Athens: Vacillating with Vespasian

It's a funny thing, running an intellectual bog blog. Most people quite rightly don't give a crap and would rather chew off their own arm than read a single word of an obscure and ranty site about toilets, but every now and then one receives feedback from unlikely quarters. It turns out, for instance, that Our Mum has turned quite evangelical, and spends her time, when she isn't pissing off to Perugia on a whim to take photos of al fresco dining areas, informing people of the existence of our blog and exhorting them to read it. Consequently, we received a tip about an intriguing TV programme chronicling the history of toilets from a friend of Our Mum called Elena, which you can view below, as we have made it this post's Festive Video. We would like to extend our most gracious thanks to Elena; it was a spiffing and most invigorating video!

Since the programme in question starts off with a review of toilets in the classical world, we were reminded of some rather exciting bogs that we encountered in Greece last summer. Ergo:

Strolling around the Roman Agora in Athens with Our Mum, enjoying the unidentified pieces of marble (here is a question for everyone but especially Medievalist (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend: We have an app that can identify plants from just a photo. Where is the app that will identify random bits of Roman marble? How hard can it be to create a database of images of cornices, sarcophagi and columns and make it into an app so that lazy people on holiday can pronounce expert opinions on bits of marble rubble without having to learn anything or do any work?) and trying not to dwell on the sensation of sweat running down literally every crevice of our body, we stumbled across a Roman latrine! We happened to note the seat in the picture below and, eagerly scanning the horizon for an informative sign (we really do love clear signage), had our hunch confirmed! We had sauntered into the Vespasian latrines without even trying! As world-archaeology.com so eloquently puts it,

Entering from the marketplace through an antechamber, the lucky Athenians discovered elegantly raised seats over a deep channel lined with marble. Athens surely touched Vespasian in a way that cold Britain failed to, judging from this simple yet endearing monument to his largesse. 

This is an intriguing theory. Does the internationally recognised crapness of British plumbing in fact hail back to the era of Vespasian? At any rate, it seems that Vespasian was a solid dude when it comes to sanitation; regular readers will remember Exuberant Archaeologist Friend's account of Vespasian-era lead pipes in Rome.

You may imagine our happiness when suddenly clapping eyes on this toilet seat
in a far corner of the Roman Agora! On a totally unrelated note, there is a terrific restaurant just on the other side of that fence, on the corner, with very friendly waiters and excellent coffee.

A clear and informative, if somewhat dull, sign

Next up, we have pictures of the public baths by the Temple of Zeus! We spent an unreasonable amount of time, as Our Mum will verify, rambling round this area and taking toilet selfies with the ruins. What can we say? We were on holiday, and that is our idea of fun. (If you enjoy this kind of activity, do get in touch. We are finding it increasingly challenging to find people willing to go on holiday with us. We can't think why this might be.)

We are not, as a rule, excited-jumpers-up-and-down at the Privy Counsel,
considering such behaviour to be annoying to the point of being morally wrong,
but we jumped up and down with excitement when spotting these hypocausts!

A soothing circular pool

A comfortable seat for chatting to a friend?

The remains of many, many pillars

A helpful and informative sign

We went, of course, to the Acropolis, where we marvelled at the view and admired the diligent Athenian workmen restoring the ancient ruins. We also came across this random structure, near the entrance. We have no idea what it is, but took a photo on the off-chance that it is anything to do with water or sanitation (is that some kind of duct in the centre?). If any of our readers - including, but not limited to, Medieval (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend - has information about what this might be, don't be shy, send us an email or carrier pigeon!

An unidentified Athenian structure. THERE WAS NO SIGN!!!

No bog blogger worthy of the name would fail to take a picture of the public toilets below the Acropolis. You're welcome.

The sewage pipes in Athens are somewhat delicate,
and quite often one is requested to put toilet paper into a bin, thus.

A helpful sign instructs one not to put paper anywhere near the pipes.

Regular readers will recall our exuberant account of the toilets in the Acropolis Museum a few years ago. Readers, we went back!

As you can see, everything looks exactly the same,
which we find hugely reassuring. Also, the korai were still magnificent.

