Spacey commode

The sun goes down, the day turns to night. You look up at the stars and see a light moving faster than the others - is it a satellite? A plane? The space station? Ooh, ooh it's the space station!

And, of course, your first thought is always, how do they pee up there?

Using the loo in space is not easy. There are separate methods for urination and defecation, with solids collected in bags and liquid collected in 20 litre containers. The urine receptacle attachments are differentiated for men and women. Users need to strap themselves in otherwise... well... you wouldn't want to drift off. The very small toilet opening for taking a crap means that careful alignment is key.

Watch as American astronaut Suni Williams takes you on a tour of the Space Station toilet

Astronauts need to train on the ground on how to use the 'space potty' before they jet off.

It's a different story for space shuttles; the old Apollos weren't equipped with toilets at all and astronauts had to use bags. A Russian company, which released a prototype for a new shuttle this week, has revealed that its design includes a fully functioning toilet. Loads of astronauts all around the world will, no doubt, be relieved.

Snakey Starbucks surprise

In the news this week is the story of a Texan man who was started by a snake at his local Starbucks when he went to use the loo. Bruce Ahlswede responded as anyone would - he called in staff and his wife to take a look.

Fortunately, the snake was harmless and disappeared shortly after the man's wife snapped a photo.

Snakes in toilets are such a regular occurrence that I could dedicate whole blog posts to them. From rattlesnakes in porta-loos to cobras using loos to gain access to classrooms, there really is a horror story for every occasion.

In August, a Croatian student found this massive snake in the toilet of her uncle's place where she goes to study, because it's quiet...  While not poisonous (like that somehow makes it okay!) the snake is still terrifying. The student and her family named the snake Bosko.

Bosko - the completely unterrifying and friendly toilet snake...

Other folks haven't been quite so lucky. Earlier this year, an Israeli man had his penis bitten by a non-venomous snake. Despite his injury, paramedics say the man was able to 'have a laugh at his own expense'.

Of course, we who have the luxury of toilets shouldn't complain. Toilet snake attacks are relatively rare. It could be worse - you could have to pee outside where you're really in danger of getting bitten.

Friday Flush 14-06-2013

All the loo news you never knew you wanted!

Sit down, you brute!

The county council of Sormland, Sweden, is calling on men to sit down while they pee in order to reduce 'spills' and increase hygiene. Opponents to the proposal say that sitting down reduces men's ability to 'shake off' at the end of their wee.

Read more at Digital Journal

Squirrelshank Redemption

Of course, you don't really care about a man's right to pee standing up. What you really care about is a squirrel crawling out of your loo.

Winnipeg woman Angela Campbell rescued the animal using a pair of BBQ tongs and carefully washed it in the bath before releasing it in her backyard. You can watch a video of bathtime here.

Wee the People!

The winner of this week's most puntastic article goes to Wales Online for their story Wee shall not be moved!

Protesters in Cardiff are furious over council plans to close public toilets. The P is for People protesters say that loo closures affect older people, people with disabilities and parents with children. For many people, going out in public means planning beforehand to make sure there are enough toilet facilities available.

The toilets themselves are Grade II listed Victorian loos - my favourite kind! - and recently underwent renovations. But the cash-strapped council says it needs to make cuts somewhere, and the loos have to go.

Tenderloin Toilet Project

San Francisco is funding a prototype toilet design which the city hopes will reduce instances of public urination.

The eco-friendly design - called P Planters - diverts urine into dilution tanks which are then used to irrigate adjacent planters. Win win! The design was a result of San Fran's Master Toilet Plan, a hefty document which you can peruse here. 
 
Til next time folks, have a great WEEkend.

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.

News dump

When you are an international toilet woman of mystery, you get sent a lot of interesting toilet related links. Here's a few I received this week.

How much does your poo weigh?

This device was actually designed to show people how much weight they 'lose' after going to the toilet but a secondary and, I think, more interesting function is that it can tell you how much you evacuated. Anyone who has a set of scales in their bathroom has probably already conducted this experiement - it's very enlightening :-)

I particularly like the look of consternation in the first panel.




