Where East Meets West

When did you last find yourself explaining the concept of fermented herring to a steel slide player from North Carolina?

We had never, before last Saturday, attempted such a thing either metaphorically or literally, but would like to think that we did rather well, with a little help from a) friends and b) beer. Free speech rights may also have insinuated themselves, as they are wont to do, the wiley devils, into the conversation, but then again that may be pure wishful thinking on our part. Either way, we will surely soon receive a  medal from the Swedish tourist board, in recognition of our efforts to describe the many delights of Swedish culture to said worthy North Carolingian musician - not, we suspect, your typical demographic in terms of Swedish tourism.

Whether freedom of speech was a central part of the evening's conversation, however, or played a more discreet role, confined mainly to the inside of our head, may be a moot point. The important thing as far as we're concerned is that we enjoyed ourselves hugely, from the sneaky can of wine on the train to the last rant over the last beer in the last pub. Since the amount of beer that drives out the toilet obsession from the aforementioned inside of our head has not as yet been determined, despite dedicated empirical research, we took some photos. Here, for your delight and edification, is an illustration of one of the toilets at the Biljardkompaniet sports bar in, of all places, Kristianstad.

Under normal circumstances we would naturally be having some kind of fit at this point, gesticulating wildly while pointing out the manifold horrors of leaving toilet paper about in this cavalier manner, without a proper toilet roll holder. On the other hand, check out the crafty spare-bog-roll-holder in the corner! Then ponder the fact that there was not just one of those, but two! This makes up for many, many, many sins.

We are aware that we have readers who enjoy almost seeing people. (Weirdos!)

This is not good.

Let us move on from the murky world of southern Swedish sports bars, to what Shewee Fiend Friend describes as a "lovely loo in a hicktown bakery".

These taps look like the perverted Danish variety of subjunctive taps. On the other hand, it looks like there might be both soap and hand lotion? As Semi-Intellectual Friend so wisely remarked once: "Real men have hands that are as cracked and tough as the floor of the Gobi if it was made from leather." However, the rest of us rather enjoy a spot of lotion.

We have no idea what's happening here and have no desire to find out.

Clear signage is always, always enjoyable!

We have become accustomed to relaying the less messy and more amusing parts of our conversations with Shewee Fiend Friend, but lately they have centred mostly round a) the inexplicable Spanish inability to find 500 huge stones, and b) the hot priest in Fleabag. Reader, this is not of public interest.

Feisty French Friend sends us a greeting from her travels:

Do not wash feet in toilets!!!

At Vientiane Airport

Does this rampant discrimination against feet remind us of anything? Friends, it reminds us of the car park toilet in Goathland.

Jonny proves, once again, that he is not only devastatingly handsome  but has an uncanny knack for saying what we're all thinking, which is: 

 

Too hot!

So hot.

What our favourite band was doing in a weird sports bar in the southeastern corner of Sweden we will never understand. But we will be forever grateful! Many thanks also to the friend who shall henceforth be known as Waycool Maths Teacher Friend, who not only bravely ventured into a wild and uncharted territory, but who showed unparalleled presence of mind by bringing wine.



Festive Video: Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, (Please Be a) Stranger


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Dark Nights, Bright Lights

Ho-ho-ho-horrifyingly early mornings, increasing Weltschmerz and snowballing weariness to you all! We bring tidings of, if not good cheer, at least sturdy common sense.

Feisty French Friend sent us a picture from the social media platform we love to disdain and avoid, featuring a toilet sign which helpfully clarifies what one should and should not do with the water in the toilet:

Do not drink toilet water!

Social media platforms in general contribute to the sum total of darkness in a cold and merciless universe, not only with the unchecked abuse directed towards women and minorities but with the silencing and policing of their thoughts and opinions. If you want to read about why it is bad that a woman, pointing out that a creepy man who harasses women is in fact a man, has been banned from Twitter, here's a great article from After Ellen. You may also wish to read about why transsexual Miranda Yardley got permanently banned from Twitter for stating that an adult human male is a man.

Thankfully, we have toilet photos of Jonny up our metaphorical sleeve to pour, to super awkwardly mix metaphors and also paraphrase an author who deserves better, into the wounded bosoms of each other the balm of privy consolation. The below photos are entitled "loo with a view". The title is of course derivative and lacks originality, but full points for the effort at wit and also gracious thanks for sending pictures of toilets and vulgar desk dinosaurs to brighten the darkness and ameliorate our ever deeper despair.

