Gin, Lemons and Mum

It is a truth universally acknowledged that although using a tired Jane Austen pastiche is a terrible way to start a bog blog post, if the alternative is to help one's mother download apps to her phone after having consumed three or possibly more gin and tonics, then frankly my dear, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times and one more chlamydia joke will definitely not kill you.

Having got that off our chest, we feel an urgent need to acknowledge the power and brilliance of Intellectual Friend's latest philological analysis, which landed in our lucky, lucky inbox the other day. It was a tour de force of intellectual vigour, if that's not mixing metaphors with the abandon with which Our Mum mixes drinks, and although we will not be quoting from said philological analysis, as it was very long and very complex and we're definitely not sober enough to divide it into digestible chunks for our regular readers, believe us when we say that it was a thing of beauty. 

Other beautiful objects have turned up on our metaphorical doorstep, as it were in several temporal dimensions at once, which linguistic stratagem is an attempt to gloss over the fact that we're too lazy and disorganised to for instance publish the photos of a cool thing that Italian Friend (who, for reasons lost in time and/or alcohol, doesn't have her own label, but who has been mentioned for instance here and here) sent us in 2019. 

Here is, at any rate, an amusing sign from whichever part of Asia that Feisty French Friend is currently gracing with her presence and which demonstrates the universally acknowledged truth that on this subject, there is only one possible position, morally as well as intellectually.

Now, down to brass tacks. Italian Friend, visiting a book fair in Boston in 2019, saw this curious object, apparently called The Pouch, and, in her kindness and generosity of spirit, thought of us. In response to our hypothesis that the object of the object is for people to put their possessions in it hygienically, Italian Friend said:

Yes!! 😂 they have a hook on the door and then this thing that you can you use to put your jacket or bag in. They say it’s clean and secure, I thought was very handy!

We find the reference to kangaroos sympathetic, but otherwise remain baffled.

There was mention, some weeks ago, of petrol stations. Tudor Friend, at some point in time that remains unidentified, sent us this helpful link to an article about how service station toilets used to be clean, and now aren't, and which makes a thrilling reference to venereal disease, which may or may not surprise you.

Jonny, that loveable rogue, has outdone himself and sent us pictures of his handsome self in no fewer than three different outfits, one of which involves a moustache. We are weak-kneed from a feeling we have identified, with eighty percent certainty, as gratitude.

Jonny says, with his usual charm and effervescence:

Erm, Peak and Pods in Settle

Really lovely place

Would we really be so cruel as to deprive you of Intellectual Friend's philological musings? Of course not. Grab a glass or four of whatever alcoholic beverage is accessible to you, and join us on this rollicking journey on the roaring seas of etymological musings! (Please note that this is a short extract from a very long series of linked and thrillingly intertwined reflections.)

From there of course I sprang to check what the situation might have been 4,000 years before, in Proto-Indo-European. But I'd dabbled with PIE paradigms before, so I had a wild surmise. And there it was. Back then already, in the hunting and gathering wilds of the Stone Age, when folk had all the space and time in the world to chat in long and complex and variously specific and crazily inflected words, with subtly or unsubtly different endings by the myriad, back then already in our proto-language, in the nominative/vocative, THE NEUTER PLURAL OF ADJECTIVES WAS THE SAME AS THEIR FEMININE SINGULAR!!! (Well, at least in the relevant declension type; but that's the one that would elbow the others out and over time spread everywhere. And so this weird thing got passed on to Latin, and separately to Old Norse as well, so that Icelanders are actually affected too, by the same thing in the same way.)

WHY???

And was that a good thing or bad, anyway?

The key to retaining some minute shred of sanity, we find, is to give up all attempts at finding answers to impossible questions and instead focusing on imbibing as much gin as possible while the world burns.

Today's Festive Video suggests itself to us by virtue of its relation to time zones, ghosts, caffeine, and Oscar Wilde's mother.