San Fransisco toilets ablaze

A person, or gang of persons, obviously finds portaloo toilets so offensive that they have launched a major offensive against them, setting fire to 18 toilets in two months. A Google news search turns up nothing like this happenning before, which is a surprise. They do seem an easy target and are unlikely to cause extensive damage to anything around them. Fortunately, no one has been hurt. You can watch a video here.


Inauguration a portaloo extravaganza

The inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama is set to be the biggest "temporary restroom event in the history of the United States" with 5,000 toilets to line National Mall. While the toilets will be regularly serviced, I would advise anyone attending to bring their own toilet paper.

The portaloos are not without controversy. Big Dog claims that providing VIPs with flushing, posh portaloos is elitist and says that "the ones the VIPs use should be no better than the ones the visitors will use". And John Banzhaf, Professor, is using the toilet coverage to promote 'potty parity' - women take longer to pee so dividing toilets exactly in half based on gender discriminates against women, forcing them to wait longer. (Potty parity was addressed in New York with the Restroom Equity Bill.)

Man shoots toilet... and self

Fortunately, or unfortunately, this man didn't quite meet the criteria to make it into the Darwin Awards. After dropping his gun in a public toilet, he shot his arm and the toilet. I love the story for this sentence:

The fall triggered the gun to go off and the shocked man was glad he was already in the toilet.

I'll bet the toilet had it coming.

Friday Flush 28.Nov.08

Welcome back to The Bog Logger! I've been on a wee hiatus, but I'm back now with news, reviews, and the view from the loo.

Openings

There have been a few exciting toilet openings this week. First of all, the famed Charmin Restrooms have opened for the third year in New York. The 20 luxury toilets are serviced by tuxedoed-attendants after each use. Charmin is a toilet paper manufacturer in the US, and the toilets in Times Square have become quite a holiday tourist attraction.

We may not have tuxedoes, but in Australia we had the opening of the country's highest toilets on Mt Kosciusko, and I think they're really gorgeous.


It looks like they've used local rock to ensure the facility complements the surrounding landscape but without sacrificing function for form.

Residents in Peebles, UK, have decided to combine form and function by opting for single occupancy unisex toilets, believing that they are less likely to encourage anti-social behaviour. I'm not a huge fan of these toilets, but I do understand their purpose. The important thing for the people at Kingsmeadow is that they have adequate, clean facilities.

It seems that the people of Atlanta, USA, have not learned from the mistakes of Seattle and have decided to buy $300,000 apiece spaceship toilets. The comments on the article are generally not favourable to the idea. It makes no sense that councils continue to be fooled into buying those expensive monstrosities which intimidate all but the least reputable people. Portland, USA, has a much better toilet solution proposed.

This eco-toilet comes at a smaller price tag of $140,000, runs on solar energy and has panels which are easily and cheaply changed in case of vandalism. They are designed to be 'privacy-reduced' in order to discourage loitering.

And finally, in the UK, a Plymouth man is taking his very serious campaign for more toilets to the European Court of Human Rights. Eric Johns says that Plymouth used to have 67 toilets in 1984. Now, that number has dwindled to 31. The town of Devonport only has 1 toilet. The Court has accepted his initial submission and will hear his case next year.

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.

Friday Flush 22.08.08

Just a quick flush today cos I'm practically running out the door.

A man in Canada is in a critical condition after being hit with a toilet cistern lid. What an ignoble way to go. Wasn't there some famous general who was killed when he was struck by a roof tile? Does anyone know if that's true? I'm sure I heard it in a history lecture once upon a time.

The hunt is on for New Zealand's finest loo and entries are now open. Toilets are judged on all the usual criteria - cleanliness, signposting, appearance, amenities offered - and also, oddly, car parking.

Americans are apparently multitasking on the toilet; they're checking their emails and listening to music. 88% use at least one electronic device in the bathroom! The survey also found that women tend to spend longer in the bathroom than men. Recent efforts to curb water use in the shower has had little effect, with people spending just as much time in the shower as they did 4 years ago.

An incredible strike across all of Scotland by local government workers has disrupted many services. The strike, over set pay increases being below inflation levels, means that schools, which will be left without janitorial staff, will not open, as well as forcing the closure of art galleries, sporting facilities, cemeteries and public toilets. I encourage you to read the article, and especially the comments that follow it. You'll learn more about Scottish politics in five minutes than you ever thought possible.

