In a Pretty Pickle

We're not saying we haven't been productive today. We're just saying we have spent most of the day carpeing the diem in no uncertain manner, and, having wrapped ourselves round a bottle of cava, a bottle of rosé, and some beer we forgot to pay for, we are now rather woozy and inclined to sentimentality.

We may or may not have mentioned Lunds studentskegård in a previous post. This Lund institution has provided accommodation for women students of limited means since 1938. A donation had originally been made to erect a building to provide accommodation for male students, but Lunds Kvinnliga Studentförening, the women students' society, entered on a campaign of petitioning to make the accommodation one for women students instead.

The reason for the women students' society's energetic campaigning was, simply, that there was no accommodation available for women students in Sweden in the 1920s and 1930s. Women had gained the right to study at university (except of course law and theology, because God forbid women should end up in positions of authority) in Sweden round about the 1870s, but women students were still viewed with suspicion. A woman living on her own must, according to the mores of the day, be promiscuous and immoral, and the city's landladies hesitated to take women lodgers.

To make a long story short, a university lecturer called Asta Kihlbom, who was chairwoman of the women students' society, took it upon herself to make accommodation for women students become a reality. Thanks to Kihlbom's unremitting arse-kicking, Lunds studentskegård was built in 1937, and the first tenants moved in during 1938. Women students now had a safe and clean environment, with mixer taps, in which to live and study.

A collaborative, democratic spirit reigned from the outset, and still does. Solidarity was an important concept to the early women students, and arrangements were made for visiting scholars to stay at Studentskegården for a modest fee. Indeed, simple but clean accommodation is still available to friends and fellow academics.

We learned today (before we got drunk, and while we were still academically productive) that the green-tiled shower room in the basement at Studentskegården was in fact made available, in the early days, to women students who were in accommodation elsewhere in the city, but whose landladies wouldn't let them hang up their washing (as we all know, female undergarments are inherently shameful, if not downright dangerous) or even use the bath. We have no citeable source on this information, but Audiologist Friend heard it from somebody whose name we can't remember, so we are taking it as gospel. Anyway, look how pretty and clean the shower room is! The mixer tap inspires such confidence, don't you think? Woof!

The stylish green-tiled shower room at Lunds studentskegård, made available to women students who had no access to washing facilities.

An unintentionally hilarious newspaper article about Lunds studentskegård from 1941 bears the headline "While the Bachelor of Arts irons, the Bachelor of Medicine pickles eggs". The notion of women academics living together and cooking their own food was hugely confusing to almost everyone in the 1930s and '40s.

Women were classified as either housewife material, in which case ironing and pickling eggs were suitable activities, or as society hostess material, in which case they were not. Women students, who would potentially make careers and earn their own keep (although the article, mentioned above and pictured below, cites the women students saying coyly that "the sewing machine has been made to make several trousseaus - the girls are busy getting married at this place!"), transcended the traditional classifications, which is why this newspaper felt the need to explain their activities to its readers.

When Studentskegården was still in the planning stages, the issue of whether to install kitchens caused an actual, bona-fide furore, with one phalanx arguing that students, even if they happened to be female, had no business in a kitchen, and another phalanx retorting that women of limited means, even if they happened to be students, might find it useful to have access to a kitchen and not have to eat every meal out. In the end the pro-kitchen party won.

An unintentionally hilarious newspaper article from 1941

Students in the communal kitchen they almost didn't get, in 1941

Students enjoying the lush garden surrounding Studentskegården, in the spring of 1943.
We might have spent the afternoon in this garden, drinking wine like there is no tomorrow.

The article reproduced (in very poor quality - our apologies) above ends by wondering whether, if Studentskegården were ever to produce a Great Woman, she would be "a Madame Curie or a Cajsa Warg" (a legendary cook - like a Swedish Mrs Beeton but a century earlier).
In the end it turned out she was a historian. Birgitta Odén, Sweden's first female history professor and Lund University's first female professor, lived at Lunds studentskegård in the 1940s. If Odén hadn't had access to safe, intellectually inspiring accommodation, Sweden would probably have had to wait a couple of decades longer before it got a female history professor.

Time for a Festive Video! Our day has basically been like this, except we weren't at the beach, and our friends wore more clothes.