One of our favourite pastimes when in Athens, apart from staring dreamily at objects in museums, deciphering Greek signage, using the relatively-free-of-sexual-harassment public transport (we were on the tram one day, marvelling at the fact that we hadn't been sexually harassed yet, when some dude decided to harass us, showing yet again that patriarchy never sleeps), drinking Greek coffee, and buying cheap wine in the supermarket, is wandering round Syntagma Square, imbibing the atmosphere and enjoying the shade cast by the lemon trees. Imagine our delight when we discovered that this historic place boasts public toilets! They are tucked away in a corner and are very hard to find, but they are bona fide public loos, staffed by very friendly toilet attendants.

We cannot fault this door, its lock, or its coat hook.

This is not an ideal toilet, considering the fact that there is no toilet roll
and the flush mechanism has been mended using duct tape. Still. Like the Greek economy,
this toilet just about works, and the staff were super friendly.
Is this, in fact, a metaphor for the Greek economy?

 
We're never sure how interesting our readers find random pictures of hotel room toilets. To be on the safe side, here are some potentially thrilling images from the Oasis hotel in the Glyfada area of Athens. It's a very nice hotel, with very friendly staff, and we enjoyed many splendid evenings drinking the local wine on the balcony of our hotel room, but wished there had been fewer children, and also fewer Italians, in the pool. (We adore Italians at the Privy Counsel, but for some reason Italians in swimming pools are considerably less charming than Italians who are not in swimming pools. No doubt science will one day find an explanation for this phenomenon.)

No problems with the plumbing here! You can shove virtually unlimited amounts of toilet paper down the bog with no repercussions whatsoever. Also, you will notice that the toilet roll has been folded into a neat point at the end, which is the golden standard of the Olivia Joules Hotel Critera, and which is bound to give you a positive toilet experience if you give a crap about such things (we don't).

We are rather fond of this seventies symphony of pastels.

Assuming that you have even read this far, we congratulate you on your stamina and vow to let everyone rest before we post this many photos in one go again. If you have an hour to spare, please enjoy the Festive Video below! We found the toilet humour deplorable, and advise you to skip that bit, but the rest was both informative and edifying.

As you were. (If you weren't, why not?)

Festive Video: Ifor ap Glyn / Cwmni Da / Western Front Films / BBC 4, The Toilet: An Unspoken History

Related Reading:

All posts featuring Our Mum

All posts featuring Medieval (With a Side Interest in Roman Archaeology) Friend 

An intriguing post featuring Vespasian-era lead pipes:
Lead Pipe Dreams

All previous posts featuring Greece:

Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts, But Totally Trust the Toilet Attendant 

The Ancient Agora Museum in Athens - Unbridled Stoicism

Stark Raving Nudity 

Christmas, the Acropolis Museum, and an Academic Debate (And Some Very Festive Calypso Music)

Melancholy Musings from Mykonos 

We Cheer Ourselves Up, Again, Using Pictures of Caitlin Moran and Greek Museums

All posts featuring Roman plumbing

The ominous unlockable door of Perugia:

The Ominous Unlockable Door of Perugia

The Ominous Unlockable Door of Perugia

We ranted last week about the importance of taking a sick day when one feels like one has been possessed by a crapulence demon, which is cackling evilly and throbbing just behind one's frontal bone, and like literally the only thing that will save one's health from ruination and despair is to spend an entire day in bed watching Peaky Blinders and swearing quietly to oneself in a fake Brummie accent.

Of course, not everyone has the ability to take a sick day when sick. If there is one thing the reporting on the presidential election in the US has taught us, it is that not everyone in this world has health insurance, or the kind of employment contract that acknowledges that one is a human being, who will occasionally need to do human things, like resting.

As mentioned previously (for instance here, here, and also here), a toilet blogger's life is by necessity filled with many activities not related at all to bog-blogging. (There are few, if any, who have struck lucky and entered the elysian fields of full-time toilet-contemplation.) Your average toilet reviewer will spend most of their time toiling in the sweat of their brow, and also other places, some of which you wouldn't believe if we told you, to ensure that the wolf is kept from the door and that the cupboard is reasonably well stocked with bread for the day.