 

Festive Video: The Smiths, A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours 

Related Reading

 

Friends Who Send Toilet Pictures, and Other Literal Life Savers

In Which the Privy Counsel Goes Ballistic 

Echoes of Edgar Allan Poe 

All posts featuring Our Mum

All posts featuring Feisty French Friend 

All posts featuring Jonny

All posts featuring Tudor Friend

All posts featuring Intellectual Friend

If musings on Proto-Indo-European are your thing, here's your chance to really let yourself go: Moving Heaven and Earth: Polarisation and Proto-Indo-Europeans

Should you have an inexplicable fondness for petrol stations, here's another one: At Your Service 

"God Jul" from Gothenburg!

Bah, humbug! Remember when we despaired over 2016? When did Nazis stop being a bad thing? we railed. What happened to giving jobs to people with actual qualifications and certifiable sanity? we raged. And not letting raging misogynists who believe that slavery constitutes a reasonable base for a country's economy hold political office? we ranted.

Turns out the shit just kept getting thicker. Basically, we never stopped railing, raging and ranting during all of 2017. Now here we are, it's Christmas, and we are fucking knackered.

Most likely we are all heading to hell in a handcrafted hipster handcart. However, we have become firm believers, at the Privy Counsel, of enjoying the fuck out of life while we still have the chance. Hence we drink all the champagne, whisky and rum (and also beer, and we have never yet turned down a glass of wine) we can lay our hands on, and if we are sometimes hungover at inconvenient moments, well, there is a reason a benevolent deity invented plastic bags, and that is to give humanity something to throw up in on commuter trains.

We had reason to go to Gothenburg recently, to engage in rampantly feminist activities. While there we made a detour to the fancy department store NK, to buy a small Christmas gift for a festive relative. We naturally took the opportunity, while at it, of trying the toilets. Alors!

The floor isn't as clean as it could be, considering we paid 10 kronor to use this bog.

Our correspondent pondering the perfectly adequate mixer tap, and lamenting the bleached paper towels.

The door had a sturdy lock and went all the way down to the floor! Huzzah!

A very decent coat hook, here supporting a fancy shopping bag.

Some kind of modern art adorns this acceptable department store bog, featuring a sturdy toilet-roll holder.

After indulging in this rampant bit of capitalism, we swiftly headed to Kvinnsam, the Swedish national collection of feminist literature, housed at the University of Gothenburg. Lo and behold, but the toilets there were lovely! And free to use! The older we get, the firmer our conviction becomes that you cannot beat university libraries!

Ho, ho, ho! This toilet is resplendent in a Christmassy green mosaic, and has a very friendly and hygienic atmosphere. Does this benevolent bog, by the way, remind us of anything? By Jove, it does! It reminds us of Shewee Fiend Friend's Festschrift bog, at Lund Univeristy's social sciences faculty library!

We have not a simple complaint! Hurrah!

 As regular readers are only too aware, we frequently grapple with ethical dilemmas here at the Privy Counsel. We were just settling into our third rum last night when an old friend sent us a picture of the below contraption, with a philosophical query regarding its suitability for toddlers. We were initially inclined to not be too worried about the moral suitability of urinating into the mouth of an anthropomorphic frog, but as our friend pointed out, what if pissing into a frog aged two leads to pissing into one of those despicable urinals in the shape of a female mouth aged twenty?
Aaaargh! Clearly these things need to be banned! If you have unwisely engaged in reproduction lately, kindly desist from toilet-training your offspring using objects that look like people, lest they become rampant sexists. (Nota bene, the radical notion that women are people is becoming ever more popular.)

Boo!

We take this opportunity of reminding you that, if you want the chance to win a signed photo of that ragingly attractive young whippersnapper known to friends and admirers as Jonny, all you have to do is send us a picture of toilet graffiti before New Year's!

"I said merry Christmas, baby
Sure did treat me nice"

A final Christmas greeting from Shewee Fiend Friend:

"Look at these luxurious coat hooks in JFK airport. Everything else here sucks though. Except for Santa. He keeps appearing, riding one of those old people transporters and jingling his sleigh bells calling Merry Christmas."

 Readers, we are going to abandon you now, to enjoy whatever debauchery you intend to get up to this Christmas! Let us end this rather boozy bog blog post by introducing today's Festive Video.

Here's how we are spending Christmas this year: reclining on a chaise-longue, doing nothing more strenuous than breathing, and sipping tasty alcoholic beverages.