A shining light of toilet humour, rugged good looks and a jacket that looks seriously comfy: Jonny.

The darkness is opaque, but there is also light.
We made a joke about the tallness of the building which we will not reproduce in this forum.
(You can probably imagine it without taxing your intellect too much.)

We seize this opportunity of expressing our awestruck gratitude to the friends who make everything bearable with their ruthless piss-taking, sparkling wit, and plethora of deeply disturbing photos.

Last, but not least, remember to be kind to your mother. She has endured a lot for your sake, and she has endured it while navigating the vast and terrifying maze of a hostile patriarchy.

Festive Video: Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Make It Up to Mama


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A Startling Absence of Themes, Rhymes, and Reason

There are times in one's life that are clearly themed. There are, for instance, times when one gives up on learning Greek, times when one is dedicated to drinking large quantities of gin, and times when one rants more or less incessantly about the decline of literacy and how we're all hurtling back towards not just the seventeenth century but a pre-Reformation stage of not having standardised writing. 

Sometimes these times, stages and phases mix, mingle and flow into one another. Sometimes there is no theme at all - unless of course the theme is "a startling absence of themes". This feels unsettling. One has a sneaking suspicion that perhaps there is a theme lurking in a dark corner after all, but that either one missed the memo, meeting or rally at which it was announced, or one has been too distracted by the horror clowns capering around the potato field to pay attention. Perhaps there is actually a pattern, but said pattern will be revealed by a load of bricks which are currently in the air and are about to hit one on the head, with painful consequences, before sorting themselves into an attractive arrangement on the floor. 

 

Sometimes one simply has no idea what the hell is going on - literally, metaphorically, or on any other level. This is, in our experience, a time to harden the fuck up and keep on keeping on, but also, potentially, to prepare to explore new avenues. Sometimes, granted, what hits one is lyme disease. But sometimes it isn't. Sometimes the thing that hits one isn't a ton of painful bricks, but a delightful present, or a sudden realisation, or sunlight. Reader, it may be time to prepare for potential presents, realisations, and sunlight.

Not literal sunlight, obviously. Unless one happens to be in the southern hemisphere (in, for instance, just to pick example at random, Australia), the days are getting shorter and the nights longer and darker. As we mentioned in a previous post, a phenomenon which Jonny has termed the Twelve Days of Cistern is currently the only thing enabling us to view the darkening days and approaching winter, with its attendant emotional carnage and horror clowns, with anything resembling equanimity. Literal sunlight, at Privy Counsel HQ latitudes, is about to become as rare a commodity as electricity. However we received, just the other day, a terribly enticing present which wasn't - and we would like to emphasise this - gonorrhoea. We also received a delightful missive from Tudor Friend, which read:

History! Toilets! Death! All the things one loves.

Tudor Friend helpfully says, further:

My dad adds “that’s one fucking big latrine! But ‘dig her wide and dig her deep’!” That is a quote from “The Specialist”, one of his favourite books, which is all about the proper way to build an outhouse.

Have we mentioned that, although we have never met Tudor Friend's dad, he is an inspiration to us? Pondering the Erfurt latrine disaster is prone to making us contemplative and reticent. We believe, however, that Tudor Friend speaks for us all when she says:

It does kind of boggle the mind, doesn’t it. “Our royal family just all drowned in shit” is really awkward to represent on the family escutcheon….

Having pondered the unreliablility of floors, irrespective of the presence of brick patterns, and the propensity of Death to lurk in medieval outhouses, let us contemplate the fact that there is always Jonny.

Jonny's messages are admirably clear and informative.

Is there a more delightful sight, in the known universe, than Jonny doing the thumbs up in front of an outdoor urinal? Reader, there isn't

It is important to remember to aim.

It looks to us - though we're not experts in this field - as though there is adequate splash protection. Reader, do you feel safe?

We're still not quite over the delightful experience of hearing our favourite band in a weird sports bar in, of all places, Kristianstad.