And finally in this very brief flush this week, in Macedonia, government ministers who do not provide enough toilet paper for their staff could face fines of up to E1000.

Have a good weekend! I'm off to Sydney on this fine cold rainy day.

The positive side to losing 5 million bucks

It’s old news now, but in case you didn’t know Seattle has finally offloaded its troublesome spaceship toilets (see previous posts here and here and here).

The 5 toilets which sold for $US12,549 cost Seattle $5 million – and most articles are painting it as some spectacular failure. But the $5 million includes more than $500,000 for cancelling the contract early, as well as installation and removal costs. The city did get 4 years of (questionable) service from the facilities so the amount lost isn’t as massive as it first looks, particularly as it will be saving on future contract costs.

It’s now time to look at the positives. The old toilets cost $3.75 per use to run and used 2 to 4 times more water than an ordinary toilet. This is a real opportunity for Seattle to go green and install toilets (or ‘restrooms’ as those Americans quaintly call them) which use solar power, dual flush systems and motion sensors for lighting, like at Michigan State Park.

Now, over in New York (over? Down? Up? My US geography is shite. Is there a map here somewhere?), their spaceship toilets seem to be going along nicely. The fact that they cost 25 cents might help, as might the fact that they’re run and maintained by an advertising mob and are situated in good neighbourhoods with no other facilities. Toilets are all about location, location, location. As the hot dog vendor in the Gothamist article astutely observes, his “neighbourhood is not good for that type of thing”. Bad neighbourhoods is when good toilets go… bad.

Actually, charging a small amount for using toilets is a great idea. I’ve always been a fan, as long as the toilets are up to it. If you’re ever in Zagreb, the toilets at the train station are awesome. Sure, the woman who takes your money is surly as hell, but the toilets are clean, there’s always plenty of loo roll, and the whole experience (except for the surly woman) is really pleasant. Totally worth the 4 Kuna.

As my dad says, give someone something for nothing and they’ll treat it like it’s worth nothing.

Hopefully the man who bought the Seattle loos gets what he paid for.

Failure to launch

The eBay auction for Seattle's failed auto-loos has er, failed. City officials are hopeful though that an extended auction date may prove more successful.

So, the big question is, why did the spaceship toilets fail in the first place?

 

Toilet provision is a thorny issue with most civic councils. On the one hand, good toilets in city centres encourage tourism and shopping, keep rough sleepers from pissing in the street and give a good  impression to visitors. On the other hand, toilets are prone to vandalism, can attract criminal behaviour and are difficult to maintain in a cost-effective manner. 

 

How do you balance the necessary against the evil?

 

I believe that councils go wrong when they fall into the 'spaceship toilet' trap. These self-cleaning tardises from Germany are a favourite with councils looking to install city toilets. They appeal to council budget-watchers because although they have a high set-up cost, they are supposed to have minimal upkeep costs. But the fact is that after a short while self-cleaning toilets don't. Then you're left with a room the size of 3 toilets in which only one person can relieve themselves every 15 minutes.

 

Wellington City Council (New Zealand) has a brilliant set of public toilets, on the corner of Lambton Quay and Featherston Street. There are 6 toilets arranged in a semi-circle and a room in which a toilet attendant sits. The attendant keeps the queue moving, mops the floors, keeps each cubicle in paper and provides general chit chat.

 

For many councils, taking the human element out of toilets seems to be the best option, but I think they are letting their squeamishness override their common sense. They believe that a toilet attendant is a demeaning job and they're not willing to create it. But there are people who are good at it, just like any other job. The best toilet attendants are like good taxi or bus drivers. They're proud of the facilities they offer, they welcome you aboard and they're pleased to take you to your destination. In other words, they are professional.

 

The stigma attached to the profession of toilet attendant must end if councils are to provide good clean facilities they can be proud of.

 

The location of public toilets is also key. The middle of a park is always going to attract criminal behaviour. The middle of a shopping district - not behind the carpark, or hidden away down an alley - is the best location. Toilets must take up excellent real estate if they are to be excellent. At the same time, there must also be decent simple provision outside of the main shopping area for people who are making their way home or for people who have no home. But the facilities must still be on good real estate.

