Intellectual Friend: The Second Best Toilet in Iceland

 We are excited today to offer our readers a look at what, according to Intellectual Friend, is the second best toilet in Iceland! It is to be found in the basement of the café Bláa Kannan, in Akureyri. We are so delighted by this that we are going to show you all the photos, including one of a delicious-looking dessert that Intellectual Friend was lucky enough to have, even though it's not strictly within our subject area.

Bláa Kannan - looks like Pippi Longstocking's house!

Clean and cosy - we love Scandinavian interiors!

Bláa Kannan serves "amazing and generous coffee and chocolate cakes". Indeed!

"The toilets are in the basement, down a few steps by a mysterious black seeping/weeping rock (helpfully labelled 'bjarg' on the little grid), its seeping perhaps serving to confirm and intensify one's natural urge in case of a last-minute hesitation"

"This opens on a waiting/strolling area sporting a long, pleasantly wooden bench, another stone..."

"...and more privacy in waiting or meditating/concentrating on the job to be done here as a consequence of the house's amazing and generous coffee and chocolate cakes"

"There also is a hidden alcove, with a bench skulking in the corner, an impressive piece of pipework, and a dreary door to damnation."

Mixer taps! O, blessed mixer taps! And a tissue dispenser!

"The toilets proper are quite uneventful in comparison, though the wooden framing, more jumbo pipes (note the runic-style graffiti) and general cleanliness add a cheerful note."

Perfectly pleasant and hygienic

Ventilation! God, we love Scandinavian interiors! Oh yes, we do!

If you thought this was good, wait till we show you the BEST toilet in Iceland!

More Intellectual Friend Antics:
Intellectual Friend Goes to Iceland, Visits Toilets
Intellectual Friend, Still in Iceland, Visits More Toilets
Intellectual Friend Goes to Poland
Intellectual Friend Visits More Polish Toilets


 Bláa Kannan
Hafnarstræti 96
600 Akureyri
Iceland
Sími: 461 4600
http://www.visitakureyri.is/IS/matur-og-drykkur/kaffihus-og-barir/nr/10743

Going Soft: Yet Another Post about Toilet Paper

We don't care and we wish you hadn't bothered

 We refuse on principle to buy toilet paper that isn't recycled. We also refuse to buy toilet paper that is "extra soft", "angel soft" "ultra soft", "luxury soft", quilted, decorated or in any other way perverted, evil and unnecessary. Trying to find unbleached toilet paper in Britain is like looking for the Loch Ness monster in your bath tub: futile. But recycled toilet paper, though never, alas, unbleached, is at least usually free of the frantic "softness" labelling. Until Nouvelle went and printed a nauseating "How did we get it so soft?" slogan on its packaging. We find ourselves asking once again: Where does this obsession with soft bog roll come from? Think about it: what do you use it for? Toilet paper does not need to be bleached, quilted or have little flowers printed on it!
At least Nouvelle isn't quilted any more.

"Well the most important thing is we select high quality recycled paper as only the best will do." Why? It's being made into toilet paper for god's sake!

Having a look at the consumer guides online, however, Nouvelle, though recycled and for the moment unquilted, isn't necessarily that good anyway. Here is what Ethiscore has to say:

"It might be surprising to see a recycled toilet tissue brand in the top three [on the list of products to boycott], but its parent, Georgia-Pacific, came out worst in a WWF report on sustainability in the tissue sector. Its parent company, Koch Industries, has been part of a team advising Bush on developing a conservative 'environmentalism for the 21st century'. This favoured deregulation and included Bush statements that logging was good for forests and that dams were good for salmon." (http://www.ethiscore.org/info.aspx?info=campaign_climate, accessed 1 June 2011)

The Ecologist quotes the same WWF survey and tells you what's what.

Picture from http://blog.sustainablog.org/eco-libris-trees-of-soft-toilet-paper-what-do-you-choose/

The Guardian, always adept at giving you a bad conscience (in this case, of course, rightly so), offers a delectable little article which begins with the fantastic words, "The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country's love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners".

The WWF have published a very helpful guide on their website, and also offer information on the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) label.

For more information and the kind of unbiased factual analysis that regular Privy Counsel readers have come to know and love, see our previous posts Toilet Paper: A Pain in the Arse?, Toilet Paper: Puppy Love and, for something only slightly relevant, Immediate Action: Soldiers Use Toilet Paper, Too.

The Blue Bicycle: A Semi-Intellectual Bike Ride!

Finally, the photos we've all been waiting for in a nail-biting state of frenzied agony: Semi-Intellectual Friend's photographic journey through the toilet at the Blue Bicycle restaurant!
We always like to quote our guest contributors, to give the reportage that certain je ne sais quois flavour and colour, so here's what Semi-Intellectual Friend has to say about his work:

I'm not sure what you normally look for in a toilet photo, so apologies if I've got the angle all wrong, but I took quite a few. Quantity beats quality every time. Its a classy joint though. I like the towels. (Decency meant that my focus was turned pretty much exclusively toward the male toilet. Alice spoke highly enough of the female equivalent though, when prodded forcefully enough for an opinion.)

Gaaaah! Separated taps! But lovely-looking soap AND hand-lotion - hurrah!

Paper towels (recycled, we hope) hygienically and stylishly stacked away from the toilet.
The bin appears to be at a most comfortable distance from the bog visitor.

