in determining how the jeans will look ON YOUR ACTUAL ARSE. Wouldn't it be good if jeans models didn't look like a pair of stilts, or a baby giraffe?)

This worked really well until they - as Australian Friend had warned us, many times - stretched, and started to sag. If there is one thing a toilet blogger does not want while engaging in intellectual pursuits, it's a pair of jeans sliding downwards, and dragging one's underwear with them. Jeans, in our opinion, should stay firmly in place, and not go anywhere.

To make a long story marginally shorter, we found an internet tutorial on how to take in the waist of a pair of jeans. We performed this operation the other night, meaning our new jeans now a) don't sag, and b) don't allow us to breathe, circulate blood, or digest food. We're back to where we started, and are considering joining a religious cult of some kind, in order to be able to wear a tent with impunity.

Caitlin Moran obviously manages to find jeans that are both comfortable and attractive
- certainly in these pictures she appears to be breathing and performing all normal bodily activities 
including intellectual exertion, while looking leg-thumpingly gorgeous.
Where does one buy jeans that allow one to do all of these things?
Image: spillerena.com

Our actual point with this harangue was that we haven't got round to posting Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend's fantastic pictures from Singapore yet, due to being preoccupied with breathing, putting the sewing machine back, and picking bits of thread and fluff off the furniture. Let us quickly post the pictures now, before we faint from oxygen deprivation.

Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend says:

I've been meaning to send you these for ages! These are from my trip to Singapore last year. The first three photos are the best toilets I have ever seen, from The Jewel Box in Singapore. The toilets have floor to ceiling windows which look out over the whole of Singapore bay (view included). We had to make a pit stop there after a certain relative's bum couldn't handle the delicious Sichuan meal we'd just eaten! 

The second photos are from the loo at Singapore zoo, but many loos in Singapore have that classic open garden thing going on. It's so cool! 

The final set are from the Singapore Night Safari, which is totally awesome, but I had to wait until people had left the dunnies before I took them. In all, Singapore is basically better than the rest of the world at everything, toilets and autocracy included! 

P. S. I only saw one loo in Singapore that didn't have sensors on the sinks. Blended taps ain't got nothing on this!

Isn't this beautiful! And disability-friendly, too - check out the shorter sink!
Does this remind us of something? Well, yes. The Battlestar Galactica bogs!

This is very stylish, but, as we famously complained once in Iceland, a place this posh should be able
to afford doors that go all the way down to the floor. (We have a horror of flimsy cubicle doors.)

Loo with a view!

Same problem with the doors, here.
But look! You can almost see Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend in the mirror!
Truly a sight for sore eyes!

Masses of points for the lush greenery and mixer taps!

Doors.

But greenery!

Wasn't that lovely? Do you yearn for a warmer clime, where men are men, women are women, and all taps are mixer taps and most have motion sensors? We sure as hell do!

This post is quite long now and it appears we are expected to do actual work today, so we should probably just fuck off. But there ought to be a festive video. This one seems eminently suitable, being tropical (like Singapore), flamboyant and musical (like Medievalist [With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology] Friend), and festive (like this bog blog, and also like Medievalist [With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology] Friend). Also, like us, Elton John appears to reminisce about the jeans of his youth, which somehow allowed one to breathe and didn't rip except perhaps if one slid on one's arse down a massive rock.

Damn it. We just dropped an ibuprofen in our tea, and haven't got a spoon handy to fish it out with. Definitely time to fuck off.

Festive video - Elton John and the Muppets, Crocodile Rock

Related Reading

Our favourite post (so far) featuring Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend:
Hungover Ranting: Festschrift to Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend

An account of all the different ways in which a pair of tights can ruin your day

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

All posts featuring Singapore

Another zoo-related post: HTFU - Wipe for Wildlife

Here's a random thing that a friend sent us, that we though was deliciously ironic

Hungover Ranting: Festschrift to Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend

The Privy Counsel has a proud history of festschrifts.* Our friends being so rampantly intellectual, there are more doctors** among them than you could shake a stick at,*** and we have decided that each friend who earns a PhD deserves a festschrift.****

Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend got her PhD quite a while ago - we can't actually remember when, though we do remember being dead jealous of how fetching she looked in her cap and gown. Here is her festschrift!

We actually have an agenda here, too. Unisex toilets in bars. What the hell is it with unisex toilets in bars? We know that Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend is with us when we say that this nuisance must cease! Let's do a dramatisation of the problem for you, based on real-life events.

One is in a great pub. After a couple of pints and a highly satisfactory discussion of Héloïse and Abélard, suitable names for the dogs of mad-as-spanners academics, and the archaeological merits of Saint Helena, one feels the need to heed the call of nature. One finally stumbles into the toilets, having skulked around for quite some time trying to find the sign pointing to them and having barged into a) the cleaning cupboard, and b) the kitchen (containing surly chef; really awkward) in the process. One finally, as previously mentioned, stumbles into the toilets, only to stumble right out again, horrified, because there are two dudes in beards in there. 

