Friday Flush 16.Nov.2012

Watch out! Once again, it's time for a round up of all the news you never knew you needed to know!

Lifehacker challenge

The winner of this week's Macgyver challenge at Lifehacker shows how you can repurpose toilet rolls to make a bits-and-bobs holder.

Honourable mentions went to a lamp shade, candle holder, iPod dock and scarf organiser (my personal favourite).

Bubble wrap against sweat

So in the same vein of utilising products in a nifty new way, did you know that you can use bubble wrap to stop the inside of your toilet cistern from sweating? No? Me neither! I mean, who even knew that could be a problem??

Grandma did. And Grandma has the answers.

Toilet roll napkin holders

And hell, while we're at it, why the fuck not?

Stage fright

I know that sometimes people get stage fright when they go to the loo whilst someone else is in the vicinity. But the drummer from Florence & the Machine inverted the experience - he got locked in the loo and nearly didn't make it on stage. True story!

Enjoy your peekend, troops.

Friday Flush 6 July 2012

Welcome to your semi-regular dump of all the loo news you didn't know you needed!

First up, Liberian journos are being called on to report more extensively on water and sanitation issues. The president of the Press Union of Liberia made the remarks at a 3 day workshop for WASH reporters.

Also this week, the UK has finally allowed sanitation as a human right. This follows on from Canada finally dropping its objections. The UK recognition, however, is not quite the breakthrough advocates have hoped for as it excludes the "collection and transport of human waste".

Next up, we have the Toilet Tour - a giant dunny that's doing the rounds around Australia, just like an Olympic torch - except that instead of heralding the impending tournament of a handful of fit bods spending boat loads of cash to win a necklace, it's spreading the news of 2.4 billion people who can't crap safely.

I urge you to get behind the cause... Either go visit the toilet when it visits your town, or you can arrange to have it visit if it's not already on its way! Check out The Toilet Tour.

And finally, those wacky Koreans aren't just hunting whales for no good reason - no, no, now the country has also opened the first toilet themed theme park

I'm sure it's all for... research...

Don't say I didn't warn you. Over and out.

Tuesday Turd

Your weekly round up of all the loo news you never knew you needed.

Governments commit to WASH

In a week that bodes well for WASH projects, Australian PM Julia Gillard has announced additional funding for the Civil Society Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Fund, providing $97million of funding to WASH initiatives around the world.

Also this week, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Passed the Water for the World Act. The Act has bipartisan support in both the house and the senate, yet I can't find much info on the ol' interwebs. US politics is not my strong point, but I gather that the Act now needs the support of the House to pass into legislation. The CEOs of prominent NGOs are urging congressfolk to support the bill.

Generation ZOMG! THaT's aLOT oF WaTER!

Do you know how much water that burger you ate for lunch yesterday really used? You might be surprised. Astonished, even. Possibly flabbergasted! I sure as hell was.
Every product has litres of hidden water, used in its manufacture, transport and packaging - and to help you find out just how much, the EU has launched Generation Awake - is it trying to scare you into sensibility? Maybe. But it's also a great resource to see how your everyday choices can have a far bigger impact than you realise.

It's a gorgeous looking site - maybe a bit naff, and I wonder what actual impact it will have. Still, an excellent website for teachers looking for resource-efficiency materials.

Toilet treasure

Conservators at an ancient communal toilet oustide Paris have uncovered a rare jewel - a hairpin of the Medici Queen Catherine. I once found someone's drivers license in a toilet in a pub... maybe not quite the same.


Sayonara for now, and I hope that you find something truly wonderful in your loo this week :)

Friday flush 15 June 2012

Ten tonnes of toilet paper aflame!

Luckily this didn't end up with anyone hurt, but in Ohio a trailer carrying ten tonnes of toilet paper caught alight, spilling the cargo onto the highway. Holy flaming bog roll!

Indian railways committed to loos

Utilising World Environment Day, Indian railways have proclaimed a new standard in provision for toilets across the network. Pay-and-use toilets will now be an 'essential service' to passengers at all railway stations, including disabled access toilets, lighting and round-the-clock attendants. The new concept is Renovate, Operate, Maintain and Transfer (ROMT). Not sure what the Transfer bit is about...

Punning on WTO

Jack Sim from the World Toilet Organisation (WTO) claims he was the first to break the taboo on sanitation. Well, I don't want to gloss over the really important stuff that many WASH organisations have been doing since before 2001 (WaterAid comes to mind), but I do admire Jack for getting the sanitation message out there. People gotta poop!

Why WASH?

You don't have to be a boglogger enthusiast to know that having a clean place to crap can save you from a whole host of horrible diseases. Preventable deaths of children under 5 is possible - if we commit to sanitation and hygiene for all.