We have a massive problem with many Christmas songs. Even if you discount the rampantly sexist ones, there are still the smarmily religious ones, and then there is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. We have no idea why not more people react to the upsetting story about the reindeer suffering blatant workplace discrimination without his employer lifting a finger to help him. It is mere chance that moves Rudolph higher up the social hierarchy, relieving him of very serious bullying. We will never accept this! However, here is a Christmas song we hope you will like. We like to think that it reflects the unbridled intellectualism and festiveness of Shewee Fiend Friend's recent Hawaiian adventure!

Festive Video: Kacey Musgraves, Mele Kalikimaka

Merry Christmas! Or, as we have learned to say from some festive people we have the pleasure of knowing, jul mubarak!

Related Reading
All posts featuring Christmas

Another festive feminist toilet, featuring green tiles: In a Pretty Pickle

In relation to Christmas: Read all about the Virgin (seriously? You're still going on about that?) Mary here:
Read It And Weep: Why the Virgin Mary Is Creepy

Despairing over 2016:
2016 in Summary: Holding on to Hope, or, We're Really Cunting Angry, or, Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

A post featuring another plush Swedish shopping centre, but in Stockholm:
Mood Stockholm: Flabbergasting Plushness

At Your Service

You know that feeling when - never mind not knowing where you're going - you don't even know where you are at the moment? Don't worry, we've been feeling like that most of the time lately. We're not entirely sure how to get back on the main road when your metaphorical car is a banged-up Peugeot that keeps returning to the same pissoir in a desolate village in the arse-end of rural France, though research suggests that self-medication incorporating lots of very small glasses of wine and obsessive use of the Calming manatee website may provide relief.

It is important, also, to not be alone with your crazed and derailed thoughts. One method that works really well for us is sending angry messages with links to articles about things that we don't agree with to Shewee Fiend Friend, neglecting to take the 8-hour time difference between ourselves and this stoic but sleep-deprived academic into account.

Rest assured that if, like us, you haven't the faintest idea where you are, you are not alone. Jonny, too, could use some directions. That strapping young toilet photographer sent us the following missive:

Toilet review

Found this gem on the way to Kent yesterday

Stall height. Quite low.

Unacceptable stall height

No seat and strange duct tape modification on the toilet roll (presumably to stop people stealing them).

At least they had a toilet brush

Frankly, in this case, we don't find the presence of a toilet brush at all reassuring.

Not a very good locking system, no coat hook and some graffiti

Ugh.

Space age style taps with blue and red respective buttons

Probably filtered straight from the urinal

Overall 3/10

 

When asked whether he remembers the name of the establishment, Jonny, that agile young stripling, replied:

No...

Actually

Put Dartford Services

I'm 70% on that

Jonny is not the only one who has been to a service station and photographed the toilets, but forgotten where he was and what he was doing. One of our correspondents visited some highly satisfactory petrol station facilities in Sweden a little while ago, and sent the following photos:

A cheerful wall decoration and an entirely adequate coat hook still leave this contributor apparently unimpressed, or perhaps just frantically trying to work out where she is.

Mixer tap, soap and functioning paper-towel dispenser in all the right places: Woof!

The sign says "Se livet genom framrutan, inte genom backspegeln" (View life through the windscreen, not through the rearview mirror). That's probably good advice, if you can remember it.

We're not really in favour of people being in relationships (unless you're casting sheep's eyes at Jonny, in which case we say TALLY-HO GOOD WOMAN, GO FORTH AND REEL THIS HULKING YOUNG TOILET CONNOISSEUR IN), not only because single people make for incontestably better drinking partners, but because relationships distressingly often end in the production of offspring (our spirit animal is Mr Woodhouse in Jane Austen's Emma). That human children are surplus to requirement is painfully evident from the statistics showing that an estimated 5.5 million children worldwide are victims of human trafficking. Clearly people should hold off having children until we as a species have learned to value them for purposes other than sexual and economic slavery. (See also: Are women human?) 

A correspondent of ours shared this picture, and we couldn't agree more:

This tallies nicely with our motto PEOPLE SHOULD FUCK OFF MORE.