One lurches in horror. One thinks, panicked, that one must be much drunker than one thought, since one has obviously missed the time-honoured gender separation sign, and careened heedlessly into the men's toilets. One grabs onto the wall for support, and looks around, unnerved. There is no "Ladies" sign. Nor a "Gents" one. There is - horror of horrors - a unisex toilet! 

One minces back in, warily. The dudes in beards smile awkwardly. While one is ensconced in one's cubicle, trying to suppress one's mounting panic, one hears several other people stumbling back and forth, confusedly, trying to work out if the toilet is indeed a unisex one. 

It is the most unnecessarily cringe-worthy situation mankind has put itself in since - hell, we can't even think of a historical equivalent, it is that bloody awful. 

One washes one's hands quickly, shifting out of the way so another hipster dude can reach the paper towels, wishing one could take the time to adjust one's make-up properly, and spray one's hair, but not wanting to appear inordinately appearance-obsessed in front of the fifteen hipster dudes in beards and denim shirts who have suddenly appeared and are crowding the sink, all smiling awkwardly.

THIS NUISANCE MUST CEASE.

Don't get us wrong - we are committed to smashing the patriarchy and dissolving restrictive gender stereotypes. But we don't want to have to share a toilet with fifteen awkwardly smiling hipster dudes in beards and denim shirts. 

So, on that note, we have selected a set of weird toilets, where the cubicles look like Guantánamo Bay cells, but which are blessed with CLEAR GENDER SEGREGATION, to celebrate Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend. Ladies and gentlemen (and Jonny): the toilets at Kulturværftet in Elsinore!

*We have two, so far. (Three, with this one.) Read them here.
** Of the not-useful-in-an-emergency, non-medical kind.
***We don't recommend shaking a stick at any of them. Their overeducated state renders them highly strung and nervous.
****Well, some of them, anyway, on an arbitrary basis,  unless we're too drunk to remember.

It's even blue. No confusing, gender-neutral beige, black or green. This signage couldn't be clearer.
Did we mention before that WE ADORE CLEAR SIGNAGE?

Ok, so actually the signage is revolting, but at least it isn't confusing, right?

This sink was functional and blessed with mixer taps, and there wasn't a single bearded hipster dude crowding it.

Air-dryer.

Danes, like Swedes, do good toilets but are strangers to the polite subjunctive.
Strangers, in fact, to politeness as a concept.
"Close the door when you leave!"

A sturdy, confidence-inspiring lock and handle.

Concrete is actually a very unhygienic material for a toilet.
It looks quite cool in a post-apocalyptic way though, right?
The toilet roll holder is from Tork, of which we approve.

A ventilation pipe!
And, for unknown reasons, a cage-like structure to ensure toilet-goers don't escape.

Safe disposal of all one's old razor blades and syringes.
Finally, a chance to empty one's pockets of detritus and old needles!

A water-saving flush!

Well, that's that, folks. Be careful with unisex toilets!

Oh, except for the festive video, of course. Here's a special song for Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend, that we know she's a fan of!

Festive video - Lucinda Williams, Come On

Related Reading
Our friend Jane's latest rampantly intellectual blog post, called Interdisciplinarity: It's Not a Dirty Word
A toilet that we know Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend is very fond of:
Let's Get Medieval - King's Manor, York
All posts incorporating Medievalist (With a Side-Interest in Roman Plumbing) Friend
Other toilets in Elsinore:
Festive Things That Are Red
The Royal Toilet at Kronborg: "A Foul and Pestilent Congregation of Vapours."

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?

Capering Round Caerphillly Castle

Bogsley Hansson Friend, having visited Caerphilly Castle, sent us some jovial pictures with which to delight end edify our readers. "Caerphilly" is one of our favourite words ever, being also, apart from a medieval castle with kick-arse bogs, a cheese. We love cheese an awful lot - though not, obviously, more than Elvis, or our mother. (An attempt to decide whether we love cheese more than mixer taps resulted in mass destruction and carnage being wreaked upon Privy Counsel HQ.)
We have previously explored the theme of the medieval garderobe in a post called The Royal Toilet at Kronborg: "A Foul and Pestilent Congregation of Vapours". Actually, we found even more photos of medieval toilets in our archive the other day, but then unfortunately there was a gust of wind, coming from where we know not, and the torch went out, and we had to crawl back to the office on our hands and knees, bumping into several unpleasant objects along the way. (At one  point, a skeletal hand grasped our calf. More on this in our Halloween special issue.) Those photos will therefore have to wait. In the meantime, enjoy these ones:

The traditional hole-in-a-plank set-up. Why deviate from a successful concept?