Festive Video - Little Big Town, Day Drinking


Related Reading
All posts featuring Lund
All posts featuring Audiologist Friend
Posts featuring tiles

Kicking the Ass of Ignorance

The popularity of Jane Eyre is spreading faster than the clap in a Renaissance coastal town. A friend of ours (who shall remain mercifully anonymous) turned out to have never read this respected work of literature, "because she doesn't like Jane Austen".
You see, readers, what truly hellish depths of ignorance we do battle with here at the Privy Counsel? Nevertheless, it seems said friend was inspired by our Toilet Tale version of Jane Eyre - indeed, how could she not be? - and went to the book shop to rectify the grave deficiencies of her education. We received the picture below yesterday, reassuring us that ignorance and illiteracy are soon to be hurled back into the sulphurous darkness from which they came. Begone!

Mmmm, Bailey's!

In another instance of heartwarming human decency, two strangers offered to help a friend of ours with her fucked suitcase the other day. She had made an 8-hour train journey with a broken and very much overflowing suitcase and was not enjoying the sensation of having her private possessions leaking into the ether. We were on our way to the station to assist with duct tape and spare bags, when the two would-be Samaritans offered our friend their services. Hurrah for kind strangers!

Let's do a rough about-turn, and move on to Audiologist Friend's fantastic photos from Denmark! This audiogram obsessive wrote (as usual, an English translation follows for the linguistically challenged, but do take the opportunity of enjoying this fine example of early-21st centuy colloquial Swedish) as follows:

Var ju i Danmark igår och såg till att skaffa bevis till dig.

Nån bar som låg nära Istedgade, vi ville vila lite från Distorsionfestivalen och satt där och drack happy hour-drinkar! Extra festligt var det ju när dambadrummet levererade :) frågade Paul om det fanns liknande målningar på herrtoan men icke!

(So I was in Denmark yesterday, and made sure I got you proof.  

Some bar near Istedgade, we wanted to get a rest from the Distortion festival, so we sat there drinking happy hour drinks! It was extra festive when it turned out the ladies' room delivered! :) Asked Paul if there were similar paintings in the gents' loo but alas!)

What a bunch of cunts!
Strike us pink with a selection of recycled hand towels if this isn't the most laudable toilet illustration we have ever seen!

A somewhat primitive but clean-looking sink, with soap, paper towels and a mirror. Huzzah!

Plenty of bog roll!!!

It is student graduation day round our way today. This is possibly the most festive day of the year! As if to prove the point, a lorryful of teenagers playing The Final Countdown on full blast, and tooting little horns, just went past Privy Counsel HQ. We are seized by an urge to go out and join the festivities! But first, a Festive Video.

The most festive day of the year!
Image from sverigesradio.se.

When one is beleaguered by a heatwave of Biblical proportions which for some reason started weeks ago and is showing no sign of abating, and which is (presumably, though we can't remember the last time we actually spoke to a farmer) doing great damage to potatoes and other useful crops, one prepares to kick ass wearing shades.

Festive Video - Fry and Laurie, There Ain't the One Way (Kickin' Ass)

(If the video above is looking a bit funny, here is a link.)

Related Reading
All posts featuring Audiologist Friend
A post about a heatwave in Copenhagen
Our subsequent retraction of the term "Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country" in relation to Denmark
Our classic Toilet Tale version of Jane Eyre

If You Can Meet with Triumph and Disaster

We like, at the Privy Counsel, to be seen as competent people. When you are a self-professed intellectual, you set your standards high. As we mentioned the other week, we did battle with a circuit breaker and came out of it covered in dust and spitting teeth. However, in most areas of life we like to think of ourselves as clued-up and capable. Our source criticism is rigid, our soap is the monkey-friendly kind, and we wouldn't dream of using a semi-colon where a colon is clearly indicated.

But sometimes you fail. Sometimes, you find yourself - to borrow a story from Caitlin Moran to furnish us with a metaphor - in a taxi, having accidentally poured neat clove oil into the eye of a celebrity, and trying to rinse it out with a can of lukewarm Lilt. It happens. Sometimes, no matter how competent you are generally, you will fuck up royally, and your cheeks will burn with shame. And that's ok. As we never tire of saying at the Privy Counsel, we are only human - and some of us barely that. It's totally fine to embarrass yourself and make people angry with your half-arsed blundering. As Our Favourite Aunt pointed out, you might even be doing them a favour - a brief cease-fire in your ordinary barrage of breathtaking skill and flair might be a nice break for everyone else, who has been feeling quietly inadequate in the light of your dazzling sufficiency.