Coca-cola on the clean water front

And finally, an unexpected feel-good story. While I find their commitment to fitness and nutrition laughable, I have to commend the Coca-Cola Foundation for providing significant grants towards water stewardship, conservation and education. With a total cash amount of $1,279,614, the grants will help to provide improved access to water and sanitation to communities in the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. A further $7 million will go towards water and sanitation activities through the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation which works across 17 African countries. Well done, you evil bastards :-)


Until next week, I hope all your poos are safe poos.

Friday Flush - 1 June 2012

Welcome back to the boglogger's Friday Flush! Catch up on the web's premier round up of global loo news!

To Pee or Not to Pee

First up, a debate in the UK about whether or not it is acceptable to urinate in public. You can read the full article here, but for me the real winner is in the comments.

There should be a national database of people who feel it is acceptable to urinate in public. They should then be banned from all public swimming pools.
~ mastutio

My favourite is from nblake42, who offers this very British tale:

One afternoon last year I walked up the road to my house to discover a man urinating on my driveway. Like a good, responsible, British citizen, I pretended it wasn't my house and walked on past.

There'll be no surprises that my personal view is quite liberal. If there aren't any facilities around (as there increasingly aren't) then you need to go no matter what the surroundings, or risk causing yourself an injury.

Quick off the mark

Which describes the feat, not my delayed reporting of it.

Earlier this month, Jolene Van Vugt motorised into the record books by beating the land speed record for a motorised toilet. I could elaborate on this story, but I think it really tells itself.

Prosaic advice from Toilet Man

Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organisation, gives great advice to Israeli students about entrepreneurship.

If you can use other people’s money, other people’s power, other people’s distribution, other people’s media, and other people’s influence and connections, and you align them towards a common mission, then each of them will join the party willingly.

As Sim says, he couldn't have run anything as fringe as the World Toilet Summit if governments and media weren't very willing participants.

Need to take the world's largest dump?

Maybe you need the world's largest toilet. Designer Sou Fujimoto has created a toilet like no other in Ichihara City, Japan - a single cubicle encased in glass surrounded by 200 square metres of garden.

I think the concept is great and the execution is breathtaking. At the moment, without the landscaping, it looks remarkably like a cemetery, and I wonder if this is on purpose? When the landscaping is finalised I think it'll be a really beautiful statement. About what? About how the mundane, the everyday, the routine, the necessary can still be beautiful.

Saturday Skiddie 30.08.08

Hi all and welcome to this week's Friday Flush Saturday Skiddie.

An artist in New York is bringing his style to the streets - toilet stall style. Ricky Syers has been walking around dressed as a janitor carrying a toilet with a man inside. Pretty cool stuff, really. And being an enterprising American chap, he is now selling advertising space on his toilet.



I love it when people find innovative ways to raise money (like the couple who cycled to raise money for a toilet for their church), and in Kansas this week The Flying Pig Studio and Gallery is auctioning 40 decorative toilet seats to raise money for new restrooms.

Plans call for the restroom to be named "Bowl Plaza" with buildings shaped like toilet tanks and entrances resembling a toilet seat. A walkway will look like an unfurling roll of toilet paper.
www.kansas.com

The town of Madrid, New Mexico has unveiled its first public toilets. Up until now, visitors have had to make do with portable toilets. One lucky resident was even presented with a key to the new restroom.



The man who was struck with a toilet cistern lid in Canada last week has unfortunately died. Second-degree murder charges have been laid against the attacker.

New Zealand Olympians have been suspended after photographing a fellow athlete on the toilet. Swimmers Cameron Gibson, Dean Kent and Corney Swanepoel were expelled from the Olympic village and may face further penalties. I think this seems a little harsh - but then again, I haven't seen the photos, and they are supposedly of one of the youngest members of the team.

And finally, New Delhi college student, Shahana Sheikh, has prepared a report highlighting the dearth of toilets for women in the Indian capital, prompting the High Court to take direct action.

"One day during my internship with CCS [Centre for Civil Society] I saw a woman cleaning a public toilet at Yusuf Sarai. It struck me that though she was cleaning the toilet, she herself couldn't use it since it was meant only for men - like most public toilets in Delhi. I decided to find out the real status of public conveniences in the city," Sheikh said. "People talk about feminism all the time but nobody thinks of a need as basic as a toilet for them despite the fact that our chief minister and mayor are both women," she added.

That's a wrap for this week. I'm going to go lay myself down and dream about a walkway unfurling like a roll of toilet paper. *sigh* What happiness.

Eeek!

This week's Friday Flush is going to have to be a Saturday Skiddie, cos I've already had too many beers and I have to get up in a few hours.

See you all tomorrow folks, with plenty of toilet news, including New Zealand Olympians, women's toilets in India, and a toilet seat auction.

Where else can you get your weekly fix of bog news but right here, at The Bog Logger!