What we are ragingly, roaringly, sea-captain-in-a-hammock-guzzling-South-Seas-rum in favour of, though, is friendship. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: Our Privy Counsel friends are the dog's bollocks.

 Festive Video: Miranda Lambert, We Should Be Friends

 

 Related Reading

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

All posts featuring Jonny

À la Recherche du Temps Perdu

Sometimes, we miss the nineties. At such times we recline pensively on our chaise-longue, stare wistfully out the window at the brick wall opposite, and feel an inescapable nostalgia for bootcut jeans, fax machines, and a time when Nazis were still considered bad guys.

Ah, the nineties. Remember Lauryn Hill's That Thing? Remember Ace of Base? Remember Indiana Jones? We would hate to be the age we were during the nineties again, and are supremely grateful for our current level of comparative maturity and relative wisdom, but some nineties phenomena, like the widely held stance that Hitler was insane and that a murderous government propagating a gibberish racist doctrine was about as welcome as herpes, are prone to make us feel ever so slightly maudlin after the third gin and tonic.

Let us enjoy some nostalgia-inducing toilets. We recently went to visit the church in Norra Åsum, in the south of Sweden, for perfectly sane and normal reasons. While there we snuck into the very hygienic toilet, and also enjoyed a casual runestone propped up against the wall.

Norra Åsums kyrka. Image from Wikipedia.

This stone insists that the very muscular Bishop Absalon had the church built, probably in the 1190s. The 1190s were, we imagine, like the 1990s, a time when the people were united in their conviction that psychos in uniform were, at best, comical, and, at worst, a threat to public safety.
Image from geshcichteskandinavien.de

We don't know about you, but we find this wallpaper - probably from the '80s, don't you think? - comforting. The soap is Bliw, one of our favourites (it is so very soothing - and environmentally friendly!). The functional and friendly mixer tap is everything that Nazis are not.

Paper towels, the very reassuring '80s wallpaper, and a comforting boiler of some kind.

Even more reassuring: a first-aid kit! And a sturdy coat-hook that makes us feel very safe indeed.

Our correspondent on this occasion was wearing a leather jacket from the late nineties. Woof!

This medieval grave monument is found in the porch of the church, on your right as you exit the toilet. It depicts two dudes, which is unusual on this kind of monument. We are unable to find any information about this, but if any of our rampantly intelligent readers know anything about it, you are hugely welcome to inform us, especially if you have information pertaining to the very stylish and woof-inducing codpieces.
While aware that one should not apply modern notions of sexuality onto the past, we are nonetheless imagining these two dudes to be rampantly homosexual, in the process of growing Village People-style handlebar moustaches, and spending their spare time pressing flowers while wearing glitter tank tops, just because we imagine that this vision of non-normative masculinity would make Nazi gobshites uncomfortable.

Today's Festive Video makes us truly nostalgic. It is from a time when you could joke about Nazis because the assumption was that everyone agreed they were evil. How things change. Fuck it. We're off to drink some more gin and maybe nibble a madeleine cake or four.

Festive Video - Father Ted, Father Ted visits Father Fitzpatrick

Related Reading

Another post featuring medieval stuff and a first-aid kit in the same area:
 An Antiquated Update

Posts about Nazis:

Nothing Is Certain But Death, Taxes, and Knees

If You Are a Medievalist in Your Mid- to Late Thirties, and/or Want to Save the World, This Is for You 

Rampant Murderous Nazis Are Taking Over the World, But Here Is a Picture of Jonny In a Toilet, for Your Convenience and Comfort

An Australian Oddyssey

Procrastination, in our view, is the driving force of human civilisation. The feats that have been achieved through procrastination! The letters written, the cakes baked, the floors cleaned, the books perused, the views regarded, the music composed, the political maxims created, the sheer mass of intellectual activity expended on doing things other than that which one is supposed to do. Somebody should do a clever essay on this, exploring procrastination-enabled productivity, taking perhaps a historical perspective via the Hellfire Club, Samuel Johnson, Bertrand Russell and the Idler.