We received a message from Tudor Friend, that purveyor of toilet news good and bad, accompanied by a link to this article about a brewery that has revolutionary toilets.  The toilets mentioned embody, we think, the trope of the high ambition sadly trampled by an utter failure to achieve high standards. Tudor Friend said:

God, would you ever have thought, when you started your blog/fascination, that TOILETS would suddenly become an issue on everyone's lips?* (That... that sounds wrong, now that I read it again. But I'm leaving it because maybe you need a giggle.) Anyway, curious about your thoughts on this- it doesn't solve the horrible-hipster-at-the-sink problem, but it does seem to offer everyone a modicum of privacy in a fairly equitable fashion (I have never understood how guys can stand next to one another and wee!!). 

It's not quite the Eden of actual separate fully-plumbed gender-neutral toilet rooms, and it would be a lot better if the stalls ran right up to the roof to create something closer to separate space, but I have to give them credit for trying to find a fix, as I fear individual complete bathrooms are never going to catch on financially. (I also rather like that it doesn't appear to have mirrors. I'm kind of okay with de-primpifying bathrooms and making us think less about how we look all the time, but that might just be me.)

The toilets in the Optimism Brewery, in Seattle
Image: thestranger.com.

Although we revere Tudor Friend's opinions to the the point of near-idolatry, in this matter, we don't agree. The story of the above brewery toilet has been bandied about on social media as the dernier cri in inclusive toilet-related equality of late. However, we have several reservations.

First of all, why bother with urinals at all? If one of the reasons for having a gender-integrated bathroom was that guys have more stalls than girls, why then make half the stalls in said gender-integrated bathroom unavailable to women? (Unless of course all the womenfolk are packing a shewee. We really hope they are.) We frankly don't see the point.

Secondly, the stalls, although seemingly made of sturdy, noise-insulating wood, don't, as Tudor Friend points out, go all the way to the ceiling. Can this horror cease now, please? Bathroom stalls need to ensure privacy, and that includes being noise-insulating.

Thirdly - and we can't believe we are still having to point this out - NOBODY WANTS TO ELBOW THEIR WAY THROUGH A SEA OF BEARDED HIPSTERS TO GET TO THE SINK. We cannot stress this enough.

Regarding the mirror issue, we see the sense of Tudor Friend's stance and would dearly love to be able to agree, but being fanatic wearers of eyeliner and obsessors of hair, we really, really, really want a mirror available in the bathroom.

In conclusion: No to non-noise-insulating stalls. No to bearded hipsters. Yes to safe spaces and mirrors. Full points to the owners of the Optimism Brewing Company for wanting to provide toilets that are safe for everyone, and friendly to trans people. We really, really appreciate it. But alas, we cannot bring ourselves to approve.

We move, now, into the realm of poetry. Readers, brace yourselves.

Quite a useful poem to remember odd snippets of when you are flailing wildly, making odd squeaking noises and spectacularly failing to impress people is Rudyard Kipling's "If". This poem was written by Kipling in 1910, and made popular by Helen Fielding in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, from 1999. Bridget Jones finds comfort in this poem when in a very sticky situation indeed, musing:

Poem is good. Very good, almost like self-help book. Maybe that is why Mark Darcy gave it to me! Maybe he sensed I might get into danger! Or maybe he was just trying to tell me something about my attitude. Bloody cheek. Not sure about sixty seconds' worth of distance run anyway, or if actually want to be man. Also is a bit hard to treat this disaster the same as triumphs as have not had any triumphs that can think of, but still. Will force heart and nerve and sinew to serve turn, etc. in manner of First World War or jungle soldier or whatever Rudyard Kipling was and just hold on. 

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

The poem itself, in all its "lip stiff and upper" glory, goes like this:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—not lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a man, my son!

As Caitlin Moran pointed out, this is a very useful poem - if you are a man. If you happen not to be a man (a calamity affecting roughly 50 % of the population), there is no poem specifically designed to make you feel better when you are panicking about a press release you wrote that contained factual errors. There is no poem to calm you down when you've spilled mayonnaise AND red wine on a yellow satin skirt. There is no poem containing guidance on how to change your tampon in the toilet of a moving train. However, Caitlin Moran has changed all that! Here, for your delight and edification, is Caitlin Moran's "The Woman's If".