Friday Flush 15.08.08

I recently did a study of female toilet users in pubs, trying to get an idea of what women like and don't like about public toilets. I was surprised that one of the things that came out top of the list was hand dryers - most women prefer hand towels. Dryers often don't work, take too long, and only one person at a time can use them, meaning that most people just dry their hands on their trousers. Dyson New Zealand has possibly addressed some of these problems; they unveiled the Dyson Airblade this week at Auckland airport.

 

 

Dyson claims the dryer (or is it drier?) is the "fastest, most hygienic hand dryer". It works by blasting a "high speed sheet of air, which gently squeegees your hands dry". That sounds kinda sexy. You can see it in all its sexiness at their very sexy website. It took the engineers an incredible 3 years to develop this next step in hand-drying technology. The Airblade was actually released in 2006 but I'm unsure how high the uptake has been. It's certainly the first time I've heard of it.

 

Ho Chi Minh City's attempts to "work towards a civilized urban lifestyle" have been hindered by a lack of suitable sites for public toilets. Residents are concerned about having toilets built in front of their houses - but presumably they don't mind if people urinate in the gutter. The stigma attached to public toilets needs to be mollified by designing buildings that aesthetically complement the districts - but with only a month to build them, I'm not sure if that'll be possible.

 

No such problems finding sites for toilets in Pune, India - they've installed 110 toilets in their homes. Friends of Shelter Associates (USA) has constructed toilets for sex workers, people with disabilities and those living below the poverty line. Another fabulous NGO doing great work in this International Year of Sanitation.

 

It's not very often that I wished I lived in Canada - but OH MY GOD they have a toilet festival! Organised by Oxfam, the festival aims to raise awareness about water and sanitation issues in developing countries.

 

I do however very often wish that I lived in the UK because it's the only place in the world where you could hold a From Looe for a Loo challenge. Bob and Chris May cycled 300 miles from Loo to Dymock to raise £1500 for a toilet at St Mary's church.

 

Toilet blog Where's the Toilet? has given an incredible 9 out of 10 to the toilets at Raffles Beach Singapore. This is a much pleasanter story about toilets than one usually hears about Singapore.

 

And finally tonight, a German toilet collector (that is, a German who is a toilet collector, not a collector of German toilets) spent £1,800 pounds for a rare toilet - only to discover that he had purchased a tiny replica. What do you do with a collection of toilets? Maybe you open a toilet museum. No, too obvious. How about a toilet restaurant?

 

(I never thought I'd add 'food' as a category on The Bog Logger).

 

And that is, folks, The Bog Logger signing off on this gorgeous half-way-through-the-Olympics Friday.

Friday Flush 1.08.2008

Bringing you all the loo news you can handle, and some that you can't - just in time for the weekend!

 

Sheffield artist Jacqui Bellamy has been snapping photos of women in the toilets of nightclub Razor Stiletto "queuing, chatting, putting on make-up etc," and will be showing her series at The Forum Bar as part of its Wednesday night live programme. They look like an interesting lot, those Razor Stiletto people, so if you're in the area check it out.

 

 

You might remember the story of Pam Babcock, the woman who sat on a toilet for two years. Her boyfriend, Kory McFarren, was charged with mistreatment of a dependent adult. Last month he pleaded no contest to the charge, and this week he was sentenced to 6 months in jail, but was granted probation after Pam asked for leniency. Good on you, Pam. Clearly, both Pam and Kory have some social and mental problems that they need to work through, and I don't think jail will help ol' Kory at all.

 

 

This one's actually an old story, but it's popped back up in my news feed and it's quite awful. Brown Brothers meat processor, which supplies meat to Tesco in the UK, demands that employees clock off when they go to the toilet. This so obviously discriminates against women, particularly menstruating and pregnant women, that I'm agog! The restrictions are part of a pay deal that tries to streamline toilet break times - and look, I totally get it that it takes workers 20 minutes to go to the toilet because of all the gear they're wearing, but seriously! This is the 21st century! Can't we come up with a better solution? It's not the fault of the workers that they have to wear a spacesuit - why should they pay the price? And more importantly, why do women have to pay a higher price?

 

Not so much toilet news, as toilet humour - Dave TV has a list of the 10 oldest jokes in the whole world ever - and I have to say I don't think I find them particularly funny. Maybe I need to scrub up on my ancient history or something. Anyway, they're here. I do like this quote from Dr Paul McDonald, who wrote the report:

What they all share [...] is a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion. Modern puns, Essex girl jokes and toilet humour can all be traced back to the very earliest jokes identified in this research.

 

Unfortunately, Qantas is back in the news - this time because the pilot refused to allow passengers out of their seats during a delayed landing. One passenger was forced to pee in a sick bag. Look, people, the pilot is trying to look after you. And look, pilot, why not let people pee? Come on. Let's all start talking to one another, instead of just complaining.

