Toilet Song: Lost

Phew. New Year's Day is always a bit awkward, if one's New Year's Eve has been at all up to scratch. The words "Face down in the porcelain" tend to spring to mind, for some reason or other.

Katy Perry - Lost
I'm out on my own again
Face down in the porcelain
Feeling so high but looking so low

Party favors on the floor
Group of girls banging on the door
So many new fair-weather friends

Oh, oh, oh, have you ever been so lost?
Known the way and still so lost?

Caught in the eye of a hurricane
Slowly waving goodbye like a pageant parade
So sick of this town pulling me down, oh

My mother says I should come back home
But can't find the way 'cause the way is gone
So if I pray am I just sending words into outer space?

Have you ever been so lost?
Known the way and still so lost?
Another night waiting for someone to take me home
Have you ever been so lost?

Is there a light, is there a light At the end of the road?
I'm pushing everyone away
'Cause I can't feel this anymore
Can't feel this anymore

Have you ever been so lost?
Know the way and still so lost?
Another night waiting for someone to take me home
Have you ever been so lost?
Have you ever been so lost?

Katy Perry in porcelain action

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

We Aim to Please: Interactive Toilet Game

Do you like video games? We don't, particularly, but if you do, and you are male, you are in for a treat. A company called Captive Media has developed a urinal-based game, incorporating a "natural joystick". This allows pub-going blokes to play a game while relieving themselves. (Also they are undoubtedly, in their enfeebled, drunken state, extremely receptive to advertising, making the game popular with beer manufacturers.) What rocks our boat, however, is that the game reportedly encourages men to aim straight! Watch Captive Media's demo video here:

For a more level-headed, unbiased version, veer towards the BBC website. (Favourite quote: "You don't have to touch the plumbing.")

Instructions are easy enough for even your average beer-swilling Neanderthal to follow.
Image from Newrisingmedia.

Further reading
(Don't) Aim for the Stars
A Festive Update
Ladies, Don't Take Life Sitting Down
Potty Putter: Putting Tings into Place

Going South in Korea: Suwon Toilet Museum

Several people have hinted that they would like a report on the South Korean toilet museum. Well, you lucky, lucky bastards, your wishes have come true - hold on to your hats, here's the report!

The toilet museum in Suwan, which is housed in a toilet-shaped building, officially opened earlier this year. The building was previously the home of the former mayor of Suwon, Sim Jae-duck, affectionately known as Mr Toilet. A representative of the park says, "A toilet can be a cultural space. It is an important space for health, sanitation and water conservation." We couldn't agree more. According to another reliable source, the museum "has a lot of pictures dating back to the 1950s of public toilets in Korea". We salivate at the thought.

Here is the BBC video on the subject:

(Personally, we find the Reuters video funnier - it features several delicious puns.)

The toilet museum is, naturally, toilet-shaped. Image from Intellasia.

Frankly, Rodin's The Thinker had it coming. Image from Flippies.

Read more in our favourite smug newspaper, The Guardian.

Further reading:
Handwashing Gangnam Style 
More Asian Toilet Eccentricity
World Toilet Association

When I Walk Through That Door: A Rock'n'Roll Special!

It's Friday night: Let's have some rock'n'roll! Here's a special review-slash-toilet-song-update for that extra festive rockin' feelin'! (Caution, slippery surface - there'll be consonants droppin' all over the place.)
The guys and dolls at the rock'n'roll café in Linderöd not only play rock'n'roll tunes all day, every day, and serve a mean shrimp sandwich, they also extend the vibe to the toilets! This beauty of a bog has a red, white and black colour scheme for that wholesome retro feel.

Great balls of fire, this is an exciting toilet!

There's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on in this mixer tap! We're inclined to wax lyrical here:
She bent down and turned around and gave me a wink
She said, "I'm gonna mix it up right here in the sink"
 It smelled like turpentine and looked like India ink
I held my nose, I closed my eyes, I took a drink
(We seem to remember the soap smells really, really nice as well.)

Hot dog!
It's such a crazy, crazy feelin'
I get weak in the knees
My poor old head is a-reelin'
As I go deep into the funnel of love

Hooked, as it were, on a feeling.
(This may perhaps not strictly count as rock'n'roll, but we couldn't resist the pun.) Great coat-hook! Love it!