A close-up of the paper towels, and the toilet paper,
which is likewise stored at a hygienic distance from the toilet.

Everything looks clean enough, but we are saddened to spot
a disability-hostile lever flush and uncovered toilet paper in the same picture.

Oooh, a wall of fame, and an incredibly vulgar bust of Marilyn Monroe - we feel compelled to applaud this! One is certainly in good company while enjoying the use of this toilet! But what is that horrendous British-looking attempt at ventilation? We bet you it doesn't work.

We enclose this extra view of Marilyn and the mirror, because Semi-Intellectual Friend was clearly so pleased at having managed to take this picture without showing up in the mirror.

 If you liked this reportage, you will rejoice to know that Semi-Intellectual Friend may well return one day, and do another one! Here's what S-I F has to say on the subject of toilet photography in York:

Still, I might visit York for the Airblade dryers. I feel I can be honest with you that they might be one of my favourite things in the whole entire world. Do you have a spy camera for your toilet exploits? Or is carrying that sort of thing into a toilet steering too close to doing something that might be mistaken for a deportable offence? Reading back through this paragraph, it seems a bit too much like I'm asking for advice.

 If you like the look of this toilet, and would like to visit it, you can do so at this address (we haven't been there ourselves, but we checked out the menu on the website and it looks d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s! And what's more, the Blue Bicycle occupies a building that used to house a brothel!):

The Blue Bicycle Restaurant
34 Fossgate
York YO1 9TA
Tel: 01904 673990
http://www.thebluebicycle.com/index.php?s=1

Vidal Sassoon: Cutting-edge Conveniences

We have long been in favour of the pleasant and stylish design, user-friendliness and hygiene of Vidal Sassoon salon toilets (and we have been to quite a few over the years). We recently visited the Sassoon Academy in Davies Mews, off Bond Street, and consequently have the pleasure of bringing our eager readers a review of the conveniences there.

This is the kind of coat-hook we like! Stylish, sturdy and more than capable
of holding our rucksack as well as our favourite leather jacket!

The soap was pleasant, but what filled our heart with soaring joy was the mixer tap!

Hygienically covered, plain white toilet paper.
The bin is extremely hygienic and placed at a convenient and practical distance from the bog user

Not a water-saving flush, but easy to use even for those who are manually challenged, like us,
or short of stature, like other people

We can sum this up as a lovely toilet! The air-dryer (not pictured) unfortunately shaves off a point, leaving this barber's bog with a total sum of 9 points.
May we recommend a visit to Vidal Sassoon not merely on the strength of the excellence of their toilets, but also the friendliness, skill, and sheer, unadulterated genius of their staff?

Sassoon Academy
15 Davies Mews
London W1K 5AA
T: +44 (0) 20 7399 6902
http://www.sassoon.com/index.php

Doing the Locomotion

We had reason to get the train from York to London recently. Nature, as we all know (some only too well), is no respecter of modern modes of travel - she may call when you're half-way to Peterborough, for instance, and there's nothing you can do about it. Or rather there is - you can go and take pictures of the train conveniences.

The soap smelled really very nice, though ever since a friend told us about one time when she tried washing her hands on a train, only to find that the water had run out, leaving her stuck with soap all over her hands and no way to rinse it off (unless, of course, she happened to meet a soap-loving, hand-licking Labrador), we're a bit nervous about hand-washing on trains. One trick is to rinse your hands first (as per NHS guidelines), so you know there is water, but then what if that uses up the last of it?

This toilet was perfectly clean and in no way unpleasant to use.

We love clear signs like this one. The bin is not too close.

We thought the old "do not use in station" rule stemmed from the days when the contents of train toilets were simply emptied onto the tracks, and therefore antiquated, but apparently not. Anyway, nothing surprises one in Britain.

A handy reminder for people with short memories.

East Coast trains have really very good toilets; we award this one 10 points out of 15!

Kennedy's: Cleanliness, Scottishness and rejoicing all around.

 We ventured to an excellent little place called Kennedy's for some quite, quite delicious coffee. The weather was fine, the waiter was Scottish, and everyone was in a good mood. And lo and behold, the toilets were bloody marvellous!

Mixer taps with delicious soap AND hand lotion!

A hygienic and environmentally friendly Airblade dryer!

A radiator! Imagine how warm and cosy and uncharacteristically non-freezing (for Britain) this toilet will be in winter!

A pleasant, clean toilet. Bin perhaps a little close, but not unpleasantly so. Flush not water-saving, but easy to use, with no awkward lever-pulling involved.

Hygienically covered, plain white bog roll!

 We were pleasantly surprised by these excellent, excellent toilets, and award them a whopping 11 points!
Encouraged by this little gem of a café and its marvellous toilets, we have decided to award a hygienic dryer, which we have always made concessions for, the same number of points as a revolving towel, that is, one, from now on.

Kennedy's Bar and Restaurant
1 Little Stonegate, York, YO1 8AX
01904 620 222
http://www.kennedysbaryork.co.uk/

A Black Run: The Best Wallpaper Ever

A quick newsflash: Quasi-Intellectual Friend sent us this picture. Don't you wish you had one?

(Picture from http://hackedirl.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/epic-win-photos-toilet-wallpaper-win.jpg)