Festive Video - Caitlin Moran, "If" I Were a Woman

Now, we recommend that you all chill the fuck down, stop worrying about that time when you accidentally poured boiling water on someone's foot, and spend the weekend watching Outlander and drinking whisky.

*We can't remember having any thoughts at all around the time we started this bog blog, but no, as far as we remember, we were the only people in the entire world, at the time, who cared about the quality of toilets. We certainly didn't expect transphobia to make toilets an international news item.

Related Reading
All posts featuring Tudor Friend
All posts featuring unisex toilets
All posts featuring gender equality
All posts featuring Caitlin Moran
All posts featuring Our Favourite Aunt

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

In Which We Express Our Gratitude to Electricians Springing Into Action

YES! That is right - that is indeed the scent of bird cherry in full bloom!

As regular readers are aware, we have a thing about bird cherry. We would even go so far as to claim that the brief period when the delightful Prunus padus is in bloom is the best time of the year!

All the signs that summer might return and that we might - at least on a philosophical plane - not be completely fucked, have been making themselves manifest in a joyfully unrestrained manner! After many days of rain (of both the physical and the metaphorical kind) the sun has been making up for all the bullshit by burning our skin until it really hurts, blackbirds have been tooting and doing rude things to each other in the shrubberies in order to ensure the continuation of the species, and the big creepy wasps have started worming their way in through the ventilation system and buzzing angrily around while we have been trying to work. (As anyone who knows us is aware, we are only too happy to get an excuse to procrastinate, even if it means running the risk of getting a wasp sting in the neck and slowly suffocating to death.)

In short, spring is definitely here! Let us celebrate by pondering some light-hearted pictures!

First out is a hope-inspiring message from Shewee Fiend Friend, who writes:

Public message on New York subway.

The message reads:

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze
• Cough or sneeze into the bend of your arm if you don't have a tissue
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer
• If you think you have the flu, stay home until your fever is gone at least 24 hours without a fever reducer 

We of course have some criticism to offer here, the main thrust of which is this:
As demonstrated by Mythbusters, sneezing into a tissue is basically no better than sneezing directly into your hand. (Please, for the love of God, don't sneeze into your hand. Thank you.) SNEEZE INTO YOUR GODDAMN ELBOW.

That ended up not being very light-hearted. Let's try these delightful pictures from Bogsley Hansson Friend.

WE WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH THIS MESSAGE.

Is this a sign pointing out where the spare loo roll is kept? If so, we approve!

For anyone who finds the intersection between toilet-related matters and feminism as fascinating as we do, there is this article on the 1970s fight against pay toilets, sent to us by Tudor Friend, to ponder in a haze of happiness this weekend.

We also received a link to a fantastic article from Australian Friend called Fantastic invention stops men weeing in the streets. It's a toilet. Really, the title says it all.

Speaking of feminism, we had a situation recently which set us thinking. We have been pondering fuse boxes, and wondering why we have never been forced to take a crash course in fuse box management. We like to think that we are reasonably competent, at the Privy Counsel, when it comes to practical things - changing a blown fuse, reversing accidental use of Caps Lock, persuading a reluctant horse to take the bit into its mouth - things like that. However, nobody ever told us how to identify a circuit breaker in a really old building. And, though we like to think that we are experts at finding things on the internet, this is rather challenging when your computer is slowly dying of old age and can only handle 20 minutes without electricity, and your phone is also caving in to dementia, and refuses to show you pictures of fuse boxes or in any other way communicate with you. We won't bore you with the details, but we would like to thank the friendly electrician who drove 40 kilometres on his night off just to flick our circuit breaker (not a euphemism).

We would also like to thank the friends who reassured us that just because you don't know something about a traditional male field doesn't make you a bad woman/feminist. On that note, let us have a festive video! Today's festive video comes to us courtesy of Tudor Friend, and we have no idea if it is ironic or not. What do you think?

Tudor Friend says:

TOILET PAPER and MOCKING OF HIPSTERS.
This is hilarious, brilliant, and I bet at least ten eejits out there fall for it and go out to find this product. May they experience all the joy of bum-splinters!