An edifying close-up of the hole. (Bogsley Hansson Friend is nothing if not considerate!)

Oooh, a charming mullioned window!

White walls, slanting sunlight - this is like something out of an interior design magazine!

We didn't get a commentary on these bogs, but we're assuming that these are the visitors' toilets.
Very nice they look, too.

Since the theme of today's blog post is medieval, let's add a photo sent to us by our favourite insane medievalist, Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend, who says, jauntily: "Best sign I've ever seen in a toilet."

If you, like us, spent all six seasons of The Sopranos wondering what in the name of arse cannoli actually is, wonder no more! "Cannoli are Italian pastry desserts. The singular is cannolo (or in the Sicilian language cannolu, plural cannola), meaning 'little tube', with the etymology stemming from the Latin 'canna', or reed." There.
(From Wikipedia, obvs.)

Today's festive video is about a man who likes going to the lavatory and, we suspect, doesn't much care what it looks like or whether it has mixer taps:

Festive video - Monty Python, Lumberjack Song

Related Reading
Another toilet in a Welsh castle: The Privy Counsel Book Club - At Home
A memorable pub evening, during which Wales was mentioned more than once:
Foul Play, Also Fowl Issues
More historic toilets:
The Historic Toilet Tour of York
The Royal Toilet at Kronborg: "A Foul and Pestilent Congregation of Vapours"
All posts on medieval plumbing

We Clutch Desperately at Straws, and Try to Cheer Everyone Up with One of Jonny's Pictures

Knowing that all our readers are currently in a frenzy, desperate for an update on our current fucked-up situation - which we have been, to use an established word in a transferred sense, vaguebooking about, with a certain admirable chutzpah, for some time now* - we hasten to enlighten you.

Absolutely fuck-all has happened. The situation is still deplorable. There.

Still, even desperately fucked-up situations can bring about bright spots on the horizon. One such bright spot is that we get to embark on an adventure - more on this later. Another fantastic perk is that declarations of sympathy from our general acquaintance have been pretty much unilaterally accompanied by offers of sending toilet photos! We normally receive ample amounts of photos even when things are going well, and now that everything is monumentally fucked up, the offers have multiplied! So there's a reason to stop feeling sorry for oneself and harden the fuck up, right there.

In order to cheer ourselves up and not be guilty of dragging our friends - many of whom are very pleasant people - down with us into the dragon's lair of depression, we once again risked our eyesight (read all about the pheasant situation here) by making a daring raid into the Privy Counsel archive. (We care deeply about our friends and don't want to distress them either with unrestrained pessimism or excessive optimism.) There, in the dank and gloomy vaults, we found a supremely festive picture from Jonny, which has inexplicably lain untouched since September last year. (Jonny, on the other hand, has demonstrably not lain untouched, in any sense of the word - our thoughtful lonely hearts ad on his behalf reportedly generated a roaring response.)

As a bonus, you also get some thrilling epistolary action, involving Jonny, the Privy Counsel, and Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend!

Jonny: There is a mixer tap behind the bike. Also the option of split taps for us stupid English people. Yeah, interviewing a pro BMX-er. I'll ask him about toilets. "So, what's your favourite part of the Privy Counsel?" "Probably the royal we."

The Privy Counsellor: Ask him how often he washes his hands, while leering and winking. 

Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend: Dirty. DIRTY!  

Jonny: Please don't use my professional work as an excuse to get your kicks.

Jonny's tiny bike and an amazing double set of taps!

*for instance here and here.

Time for a festive video! In the Pistol Annies' own words:

This is for everybody who's barely gettin' by.

Festive video - Pistol Annies, Lemon Drop

Related Reading
Jonny's finest hour:
Jonny and a Public Toilet - A Treat for Single Ladies
Another festive contribution from Jonny:
The Comfort of the Familiar - Life, Jonny, and Everything
A totally disgusting contribution from Jonny:
What Goes Around, Comes Around
Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Archaeology) Friend's finest hour:
Roaring Good Roman Fun
Challenge - see if you can spot the Pistol Annies in this festive Toilet Tale:
A Rootin', Tootin Toilet Tale
One of the Pistol Annies, Angaleena Presley, features in a Toilet Song post:
Toilet Song - Pain Pills

Right Up Our Alley

You'll be delighted to know that we received a spanking cool picture from Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend! The image is described as "A fancy toilet in a fancy alleyway pub in Leeds".
It seems to us that these fancy toilets come out when the nights start drawing in and nor'-nor'-easter winds tickle one's sensitive skin with sharp, icy fingers. (Sudden poetic streak worrying: must be effect of the weekend's alcohol consumption. Making mental note to consider better class of beverage than rum out of a plastic bottle for future antics.) There was, for instance, the mystery of the sideways toilet at Grays Inn Court in York, which intrigued us back in 2011. This toilet turned out to have been manufactured by a company called Doulton, which has since fallen on hard times and been reduced to making porcelain cats and similar vulgar artefacts. (Read all about the thrilling sideways toilet here!)
The toilet in the picture below is, however, a genuine Crapper, says Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend, adding, "I pissed in it". We do enjoy these frank discussions with our Friends!