This whole blog is basically the result of rampant procrastination. Right now, for instance, we're sitting here thinking about the marking we should be doing, while lustily leafing through the pictures Audiologist Friend has sent us from Australia. Yes! Audiologist Friend is Down Under! As far as we understand, that worthy hearing specialist is entirely occupied with taking toilet pictures and chatting to random dudes in bars, with brief interludes of engaging in audiology business.

We seague here into epistolary mode, recordning our own reactions to Audiologist Friend's pictures. SENSITIVE READERS BEWARE: The following transcript is from an entirely social-media-based conversation. Ordinary rules of punctuation and grammar are not always adhered to, and emoticons do occur. You have been warned. A translation of the original colloquial Swedish is provided.

We begin with Audiologist Friend's plane journey.

Privy Counsellor: 

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!
Vilket flygbolag?

(OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!
Which airline?)

Audiologist Friend:

Lite besviken över att det inte fanns handlotion på toaletten! Istället fanns eau de toilette - alltså vem använder sånt? Jag kan inte ens stava till det
Qatar Airwaves
Nej airways

(Slightly diappointed that there was no hand lotion in the toilet! Instead there was eau de toilette - honestly, who uses that stuff? I can't even spell it
Quatar Airwaves
No, Airways)

PC:

Uppenbarligen kan du stava till det
Nä, fy fasen - klart man vill ha handlotion!

(Evidently you can spell it
No, feck no - of course one wants hand lotion!)

AF:

Men jättebra kran - man slapp stå o hålla intryckt hela tiden!
Nu är jag i Doha
Det är jättehäftigt att vara här
Några har högklackat + slöja
Jättemånga män har vita långa dräkter

(But a great tap - one didn't have to keep pushing it in!

Now I'm in Doha

It's really cool to be here

Some people are wearing high heels + veil

A lot of men are wearing long white outfits)

AF:

Melbournes flygplats ÅNEJ tillbaka till landet med uppdelade kranar :(((

(Melbourne airport OH NO back to the country with separated taps)

 PC:

Åh nej! Australien har oftast ganska bra kranar, vad jag förstår! De är pionjärer när det gäller att spara vatten

(Oh no! Australia usually has quite good taps, from what I understand! They are pioneers when it comes to saving water)

AF:

Lägg märke till att det vid entrén även finns punktskrift! Studenttoaletterna på UQ

(Please note that the sign by the entrance uses Braille! The student toilets at UQ)

Woof! This looks like an excellent tap in every way!

An elegant ad informative sign, incorporating Braille.

We love this coat hook. It is an excellent coat hook. Possibly our favourite kind of coat hook.

The spray bottle indicates regular cleaning!

This looks like an excellent set-up. The bin appears to be at a comfortable distance from the toilet.

If you enjoy almost seeing people, check out the label Almost Seeing People!

A lovely composition, incorporating almost seeing Audiologist Friend, and a friendly sign informing the toilet user that the toilets are water-saving. Woof!

AF:

F ö var jag på baren The End ikväll och träffade en trevlig man, Daniel, som jag berättade om bloggen för. Han uppmanade mig att ta foton från toan där
... and so I did!

(In other news I was at the bar The End tonight and met a nice man, Daniel, who I told about the blog. He encouraged me to take pictures of the toilets there
...and so I did!)

A daring fusion of art and cleaning products at The End bar in Brisbane.

A very small and sad sink with a sad, lonely tap, but plus points for the festive soap dispenser.

A festive and informative sign!

Exuberant graffitti on what is possibly a paper-towel dispenser?

More innovative graffitti!

PC:

Det är det jag alltid har sagt - The Privy Counsel är en världsomspännande rörelse! Hälsa Daniel

(That's what I have always said - The Privy Counsel is a global movement!
Say hello to Daniel)

We congratulate Audiologist Friend on kicking academic arse, taking entertaining toilet pictures and chatting to random dudes called Daniel!

The obvious Festive Video at this point would be Daniel by Elton John, but frankly we think this dude has had enough attention. We are instead going to delight you with a song recommended to us by a very dear friend who we have the good fortune of spending a lot of time with at the moment. We have been told that it is an Arabic song about the advantages of being single!

Festive Video - Samira Said, Mahassalsh Haga

Related Reading
All posts featuring Audiologist Friend
All posts featuring Almost Seeing People
All posts featuring Australia