We Receive a Postcard

We received a postcard. The kind of postcard that reminds one that everyone has to accept the consequences of their actions. We write a blog about toilets. Ergo, we receive toilet-related postcards. Isn't that great!
This particular postcard depicts the Ireton bathroom at Packwood House, Warwickshire. Tudor Friend (for that's who the postcard was from) writes:

Greetings from the Land That Mixer-Taps Forgot! I've been out playing skulking tourist again and, for once, a place I visited had a postcard of the bathroom! It is quite a pretty bathroom; enough Delft tile to cover the Netherlands, for starters. The best part is that they'd put a disturbingly large, yet of a size to potentially be real, fake spider in the tub - I presume its purpose is to discourage marauding children from climbing in.

[...] Despite the very sort of Edwardian bathroom, the house is actually more Tudor - the sort where its core is authentic, and much of its furnishing is of the period but scrounged from other properties being demolished in the '30s and '40s (ed's note: heinous, heinous crimes!). Funny how no-one ever feels the need to harmonize the loo by recycling an old Tudor bog... (At the other house I saw today, they'd converted the medieval toilet and shit-chute into a priest's hole for hiding during the messy days of Reformation. They were not 100 % sure it had actually ceased to be used as a loo at the time, but I sincerely hope, for the guys who were down there, that it had!)

The Ireton bathroom, Packwood House.
Apparently Cromwell's general Henry Ireton spent the night at Packwood House
before the Battle of Edgehill in 1642. We trust he had a pleasant stay.

We are simultaneously delighted and bemused by this spout.
Is it a lion-shaped mixer-tap?
Image from katyboo1.

Close-up of the pretty Delft tiles.
Image from flickr.

Does this bathroom remind us of anything? Of course it does! It reminds us of Christian IV's bathroom at Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen!

In other news, Tudor Friend has been busy making plans for World Toilet Day. This auspicious day, in case you didn't know, has been made official by the UN. If ever there was a cause to rejoice, this is it! World Toilet Day was created to highlight the fact that millions of people worldwide suffer from diseases that are easily preventable by simple hygiene measures, like access to clean water and safe toilets. Tudor Friend suggests making "Toilet Day greeting cards to send to friends, and cake toppers for our celebratory cupcakes". A smashing good idea, as far as we're concerned! To see suggestions for Toilet Day card designs, check out our Facebook or Twitter page.

Related Reading

World Toilet Day-Related
The Gates Foundation (funds projects for better water, sanitation and hygiene)
Toilet Twinning
WaterAid
Oxfam Unwrapped: Safe Water for Ten People (a hot Christmas gift tip!)
Related Privy Counsel Posts
Blogging Something Rotten
The Historic Toilet Tour of York

Det lille Apotek: Big Beers and Small Toilets in Everyone's Favourite Toilet Country
On the Tiles

Random Glimmers of Light

Do you ever find yourself hunkering down with an unreasonable amount of tea, vowing to stay put next to the teapot either until everything gets better or the zombie apocalypse arrives to end everyone's misery (whichever comes first)? We do, more often than we should probably own in a public forum. However, no matter how deep the darkness, there are always glimmers of light. For instance, nobody has yet sent a contribution to the New Year's competition, meaning that anyone who actually sends us a photo of toilet graffiti is guaranteed to win an autographed photo of Jonny. Guaranteed. Think about it.

There has been some confusion about the rules of the competition; rampant readers of our intellectual toilet blog have given us feedback via social media saying they have no idea what the hell is going on. We would like to reassure those persons that the rules are very simple:

1) Send pictures of toilet graffiti
2) Win a signed picture of Jonny
3) Live happily forever after, having gained your heart's desire

Or, in Jonny's own words:

I have another idea
As a New Years competition
From now until New Year people have to submit their ‘best toilet graffiti’
I don’t know if you get as much in the ladies as I’ve never been in there (well, once in high school) but it’s rife in the gents.
Prize is a signed photo of me?

 Jonny also sent us this teaser photo, to whet everybody's appetite. We have blurred it, to tantalise and entrance you:

We knowwwwww. WOOF!

If you weren't already fervently scouring your neighbourhood for toilet graffiti, remember the lonely hearts ad we wrote for Jonny back in 2014 which has, as far as we can tell, been reasonably effective (apart from all those nights spent crying into a ham sandwich which, we hasten to point out, are hearsay only - no conclusive proof of said sandwich-related activity taking place has ever been presented in a peer-reviewed forum): Jonny and a Public Toilet - A Treat for Single Ladies. Woof! Go forth and photograph graffiti!