Festive video - Quilted Northern Rustic Weave, Artisanal Toilet Paper


Related Reading

Previous posts featuring bird cherry:
In Which We Indulge in Poetry and Out-of-Context French Expressions
Cracking Some Suds in Kreuzberg

Jezebel pictorial on the 1970s feminist fight against pay toilets:
The 1970s Feminist Fight Against Pay Toilets

An excellent article on the fantastic invention that stops men weeing in the streets:
Fantastic invention stops men weeing in the streets. It's a toilet.

Another message that started with an enthusiastic "yes"

All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend
All posts featuring Bogsley Hansson Friend
All posts featuring Tudor Friend
All posts featuring Australian Friend

Don't miss our most popular Friend Quote ever, Semi-Intellectual Friend's take on the concept of irony - available in the post Foul Play, also Fowl Issues.

Also, everyone keeps telling us to Get Yer Bags Together, Channing Tatum Has Announced a Live Magic Mike Show in Vegas, so we might as well share it here, too.

Shooting the Shit - Let Us Get Rid of Transgender Bathroom Bigotry

Editor's note, 1 January 2022

It happens that one, on obtaining new information, changes one's opinion on things. This has happened to us. Events that took place in 2016 and 2017 caused us to seek information on gender ideology, leading to a complete turnaround on the issue of toilets. We've expounded our views on this in several posts, for instance these ones:

"Let Them Eat Cake" - Could It Be Any More Obvious That a Man Designed These Toilets? 

Things That Are Better Than Elvis

Divide [the Toilets] and Conquer [One of a Multitude of Aspects of Women's Subjugation to Male Violence]

Stockholm Central Station: The Trauma Is So Great We Are Brought To Quoting Cicero

Still, below follows an account of our views in April 2016./

 

The conclusion one comes to after five and a half years of running an intellectual toilet blog is that it is persistently topical. Bathrooms figure frequently in the news at the moment, due to the irrational and bigoted efforts by various US legislators to enforce bathroom bills that discriminate against transgender people.

This fabulous picture came our way via Kick-Arse Suffragette Friend. Image from lgbt.gaybies.

We have ranted a fair bit about how we are opposed to unisex toilets if they force one to share a sink with a barrage of bearded hipster dudes (and also if they force one to share a sink with a barrage of polyester-suited businessmen), due to a concern for women's safety.

However, the bigoted bathroom laws in the US have highlighted the fact that transgender people, as well as cis women, are at risk of suffering violence at the hands of men. For this reason we feel it is important to clarify our stance on gender-neutral bathrooms.

We are mentally cheering this bearded hipster dude on, waving balloons and blowing those festive rolled-up paper things that go "toot". Image from Transadvocate.

We are not the only ones to have pointed out that the biggest threat to women and children is not transgender people. Neither is it sharks, nor bears, nor deranged psycho killers armed with sharp implements. The biggest threat to women and children - and also to transgender people - is cis men. That is, normal dudes.

Transgender people are vulnerable to hate crimes and violence, and need to be protected from the bigotry of the uneducated. Let us, therefore, collectively embrace unisex toilets!

Unisex toilets, however, like any other toilets, need to be done right. There needs to be privacy and sturdy doors (instigators of flimsy cubicles will be put on our black list and branded as enemies of the people), and one needs the option to wash one's hands in seclusion. If bearded hipster dudes want to wash their hands together that's up to them, but we would rather not wash ours while being stared at by said bearded hipster dudes.

Here are some unisex toilets so cleverly designed that one doesn't even reflect upon the fact that they are unisex!

First up are the toilets in the shopping centre in Burlöv, outside Malmö. We don't spend a lot of time in shopping centres, whether in Burlöv or anywhere else, due to them being vile. However, we actually needed to buy something once, and consequently trekked to Burlöv. The staff were nice, and we suffered no unreasonable trauma. Moreover, the toilets were really cool!

The toilet sign! Quite friendly, isn't it? It has a binary gender approach which one could criticise if one were so inclined, but on the other hand it is enriched with Braille, and thus disability-friendly.
(To be honest, we have no idea how helpful this sign is, if at all, to a partially sighted person. Sometimes it is the thought that counts!)

How swish is this! Unfortunately we don't seem to have photographed the inside of these toilets,
but look how fancy the outside is!

Next, let us look at the toilets in the Orkanen building at Malmö University.

Here is a similar set-up to the one above - many doors, all with the binary toilet sign, and a disability toilet at the end.