 

To ignore the human element in city centre public toilets is to commit a fatal flaw. Toilets ARE human. Expensive machines which make the human element disappear fail. Seattle has paid the price, but has it learned the lesson?

Friday Flush 25/07/2008

Oooh, it's quite an international flush today, and a big one at that! So what we need is a massive toilet. A Yorkshire Water campaign to encourage people to 'do one thing differently' to conserve water is being fronted by giant toilets. I don't believe the toilets actually speak or anything, but it is a fun way to get people thinking about the fact that toilets account for one third of a household's water usage. By the way, I don't really believe that statistic. Maybe it's true in the UK, but I know that here in Australia, water saving cisterns have been standard for at least a decade. I couldn't be arsed researching this at the moment though. Would appreciate others' thoughts.

 

Another interesting statistic, is that Russians use 10 times less toilet paper than Americans and Western Europeans. Now, this statistic I do believe. The experts claim it all comes down to the old 'do ya scrunch or fold?' question. That is a poll for another time.

 

Still no bids on the infamous Seattle toilets which are up for sale on eBay at a starting price of $89,000, however Calgary and Fort Lauderdale might be interested in buying them. Not put off by Seattle's experience with the spaceship toilets, Toronto and Vancouver are moving ahead with plans to install more of the suckers. However, they might be better off buying their facilities from Vietnam where the toilets only cost $20,000 a piece - that's a massive saving!

 

Meanwhile, over in London, red Boris wants to offer free toilet facilities to all senior citizens. The idea is actually extraordinarily deceptive - it is a discriminatory Community Toilet Scheme. As Londonist points out, non-senior-people who pay £100 more for their monthly train tickets should reasonably object to being denied access to toilets because of their age.

 

 

To prove that everything strange in the world actually comes from Austria, and not the USA as many people believe, is this story about a man who was blasted off his toilet seat by hailstones. Oh. My. God. I can't even believe how much that would hurt.

 

And finally in Jamaica, a businessman has been accused of selling counterfeit toilet paper on the black market.

 

And that's the Friday flush for this week!

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.

Ebay for spaceship toilets

I hate, loathe and despise spaceship toilets, and Seattle residents apparently feel the same way. They're getting rid of 5 of the expensive behemoths which have been in central city locations since 2004, but keeping the $2.59 tax which was introduced to pay for them.

 

The toilets, purchased from a German company, proved extremely unpopular with locals. The contract for the $6.6million toilets has been ended early after they became a magnet for drugs and prostitution. The self-cleaning machines, after a while, didn't. Instead of saving money on cleaning the facilities the Council had to employ cleaners. At the initial consultation, the toilets were supposed to be a cost-effective solution, but at $360 per toilet per day they are anything but.

 

As well as being expensive, space inefficient drug dungeons, I personally find these toilets terrifying. When they installed one in Newcastle (Australia) I would piss next to it rather than go in (much to the amusement of the bouncers at the Crown and Anchor). What if it started 'self-cleaning' while you were in it? *shudder* Nope, a squat by the wall it was. Hey, I'm a classy girl.

 

The Council is now hoping to sell the unsuccessful toilets on eBay. I'll post the link as soon as there is one.

 

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.

Hands, Toilets, Work & Diamonds

A Cape Cod boy was retrieving his toothbrush from the family toilet when he found two diamond rings lodged in the pipes.

 

Apparently, the former owner had placed the rings on a piece of toilet paper after cleaning them and had accidentally flushed them 12 years before. Remarkably, the intervening years of flushing, cleaning, snaking and plunging had failed to dislodge them; it took a solid hand groping to find the missing jewels.

 

Many years ago when I was at the Crown and Anchor in Newcastle (not the old crappy dodgy Crown and Anchor, but the new crappy trendy Crown and Anchor) I found a drivers licence in the toilet. I weed, I wiped, I flushed - and then I plunged my hand in and pulled out the licence. Now before you say 'ewww!' you must realise that I knew then what very few people know, which is this: your toilet bowl is cleaner than your kitchen sink. Seriously.