Still, we are quite happy just to have a job, and a salary with which to buy rum, wolf-repellent, and other essentials, and are, by and large, reasonably happy with our life situation (apart from, obviously, all the sexism, and post-modernism, and all the other -isms lurking everywhere, and also all the crap plumbing).

Our life situation, happy though we are with it in general (apart from the caveats listed above), does not permit us, alas, to fuck off to Perugia on a whim and take photos of toilets. Other people, however, apparently do have the kind of life situation that enables them to fuck off to Perugia and take photos of toilets. Our Mum, for instance. She sent us an informative missive the other day, saying:

Bar Caffè Stuzzicheria del Grifo, 23 Piazza Piccinino, 20 m från domkyrkan i Perugia. Trevlig uteservering med toa för konsumerande gäster. Har 2 dörrar varav den yttersta inte går att låsa och den innersta inte går att stänga.
Har tvättmöjlighet och toapapper men ingen nedfällbar toasits. 

(Bar Caffè Stuzzicheria del Grifo, 23 Piazza Piccinino, 20 metres from the cathedral in Perugia. Nice al fresco seating, with a toilet for guests. Has two doors, of which the outermost one is unlockable, and the innermost one uncloseable.
Has sink and toilet paper but no toilet seat.)

The seat-less toilet. Regular readers will recall Jonny's similarly seatless toilet from last week.
(Due to insurmountable technical difficulties,
this and the following photos are all sideways.)

The sink. Does a piece of your soul whither away and die
when contemplating this picture? A piece of our soul does.

This is a daring piece of toilet door photography! Brava, mamma!

We believe this is the al fresco dining area

Another one of our correspondents went to Stockholm the other weekend and stayed in a fancy hotel. Why anyone would choose to go to Stockholm of their own free will is beyond us. We don't like Stockholm, never have, and never will. Still. Presumably someone has to live there. Good luck to them.

A thoroughly non-offensive set-up, n'est-ce pas?

An elegant, even dramatic - but not wholly functional - shower.

Did we mention that we adore black-and-white tiled floors? Woof!

Our correspondent, earnestly at work.

La pudeur en defaut. A thoroughly offensive picture, showing a man
subjecting a woman to the kind of perving that amounts to sexual violence.

Apparently, just like the hotel where we stayed once with Australian Friend in Edinburgh, the Lady Hamilton Hotel in Stockholm's Old Town adheres to the criterion formulated by Helen Fielding's heroine Olivia Joules. We will repeat our statement from October 2011:

Personally, we couldn't care less, but in case you find the state of the end of the toilet roll a matter of importance on a par with democracy, world peace and being able to find a really good mojito: Reader, we assure you, the toilet paper in this hotel was folded into a neat point at the end.

By the way, here is a highly festive and decorative urinal for men in Stockholm's Old Town. Shame there is no equivalent service for the ladies.

A laudably decorative urinal. Shame the lack of equivalent services for women
makes this yet another expression of public sexism.

Another instance of decorative public facilities: an old phone box preserved in Stockholm! Perhaps this is where the ladies are supposed to tend to their business?

We'll go off on a proper rant about the lack of
public urinals for women another time. Hang on, turns out we already did.

We've devoted a lot of time and energy to feministing recently, and are correspondingly exhausted. Our recent brush with indisposition and decrepitude has taught us the importance of listening to one's body, and chillling the fuck out. We are, therefore, determined to spend the rest of this Sunday doing fuck-all except perhaps lying on the chaise-longue, imbibing whisky via a funnel. (We don't know if you have discovered this already, but if you add ginger to whisky it becomes a health drink of great magnitude, which has the further advantage of tasting delicious. It works with rum, too.)

One final reflection: Something we've been ruminating lately is the need for people to fuck off more. And, when people don't fuck off (the default setting for most people is apparently to not fuck off when you want them to), for you to turn your phone off and go to bed at 7 pm, if that is what you really want.

Some words from the Band Perry have been fluttering around our prefrontal cortex over the past couple of weeks. We realise, upon looking the lyrics up online, that we misheard. Still, here is what we heard:

I just wanna stay in the dark
Turn off all the lights
Come home in time
[...]
I just wanna stay in the dark

To paraphrase Stephen Fry (not for the first time): Now we've said just about everything there is to be said, most of it inconsequential to a degree, we're mongrel-bitch tired and our fist cannot form letters any more, so fuck off, our darlings, and leave us alone.