We enjoyed this set-up hugely: a good mixer tap, plenty of soap, and paper towels.

Not one but TWO sturdy coat hooks!
At this point in the photography proceedings, we died a little from happiness.

The student union's toilet-based newsletter is called Skitviktigt.

The English-language version is called The Toilet Paper.

We have been to Malmö University many times, and have never even reflected on the fact that these toilets are unisex. Malmö University is rather prone to be crawling with bearded hipster dudes, but we have never felt threatened or uncomfortable here, and the toilets have always been clean and well maintained. Well done, Malmö University!

Let us finish with a festive video, to celebrate the arrival of the weekend! We went to see the Dixie Chicks the other day, and they were just as fabulous as you would expect. Let's have their supremely festive video about how to combat domestic violence. We are rather inclined to agree with the Dixie Chicks' statement that they "do not advocate premeditated murder, but love getting even".

Festive video - Dixie Chicks, Goodbye Earl

Related Reading

Previous posts featuring unisex toilets:

Love, Politics and the Revolution

Caitlin Moran Really Does Make Everything Better

Unisex Toilets - This Shit Gets Political

The Screaming Bloody Horror That Is Unisex Toilets, When Done Wrong

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

An article we liked in Slate:

Breitbart Proves What We Already Knew: Trans Women Are Not Bathroom Predators

An article we liked in the Huffington Post:

Not in the Name of My "Protection"

We love Michael Kaufman, of the White Ribbon Campaign.

A woman called Emily Waggoner has, rather fabulously, created a map showing the locations of toilets that are safe for transgender people

Postscript

Some of our best friends are bearded hipster dudes.

On the Rocks

When you have spent all your money on books and are living on oatmeal and odd-tasting budget-brand peanuts from last June, you discover a need to create your own entertainment. Luckily, an intellectual bog blog is the perfect medium for concocting diversion out of thin air and slightly creepy pictures. Friday night, here we come!

We have mentioned this bar we love, Rock'n'rollklubben in Lund, once or twice. We ventured forth the other week to hear the Belarusian band Amaroka, and also a  rockabilly band hailing from Kristianstad called the Boot Hill Ramblers. We really couldn't say what we enjoyed most - the band from Belarus, the band from Kristianstad, or the disco ball toilet!

This is not in any way intended as a slight on either band, you understand - we really do love a good toilet as much as we love a good rock'n'roll band, and this toilet was highly festive! See for yourself:

This bog is the spiritual twin of THE FAMOUS DISCO TOILET OF STAVANGER.



This sticker says "Death before dishonesty", which is a pretty good motto, as far as toilets go,
and especially a dedicated rock'n'roll toilet.

We feel safe knowing there is pleasant soap, and plenty of bog roll.

This is the other toilet at Rock'n'rollklubben. Yes! There are two toilets!

This soothing turquoise colour reminds us of an eclectic toilet we enjoyed using once on Mykonos.

Woof!

Being the globe-trotting toilet connoisseurs we are, this is not the first time we have seen a chandelier in a toilet.
(We have also seen this chandelier.)

Rock'n'rollklubben has a strict policy of equal rights and freedom from harassment. This cosy candle symbolises how safe we feel at this place - not just in the toilet, but outside, too. We have never been sexually harassed or even stared at in an uncomfortable way at Rock'n'rollklubben - hurrah for people just being people!

To continue our theme of providing cheap entertainment for a Friday night, here is a greeting from Jonny, that endless source of wit and savoir-faire:

So my friend does stand-up comedy 

I asked him if he had a joke for your blog or any tips to make it funnier 

He said the trick with bathroom jokes is to let it flow naturally 

Don't faucet...

For tonight's festive video we have, rather fabulously, selected a video by Kristianstad's foremost rockabilly band, the Boot Hill Ramblers. Enjoy!

Festive Video - Boot Hill Ramblers, Rockin' Daddy

(For videos recorded at the actual Rock'n'rollklubben, there are for instance One Cup of Coffee, Sixteen Chicks, and Rockabilly Boogie.)

Related Reading

Previous posts featuring Rock'n'rollklubben:
To Boldly Go, Etc
Love, Politics and the Revolution

All posts exploring the theme of rock'n'roll

All posts featuring Jonny

THE FAMOUS DISCO TOILET OF STAVANGER