Fancy toilet in a fancy alleyway pub in Leeds

It seems our creative powers are so feeble at the moment that all our posts are based on correspondence with friends. Since, in our experience, one can always sink lower (as, for instance, when, severely hungover, one has to get off one's bike and throw up at the side of the road in broad daylight, thinking, "it is surely not possible to sink lower than this", then finds that it is when, half an hour later, one has to stoop to throw up in the bin on the train, and the bin liner comes loose), we might as well go the whole hog and mention an article in the Telegraph that was recommended to us. It concerns a well-educated Spaniard cleaning toilets in London due to being unable to get a job befitting his qualifications. The clever toilet-cleaning man says, "I'm not ashamed of what I do. Cleaning is a very worthy job. What embarrasses me is having to do it because no one has given me an opportunity in Spain. There are many Spaniards like me, especially in London." Having worked in this place, we sympathise on many, many levels. Still, having a shitty job can be enjoyable as long as one has festive colleagues and gets some kind of intellectual stimulation. Like, to mention an example at random, writing a toilet blog. Ahem.

Related Reading
A Toilet Mystery
Gleeful Antics at Grays Court
Thomas Crapper: The Silence of the Toilets
Historical Toilets, Baths and Kitchens - a Useful and Humbling Lesson

The Privy Counsel Book Club: At Home

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Toilet Roll Holders (But Were Afraid to Ask)

Leaky Pipes - A Tale of Cold Weather and Incontinence

Roaring Good Roman Fun

After a hard week's graft of lobbying for gender equality, in addition to maintaining our usual high intellectual standards, we thought that, it being the weekend, we might be allowed to relax and ponder something light-hearted and fun! And what can be more fun than Roman plumbing? Well, quite. We couldn't think of anything, either.
We are also pleased to announce that we have a new Privy Counsel Friend; Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend. We don't usually employ the word "medieval" in our friends' names, due to the simple reason that almost all our friends are medieval in one way or another, if not in research interests then in mentality, table manners, or some other equally distressing aspect of their personality. However, Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend is probably more medieval than most! Anyway, Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend sent this picture to us, saying, "I thought you would enjoy this photo of me sitting on a Roman toilet at the bath complex in Nice", and later adding, "Roman plumbing is just about my favourite thing in the entire existence of the whole wide world too!"

 We do so enjoy it when ours and our friends' interests and preferences are in harmony!

Veni, vidi, cacavi: Medievalist (with a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend
atop a toilet at the Roman bath complex in Nice

We gather this description of the bath complex from Waymarking:

The Roman Bath Complex at Nice-Cimiez is the largest known in Gaul. First surveyed by Duval in 1943, the baths were excavated over the next 30 years by F. Benoit. During the Severan period the North or Magistrate's Bath was built, then expanded to include separate East (men's) and West (women's) bathing areas, the latter having large quantities of hair pins and earrings recovered from the drains. Bath areas identified for visitors include the cold bath (frigidarium), warm bath (tepidarium), sweat bath(laconicum), hot bath (caldarium), swimming pool (natatio), and court and exercise ground (palaestra).

These baths are located at a Greek stronghold that was founded on the Colline du Château at Nice in the 4th century BC by Phocaeans from Marseille. Nice originally had the Greek name Nikaia Polis, or the town of victory (from Nike, victory, and Polis for city). The northern suburb of Cimiez where considerable Roman remains are located was known as Cemenelum.

In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, Cemenelum was a base of the Vediantii, a Ligurian tribe. In 154 BC Romans helped Massiliotes defend both Nikaia and Antipolis (Antibes) from Ligurian attacks, after which Cemenelum became a Roman settlement along the Via Julia, a major Roman road. Favorably located, Cemenelum was chosen as the principal seat of the province of Alpes Maritimae by Augustus in 14 BC. Later, the Romans settled further inland, on the opposite side of the river Paillon. Remains of the town on the Hill of Cimiez date to the 3rd century AD, and are now part of the archaeological park at Nice-Cimiez.

Learn some more interesting facts about the Roman bath complex in Nice here, view some sort of semi-official site here, or, if you're into French, view the official site here. For more general information on Roman baths, there is always that stalwart friend to the ignorant yet pretentious, Wikipedia.

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