Although it's always crowded
You still can find some room
For broken-hearted lovers
To cry there in the gloom
Well, we wouldn't exactly describe this place as "gloomy".
Check out the comical hatstand!

If we coulda left home at a quarter to nine
Woulda had fun and plenty of time
We got started just a little bit late
Hope this won't be our last date

Don't forget to stop at this excellent café next time you're out cruisin' in your pink Cadillac - we don't know about you, but at the Privy Counsel, we feel inclined to rock around the clock! (Just a shame they don't serve polk salad.)

Further reading
Rock'n'Roll Toilet

Linderöds Motell
Tollarpsvägen 66
298 94 Linderöd
http://www.linderodsmotell.com

Konditori Hollandia: Sumptuous Luxury and Sweet Revenge Go So Well Together

Our faithful readers won't believe this, but Blogspot had the temerity to claim that we had used up our space quota for pictures, and wanted to charge us for using our own blog! Honestly! (For an example of our opinion on having to pay for things which are supposed to be free, read this.) Luckily we found a way around it. We are now celebrating with a veritable cornucopia of dazzling and sumptuous pictures. (In your face, Blogspot!) Many thanks to Logoped Friend for the tip, which went something like, "Oi! Did you know there are Versace tiles at Konditori Hollandia?" Beautifully enunciated, of course. (Yes, you heard right. Versace tiles. And there is an English term for "logoped", but it's so long we can never remember. All we know is, it's not "speech therapist".)

Voilà, here are pictures from Konditori Hollandia in Malmö.

One positively salivates at so much disability-friendly sumptuousness.

One simply couldn't ask for a better toilet.

From Villeroy & Boch: A mixer tap with bells on.

With bells on!

Oooh, sumptuous!

Soap and hand towels from Tork - hurrah! (More info on Tork here.)

It doesn't, so to speak, end there:
Bog roll and toilet seat sanitizer, also from Tork!

We love toilet seat sanitizers. We doubt very much that they contribute to actual hygiene,
but they do satisfy our OCD. Oh yes, they do.

The main event: the Versace tiles! Let's have a collective "Ooooooh"!

And again: "Ooooooh!"

A close-up. Ooooooh.

We weren't quite sure which tiles were supposed to be Versace at first,
so we took a photo of the floor tiles to be on the safe side.

Oh yeah, and the coat-hook was pretty great, too.

We give this toilet about a million points, at a conservative estimate.

Konditori Hollandia
Södra Förstadsgatan 8
Malmö
http://www.hollandia.se

Why Today Is a Toiletally Important Day

It only happens once a year, so make sure you celebrate - today is World Toilet Day!
And what's more, it's Enlightened Friend's birthday - happy birthday, Enlightened Friend!

We gather this information thanks to the labours of Australian Friend.

[For a most informative video, see this, from The Age. It was originally inserted here as a video, but we find that the embedding code no longer works.]

We are thrilled to learn, from a very interesting newspaper article, that at the Western Treatment Plant in Melbourne, a cover designed to limit bad smells means that the sewage plant can harness bio gas, thus producing enough electricity to power 15,000 homes! Read the article, from The Age, here! Our favourite quote: "The cover's quite effective at controlling odours from the treatment plant." (We just love Australian accents.)

Did you know that the dual-flush loo and the black box on airplanes are Australian inventions? We didn't, either! But Australian Friend tells us that the big country down under is simply brimming over with water-saving toilets and mixer-taps! Imagine! Read an article about amazing Australian inventions here.

Monkey is a great fan of Australia, here represented
by a water-saving flush and a flip-flop - sorry - thong!

Since we're being all festive, let's have an amusing Australia-related video!

Festive video: Monty Python, Bruces

Might as well do another festive video, while we're at it. This one seems to be about some kind of loo (presumably a dual-flush one), and is subtitled, to be on the safe side.

Festive video: Muriel's Wedding, Waterloo scene

Read more about why World Toilet Day is important at the Water Aid site, or, if you're that way inclined, at the World Toilet Day site.

Further reading
World Toilet Day 2011: Taking Our Baths and Our Women