In order to fill this blog post with content other than us semi-ironically perving on Jonny, we delved deep, deep into the dark and scary place we call our toilet-photo archive. What we found reminded us that there is, to get distastefully sentimental, a wide, beautiful world out there. Said world is profoundly problematic, unjust, and rampantly racist, but still. It does contain the occasional blue sky, lemon tree, and gorgeous bottle of wine. If one takes an interest in furthering the interests of women academics (here's a fun challenge: try googling "sexism in academia" without sighing wearily and turning to drink!), one may end up getting the benefit of a free trip to South Africa to attend a feminist conference. Sometimes, for the briefest of moments, life doesn't suck at all. It is our pleasure to present a rambling stroll through the toilets of Cape Town and its surrounding vineyards:

Hurrah! A toilet in South Africa!

At some point in 2016, we enjoyed some rather lovely wine and toilets at the Boschendal vineyard. 

Woof! What does this remind us of? That toilet in a hotel in Mora that comforted us when we were sad and tired and fed up with the patriarchy! Which, actually, we went to after we went to South Africa. To lessen the mindfuck, the copper sink also reminds us of one of the luscious loos we utilised when in Lithuania.

Our correspondent showing signs of rampant happiness in the toilet at the Babylonstoren vineyard.

Mixer tap! Of the subjunctive variety, popular in Denmark.

Some kind of charming farmhouse sink at Babylonstoren. Does it remind us of something? But naturally: the 1940s sink at the Castle Museum in York.

The charming farmhouse sink in context: next to a big fuck-off oven. Note rustic roof beams.

The South African wine inspires bonhomie and bonanza in even the most cynical toilet blogger. Hurrah!

Our correspondent's reaction on finding an excellent hotel bathroom at the Protea Hotel in Cape Town. The staff were super friendly, and we really can't recommend this place warmly enough.

This is probably the airport toilet in Cape Town. It could also be anywhere else in South Africa. The wine was REALLY good.

It does rather look like an airport toilet. Or does it? We're fucked if we know.

Look! We're back at Babylonstoren!

We enjoyed the friendly sunshine and the subjunctive mixer taps.

An ideal toilet in every way. Many, many points.

A charming Dutch Colonial window.

Nothing warms a hoary old toilet blogger's soul like warm African sunshine.

A breathtaking view of a South African orchard.

300 years of Delftware, found in the ground at Babylonstoren. We are, of course rather familiar with Delft tiles at the Privy Counsel. For instance, we came across it in that amazing toilet in Warwickshire that we visited with Tudor Friend, and also in a royal loo in Copenhagen.

This could potentially be an airport toilet in Dubai, that we potentially visited en route to Cape Town.
We note that we wrote to Shewee Fiend Friend at the time:

"Dubai airport, apart from being spectacularly vulgar, is creepy. The women are dressed in tents and one half expects the bearded airport staff in their Bedouin headgear and white pyjamas to call one a slut and insist that one cover one's hair".
Travel, like so many other things in the patriarchy, can be a profoundly disturbing experience if one is a woman - a calamity affecting roughly fifty per cent of the population. 

We can't remember where we drank this, but both the wine and the party were excellent. Now you know.

Close-up of the hotel room mixer tap. It worked flawlessly.

Another nice wine.

This is where it gets exciting! The conference centre toilets! Here some admirable paper towels.

Woof!

A contender for the "Platonic Ideal of a Toilet" title. Shewee Fiend Friend's North American airport toilet would do well to start getting its game face on.

Our correspondent displaying signs of being pleased with the toilets and the 10 am conference champagne. If memory serves us the staff in the coffee shop on the ground floor of the Cape Town International Conference Centre were extremely friendly.

You know how sometimes you get drunk on mulled wine, sing cheesy country songs in the bath and realise you have no idea whether the neighbours can hear you, then write a bog blog post while still woozy? Today's Festive Video reflects that, and also reminds us that non-mixer taps are the Devil's work and one always works better than two.

Festive Video: Nashville, One Works Better

Related Reading

Jonny once went to a conference centre, and very exciting it was, too
One other time he went to an executive gents' toilet
Another time when Jonny was unreasonably dapper
All posts featuring Jonny
All posts featuring Shewee Fiend Friend

Posts featuring charming Delft tiles:
We Receive a Postcard
Blogging Something Rotten

A bog post featuring a list of Danish places that have what we have just termed subjunctive mixer taps, just to prove we're not crazy:
The Hirschprung Museum, or Revising the Status of Denmark, or, Feverish Paranoia

All posts featuring conference centres

All posts featuring airports

All Flesh is Grass. Also, the Winner of the Toilet-Paper Origami Competition!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the Erfurt latrine disaster is by far the topic that we receive the most messages about. Why this should be, we couldn't tell you, but one might of course speculate. Is it the thrilling combination of sewage and brutal, sudden death? Is it the reminder that life is fleeting, and all flesh is grass? Or is it that satisfying moment of realising that yes, for most people life is one long chain of really, really shitty moments, and it always has been, and it's not just you being paranoid and incompetent? Your guess is as good as ours - or, quite possibly, considering our track record of displaying an appalling lack of judgement, better.