Festive Video: Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, I Got This 

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The post featuring hearing our favourite band in a weird sports bar in, of all places, Kristianstad: Where East Meets West 

Echoes of Edgar Allan Poe

In terms of literary devices we're big, as all regular readers are aware, on themes here at the Privy Counsel. One of our main themes, after plumbing-horror-induced handwringing and unstructured ranting, is friendship. (Please note however that Jonny counts as a friend for administrative reasons only.) We have had occasion to note recently that true friends are those who make it a point of honour to take the piss out of one whatever one happens to be doing, whether one is of sound mind or not, and indeed irrespective of whether one happens to be suffering from acute gastric distress due to ingesting too many weird pink shots in a godforsaken prairie bar.

The concept of constructive criticism gets a bad press in these times of cancel culture and groupthink. However, telling people when they're wrong is crucial to maintaining public order and a civilised society. Ponder this very bog blog, for instance. How many plumbing heathens have we converted to the true faith by gently yet inexorably pointing out the horrors of separated taps, doors with large scary gaps, and sticky spots on the floor? Well, we haven't strictly counted them, but there are quite a few people by now who send us weird photos.

 

Constructive criticism, however, presupposes the ability to hold unusual or unpopular beliefs. If one were, for instance, to repress all mention of hanging bog rolls arse-backwards, one would never, if one is to believe John Stuart Mill, have the pleasure of insufferable smugness in a heated debate about toilet roll orientation. Now obviously, on this subject, there is only one possible position, morally as well as intellectually. However, it is only when heterodox views are tolerated that one gets to hear ideas which, though ludicrous, may be challenging and inspirational. Moreover, it is only when dissent is encouraged that one gets to hear valid critique of one's own delusional notions - which, however smug one may be feeling in the moment, may be constructive in the long run. If, for instance, one happens to have spent - to pick an example at random - all of 2015, 2016 and 2017, most of 2018, and possibly even parts of 2019, perving on Justin Trudeau, it does feel better, when he goes full-on tin-pot dictator in 2022, to know that Shewee Fiend Friend spent all those years regularly informing one that one was being an arse.

As Aristotle probably said, we disapprove of your awful non-mixer taps but would suffer mild burn injuries for your right to keep constructing them. Thus, when people whose judgement we for some reason still trust insist on hanging toilet rolls back to front, we resist the urge to call for their heads to be cut off. Instead we graciously tolerate their aberrations, taking great pleasure in our own magnanimity, and encourage them to send us toilet photos, in the hope that they will one day see the light. 

 

On the subject of toilet photos, we received these from Shewee Fiend Friend, who wrote:

I was in a prize winning public loo tonight

I was in this restaurant for a [information redacted for the sake of public decency]

So that was weird. I only have very broken stressed memories of that night

I think it checks all the boxes

Resting being one of our favourite activities, we heartily approve of this piece of furniture, so charmingly named, by those quaint North Americans, a fainting couch.

One of our top five activities is almost seeing people.

Behold! The reassuring sight of spare loo rolls! Rejoice, for there may be some hope, however small, for mankind after all.

 

These toilets can be found at the Sauce Italian Kitchen & Market in Calgary - queen of Canadian cities - and made the top five list in the Canada's Best Restroom competition in 2016, as reported by CBC.

I couldn’t hear anyone else peeing though two other ladies were while I was in there

It has everything you could want. Floor to ceiling doors, solid hooks, pompous art and a fainting couch

I guess they were just nominated. Still, top 5!

The gas station won that year

 

Speaking of gas stations, Jonny - everyone's favourite Toilet Babe - has also been in touch with some photos. "I hope you're ready for this," he wrote. 

 

Reader, we were not ready!

Is Jonny the Marlon Brando of toilet selfies?

This is supposed to be a hygienic seat. We keep getting distracted by the sticky spot on the floor, however, and find ourselves unable to concentrate on the alleged hygiene. Does one hear echoes of Edgar Allan Poe?

We are always in favour of not touching things, and heartily approve this door! It reminds us of that time we went to hear - and also see - Caitlin Moran in Copenhagen in 2016.

Other things we are in favour of are helpful signage and clear instructions.

For anyone who finds him- or herself straining at the leash to use these facilities, they can be found at the Toddington motorway services.

If your heart yearns rather for Terminator-level toilet horror, you may appreciate this piece of satire from McSweeney's, sent to us by Tudor Friend.

Let there be a Festive Video.

Festive Video - Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, No Mistakes

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