 

Last month, a report comparing toilets and computer keyboards at one UK workplace found the keyboards far, far, far more grubby than the toilet seat and the toilet door handle. In fact, the keyboards had ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TIMES the recommended limit for bacteria. This isn't at all surprising. Workplace toilets are cleaned every day; when was the last time you cleaned your keyboard? It also makes sense that there are fewer germs on your thighs than on your hands. Hands are filthy dirty disgusting things. My geneticist buddy used to say that after going to the toilet men should wash their penises, not their hands. Sticking your hands in a (clean) toilet can only improve them.

 

Another friend of mine has just moved into a brand new apartment in Wellington. In the bottom of his toilet there is something that looks like a bit of rolled up paper, maybe a cigarette. Anyway, it was there when he moved in, it was there when I went round to help him set up his TV stand, it was there when I went round for a few drinks at his housewarming party. Chances are, it'll stay there until he moves out in six months time. Some people, I guess, just can't shove their hand into their toilet, no matter how clean it is.

 

The good news is, the father of the kid that found the diamond rings tracked down the former owner of the house and gave the rings back. I'm not sure what happened to his toothbrush.

I'm baaack!

The BogLogger is moving countries - AGAIN - so I've been busy with finishing work and packing and arranging visas and all that sort of fun stuff. The good news is that I can now compare New Zealand toilets to Australian toilets and see which is better. Of course, the Aussies will say theirs are better and the Kiwis will say that the Aussies stole them.

*sigh*

I have 990 toilet related articles in Google Reader to read so I may not be posting a full story today. In the meantime, read about former Indian sanitation workers who are off to New York this month through the wonderful activities of my favourite organisation Sulabh International.

Pam's boyfriend says 'not guilty'

The boyfriend of Pam Babcock, the woman who sat on a toilet for so long that she became physically stuck to it, has entered a plea of 'not guilty' for the misdemeanour charge of mistreatment of a dependent adult.

 

The boyfriend, Kory McFarren, is also appearing on an unrelated charge of lewd behaviour. Good on you Kory. You know, Kory had my sympathy. I can totally understand how days, weeks and then months can pass without alerting anyone that your girlfriend is a bit crazy. I can't believe I spent 9 months at my last job when it was the most miserable place in the whole of New Zealand - it just kind of happenned. But Kory, if this stuff about you flashing yourself to your neighbours is true, maybe you're a little bit wrong upstairs too.

Posh poos

There's an article on the Boston Herald website about the poshest sorts of toilets you can get for your own home including... a throne.

 

 

You can be proud owner of a sleek and sexy toilet - BostonHerald.com

 

The history of toilets in private homes is primarily a story of the rise and fall of ostentatious fittings.

 

In the early 19th century fittings and furnishings in bathrooms were needlessly ornate - people were making bathrooms out of rooms, and had to fill that space with a lot of filigree. By about 1855, cleanliness and simplicity ruled, before there was another shift towards putting all the expense of the house into the bathroom. And why not? You're pretty well guaranteed that your guests are going to see it. What a great place to show off!

 

Bathrooms remained an impressive size (for those who had bathrooms) until the revolution of 'bath-cells' in American hotels in the late 1800s, when bathrooms came down to a more reasonable size and utilitarian function. There seems to now be a shift again towards fabulous bathrooms, but the onus is on luxury rather than fussiness.

 

Toilets themselves, however, haven't changed all that much, so it's nice to see manufacturers doing something interesting, and even ludicrous, with the design.

Did you know?

The first bath was installed in the White House in 1851.

 

In 1895, no New York tenement had a bath.

 

The Lord Mayor of London was denied a request to install a shower-bath in the Mansion House in 1812.

Clean and Decent, Lawrence Wright

Oh, the humanity!

I might be a lefty leaning pinko greenie, etc, but surely I'm not alone in thinking that toilet paper is a basic human right? Well, not in Montgomery County, Maryland USA it's not.

United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) which represents about 8000 government employees has released a memo with cost-cutting measures and it suggests, among other things, restricting the amount of toilet paper issued to inmates of jails.

The county spends ‘‘hundreds of thousands of dollars” annually to repair plumbing because inmates use it [toilet paper] to clog their toilets.

Issuing a maximum of three rolls a week to each inmate would avoid some of those costs.

Read the full article here.

I can just imagine the black market in Montgomery County jails: smack, cigarettes and bog roll. They'll have to get their mules to smuggle it in one sheet at a time so as to avoid detection.