Festive Video: The Band Perry, Stay in the Dark


Related Reading

All posts featuring Our Mum

Posts featuring sweating, in various and sometimes surprising places:

Nothing Short of a Long Memory

Educational Cake

This special post not only mentions sweating but also tells the thrilling story of when we stayed in a fancy hotel in Edinburgh with Australian Friend:
Literary Hotel Musings

A rant on the lack of public urinals for women: Piss-Poor Performance

All posts featuring toilets in Italy


If you happen to belong to the population cohort that enjoys sideways bloody pictures, ogle them to your heart's content here

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Copenhagen

As regular readers may remember, we spent some time in Copenhagen last year, with Australian Friend. In fact, Australian Friend, a keen patron of art and science, funded our stay in a luxurious hotel! We seem to remember doing all kinds of fun things, like going to a kick-arse concert, ogling naked Greeks [in the shape of statues], eating burgers, and accidentally brutally getting into the Tivoli gardens for free! (Like the name and address of our lovely mystery celebrity, information on how to accidentally brutally get into the Tivoli gardens for free is available to the highest bidder.)

Lovely red toiletries - what's not to like!

Exemplary clean and stylish sink

We love black tiles! And water-saving toilets!
(Did you know that the water-saving flush is an Australian invention?)

We are pleased to note that the toilet roll lives up
to the Olivia Joules Hotel Criteria (not that we personally give a damn).

Shower with mixer tap - we couldn't agree more!

The Crowne Plaza hotel has, apparently, some serious green credentials ("That's environmentally green, Bridget," said Richard Finch, "not green coloured"), to which one can only say hurrah!

Crowne Plaza Hotel
Ørestads Boulevard 114-118
2300 Copenhagen
Denmark
http://www.cpcopenhagen.dk

Related Reading
Literary Hotel Musings
Reminiscences of Nice
Blogging Something Rotten
Waltzing around Amalienborg
Sing If You're Glad to Be a Dane

Reminiscences of Nice

The weather is doing that thing where it creeps inside one's longjohns and causes paralysis. We yearn for sunnier climes, and reminisce about happier times. For instance, there was the time when Australian Friend broke a toilet. It was nice and warm then. Or even before that, when we stayed in Nice and it was all hot and humid like a sauna, and we failed to find any ice-cream. On the plus side, we also failed to get robbed and get food poisoning. Here's the toilet in the hotel.

Nothing to cause distress here

Laudable.

They actually seal the toilet, so you know it's guaranteed clean when you arrive. Not even our OCD goes that deep, but it's nice of them to make the effort. The toilet roll passed the Olivia Joules test.

An assortment of toiletries. And, most importantly, a mixer tap!

So where is one supposed to plug in one's hairdryer? People have such weird priorities.

Is it just us, or do the tiles look like they're made of lizard skin?

We had a very enjoyable stay in this exceptionally clean hotel. Regrettably, our brain's too frozen to be able to calculate the points.

Hotel Nice Riviera
47 rue Pastorelli
06000 Nice
France
http://www.hotel-nice-riviera.com/uk/index.php

Villa Ingrid: Toilet Paper and Loveliness

 As previously mentioned, we went to Öland a little while ago. While there we stayed at an exceptionally charming hotel called Villa Ingrid. Taking a cue from last year's Edinburgh hotel review, it is now necessary for us to quote Helen Fielding at you again. Hell, let's do one better and quote ourselves! Here's what we said in our Edinburgh hotel review last year:

As well as being fabulous, the toilet gives us, joyously, occasion to quote Helen Fielding at you again! In Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination (Picador, London 2004), the heroine claims that, regarding hotels, "The only real criterion of fineness she trusted was whether, on arrival, the toilet paper was folded into a neat point at the end" (p. 8). Personally, we couldn't care less, but in case you find the state of the end of the toilet roll a matter of importance on a par with democracy, world peace and being able to find a really good mojito: Reader, we assure you, the toilet paper in this hotel was folded into a neat point at the end. 
(Privy Counsellor)

 Reader, it was the case again: The toilet paper was folded into a neat point at the end!