 

 

 

A bus driver in Dublin has brought to light an interesting predicament for bus drivers everywhere - where do drivers go to the toilet on a long shift when there are no terminuses? I hadn't honestly thought about this; it's a similar problem to what the meat processors in Tesco are facing. People need to pee and shit, and their jobs don't always allow them to do this comfortably. Employees have the right to a clean private toilet with running water and soap - but not necessarily access to it when it suits them. This seems grossly inappropriate - why have a toilet if you can't bloody use it?

 

And lastly, in entertainment news, Kiefer Sutherland has revealed why you never see his character on "24", Jack Bauer, going to the toilet:

 

whenever they cut to the White House, Jack is taking a pee. And he’s also getting something to drink and eat.

 

And that's a wrap for this week... or a fold... or a scrunch...

Friday Flush

Queer - Pride London has issued a statement providing further details about the incident where a trans woman was denied access to the female toilets. As always, the incident was more complicated than was at first reported.

 

Opening and closing - The toilets on Southend's seafront have been closed for 2 years and are now being replaced with... portaloos! Poor bastards. Better than nothing I suppose. Having said that, Portaloo is currently on a bit of a PR blitz, highlighting its amazing job at Warwick Castle when it provided facilities for 5,000 American kids during a medieval summer festival, and at made-famous-by-The-Da-Vinci-Code Rosslyn Castle.

 

Technology - The good people at AFT have created a toilet roll dispenser... which has an iPod connector with speakers and charger. No, really. I wish I was joking.

 

Entertainment - I'm not sure if it's really news or really toilety, but anyway, a decades-old recording of Tom Jones singing in a YMCA toilet has sold for $5,000. I've often sung in the shower, but rarely in the toilet. Anyone else? Also, Pixie Geldof (is this entertainment either? I'm a bit fuzzy with this category) got stuck in a toilet in Kings Cross station.

 

As promised - the problem-plagued Seattle spaceship toilets are up for sale on eBay here. There are, unfortunately, no bids so far, but there are 8 days to go so get bidding people!

 

Odd - Ever wondered if your toilet has a birthday? The good news is, it might! The odd news is, there's a website devoted to it.

The Friday Flush

I have so much loo news to get through that it's not possible to comment on everything. So I introduce The Friday Flush!

 

Loo News

 

Voting for America's Best Restroom is currently open.

 

Officials in India are keeping the streets clean by offering money to people to use urinals. I'm not sure if that's awesome or stupid. I welcome suggestions.

 

Pride London has apologised after some event staff asked trans people to use a disabled toilet, apparently because they were so tall amongst all those short lesbians. Hey! Not all lesbians are short! People are more civilised in Thailand; a school in Si Sa Ket has created separate toilets for its 200 trans students.

 

A ridiculous gadget claims to 'promote better relationships' because it enables users to lift and lower the toilet seat without touching the often soiled seat. Whatever.

 

Taiwan decided flushing toilet paper down the toilet paper was okay, and then decided it wasn't, because 82 per cent of of toilets flow directly into river and waterways. Taiwan uses 340 tonnes of toilet paper a day. Better to turn that into landfill, I say.

 

Sloan Valve Company's new High Efficiency Toilet (HET) Systems have all sorts of sensor-flushy-solar-electro doovies to make your toilet super efficient. I think.

 

There's a few stories about China allegedly poshing up its toilets so that Westerners don't find them so offensive. As someone who has lived in China let me tell you that I'm very skeptical.

 

And to finish, Geri Haliwell loves talking about poo and wee. Good on you Geri.

 

Openings

In Colchester, the town centre toilets are open again, and 'the first 50 customers to use the new arty loos in Lion Walk received a commemorative loo-roll', designed by the artists. That's so awesome I can't even speak. No pic yet, but maybe soon.

The toilets are the first to be refurbished as part of Colchester Borough Council’s  Creative Conveniences project, during which a partnership of arts, street and tourism officers have worked together to improve the look, feel and function of a selection of Colchester’s public conveniences.

That's so cool it deserves its own post. Oh, man, I need more time!!

 

Staying in the UK, COLDSTREAM and Eyemouth are top of the list to have their public toilets refurbished and also to get a town attendant each, responsible for cleaning the toilets and other general duties around the town. I'm such a fan of toilet attendants. It's a really important job, and it also keeps toilets human - something I advocate strongly.

Closings

For every toilet that opens, dozens are closed. Angry Burnham-On-Sea town councillors this week threatened to withdraw £35,000 of funding for the district council in protest at the authority's decision to shut down and sell the town's seafront toilets. And in Borehamwood, the Community Toilet Scheme proposed 18 months ago is still not off the ground.