If there is one person who, in stark contrast to us, has a long history of having excellent judgement, it is Our Favourite Aunt. She recently proved the excellence of said judgement by going to visit Monet's house and taking pictures of the toilets.

Enjoy the tulips while you can.

Do these beautiful Delft tiles remind us of something? Why, naturally! They remind us, firstly, of that time when we received a postcard from Tudor Friend, and secondly of Christian IV's toilet in Rosenborg.

Is Monet's abluvium better than Bach's bog? You tell us!

Many thanks to this gem of an aunt - the most splendid of aunts; indeed, the aunt to end all aunts! - for her benevolent toilet photography!

Remember that time when we announced a toilet-paper origami competition, which resulted in people sending in actual photos? No, we didn't either. For this grievous error, we can only offer our sincerest apologies. There is probably an explanation for why this estimable and important project was lost in the mists of time, and that explanation is most likely that said mists of time were mostly opioid mists. However, we have now bribed the judges of our jury to reach a verdict.

We should probably pause, here, to review the entries. And before doing that, we should possibly attempt to explain what the toilet paper origami competition was, when it was, and why. There was a virtual, online event, this being the trend in 2020 for reasons we can't remember, and it was described thusly:

A further description inside the event read as follows:

Scrolling through the archive, we learn that the idea came from Tudor Friend and was thus, in keeping with that friend's personality, funny, creative and devilishly cunning!

The response to this clarion call of bog-related creativity was staggering. Staggering, we tell you! Here are all the entries, in chronological order. (We're not saying that some of the jurors submitted entries but we're also not saying that they didn't. The fact that Jonny entered a photo in a photo competition where the prize was a photo of Jonny dressed as a pirate no doubt says something about the modern era's lack of standards and post-post-modernist or perhaps even post-post-post-modernist atomisation and lack of coherence.)

 

Words cannot adequately express our gratitude to everyone who bravely entered this bizarre competition with such grace and stamina.

Before we tell you who the winner is, let us share the most elucidating comments from our international jury of experts. In no wise must the efforts of both ourselves and the jury be underestimated. This has been a long process, and has involved us insisting on motivations and writing anxious messages saying things like:

I'm going to ask you to motivate your answer, please. (Please. I've been doing this with students wanting a higher grade all afternoon. *it says clearly in the question that you have to motivate your answer, for instance by illustrating it with examples *)

On being told that this particular juror preferred a particular entry, we had to push - yes, even after the heart-rending plea above, we had to keep pushing - for a motivation:

What's good about [this entry]? Is it, for instance, the quality of the origami, or the description and puns?

The reply arrived, without hesitation:

I must admit I let myself be overly influenced by puns. That totally affected my judgement.

Another juror said, about the same entry:

I wonder how long it took to make the rose. I would have developed haemorrhoids. [...] Still, I vote for the rose. Both for creativity and sheer bravado.

And the rose is, indeed, the winner! Here it is again, for your enjoyment:

We shall be contacting the winner and arranging for Jonny to send them a signed photo of him dressed as a pirate. Be warned, however, that last time we arranged a photo competition, the prize was a signed photo of Jonny wearing a trench coat, and it took him four years to send it. 

We would be remiss if we, after this bog-related onslaught, didn't also share the latest toilet photo that Jonny shared with us. Please note that it comes with a trigger warning for royalist sentiments, sartorial genius and unbridled pizzazz:

Since we have established that a) seven people read this blog and b) none of those seven ever listens to any of the Festive Videos, it matters not one whit which video we select to be this post's Festive Video and thus you have only yourselves to blame for us selecting this one:

 

Festive Video: Hailey Whitters, Plain Jane

Related Reading

All posts featuring Our Aunt

All posts featuring Tudor Friend

All posts featuring Jonny 

All posts featuring toilet paper origami 

Last time we arranged a competition: Frame of Mind 

The post in which we remembered we'd forgotten the toilet paper origami competition: Spanish Missteps, Also Other Missteps

Johann Sebastian Bach's Bog 

Our classic post on the correct way to hang your bog roll: Rocking, Rolling, Ranting 

Our classic post on post-post-post-modernism, illustrated using Semi-Intellectual Friend's shower 

Our timeless rant about how everything is terrible, and getting worse, illustrated by little carts rolling down an incline

This one is also quite good 

That time when we had a really terrible experience in a bar