Olivia Joules: "The only real criterion of fineness she trusted was whether, on arrival,
the toilet paper was folded into a neat point at the end". Phew!

Clean, sparkly and water-saving: we lustily cheer this toilet on

Mixer-tap: check. Nice soap: check. Sturdy hook: check. Electrical socket: check!
Try as we might, we can find nothing to complain of!

If one wanted to be pedantic (which, in all honesty, one usually does) one could point out
that it would be nice to get complimentary conditioner in hotels, as well as shampoo. Because, since one can't wash one's hair anyway without conditioner unless one wants it to dry out, break off and then explode into a million tiny, dysfunctional pieces, they might as well not bother.

An extremely clean and pleasant shower

The little window gives one a charming view of the houses and gardens opposite

Villa Ingrid - Hygeia does a little jump and an energetic high-five!

We had vowed to stop doing the points, since we reckon that our readers 1) don't give a crap, and 2) are aware by now that the points system is completely arbitrary anyway. But we had a drunken conversation with Semi-Intellectual Friend, during which we were persuaded to bring the points back. So we're giving this toilet, oooh, let's see, 13 points.

Further reading:
Common Sense in Spain

Villa Ingrid
Hantverkaregatan 6
387 31 Borgholm
Sweden
http://www.villaingrid.se

Literary Hotel Toilet Musings

  Observant readers may have noticed that we haven't been updating with our usual brio, zeal and gusto lately, i.e. there hasn't been a bloody peep from us for a whole week. Usually, this state of affairs would be due to us being bogged down in the daily toil and grind; sweating, cursing and generally labouring to earn the daily crust. But this time, it's because we've been too busy having fun! Hurrah! Thanks to Australian Friend who, among other things, treated us to a stay in a luxurious hotel in Edinburgh!
  We are both bemused and amused by the website of these digs, as it claims that "all furniture and antiquities have been specially imported from China". Though we didn't notice any Ming dynasty vases casually scattered around,  the toilet in our hotel room really was fabulous, in the original sense of "having no basis in reality; mythical (...) ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense 'known through fable': from French fabuleux or Latin fabulosus 'celebrated in fable', from fabula (see FABLE))" (Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003).
  As well as being fabulous, the toilet gives us, joyously, occasion to quote Helen Fielding at you again! In Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination (Picador, London 2004), the heroine claims that, regarding hotels, "The only real criterion of fineness she trusted was whether, on arrival, the toilet paper was folded into a neat point at the end" (p. 8). Personally, we couldn't care less, but in case you find the state of the end of the toilet roll a matter of importance on a par with democracy, world peace and being able to find a really good mojito: Reader, we assure you, the toilet paper in this hotel was folded into a neat point at the end.

Panorama of the fabulous bathroom. If it looks confusing, it is because there were mirrors simply everywhere.

The supersonic bath! Boasting gazillions, literally gazillions, of jet streams!

In the words of Homer Simpson, we don't even believe in Jebus, but find the discovery of a mixer tap in Britain an occasion for the uninhibited thanking of all the gods our imagination can conjure up!
Nice sink, too, if shallow: we had to fill our water bottle in the bath.

A square toilet! Hurrah!

VERY fluffy towels!

Extremely nice-smelling toiletries, though not an eco-label to be seen

Funky taps in the bath

The kind of controls that allow you to pretend, if that's your thing, that you're not having a mundane, ordinary shower but FLYING A SPACESHIP

V. v. funky-looking shower

At the time of taking these photographs we were not yet so drunk we were seeing double.
There's a mirror in the shower, folks.

As an aside, the bed in the hotel room was extremely comfortable. And the staff were very friendly. And Edinburgh is a fantastic city. But the best bit was the toilets.

NUMBER TEN EDINBURGH | 10 GLOUCESTER PLACE | EDINBURGH EH3 6EF | SCOTLAND
TEL: (+44) 0131 225 2720 | FAX: (+44) 0131 220 4706
http://www.numbertenedinburgh.com