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 :)

Booze Bar and Black

Even if you haven't been to the newly re-opened Beresford yet, no doubt you've heard about its sexy curved bar, its naff wine list (organised into cheap, decent, good), and, of course, its magnificent loos.

You've heard about the loos, right?

First, a word about how I ended up in The Beresford on a Tuesday night. We had gone to The Rocks for a bit of St Pats day cheer, but found the prospect of lining up for 30 minutes just to get into the pub, followed by 30 minutes of queuing for the bar, followed by standing outside and having drunk loud amateur drinker step on our toes just wasn't... cheering. T had noticed that the Columbian served Guinness, so up we trudged to Oxford Street. Now, while technically the Columbian does serve Guinness, it comes out of a can, which is poured into a glass, and the glass is then placed on some sort of sonic device which gives the beer a head. It was creepy.

So we went to the Beresford. Which doesn't serve Guinness at all. So we had two pints of Coopers instead.

The most noticeable thing about the toilets at the Beresford is that they're dark. Very dark.




The next noticeable thing is that they're dark. And also, the hand washing area is communal. I like this. It feels efficient.



And the next noticeable thing is that they're dark. And also, they have Dyson Airblades! It's a shame that more people don't know how to use these properly. They are an absolute revolution in hand drying technology. I couldn't find a really good clip which shows you how to use the Airblade properly (it's all about pulling your hands out slowly, people! Not plunging them in again and again!), so you will have to make do with this Shiny review.



Also, they're very dark. And they pour a rather nice pint of Coopers.



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Ring My Bell

Going for a walk to Kings Cross on Sunday, my pal and I found ourselves at Woollomooloo. It happens. We by-passed the (very famous) Harry's pie cart, past the (very renovated and dull looking) Wooloomooloo Bay Hotel and strolled straight into the Bells Hotel.

How this outback-Australiana-olde worlde-pubiness-pub survives in this location I can't understand. Many years ago some buddies and I drove from Lismore to Tenterfield for reasons which escape me now, but I do remember it involved a 21st birthday at the school at Mummulgum. Anyway, on this road trip, we passed through a town called Drake, a town which was so low-class backwater Deliverance scary that we wound our windows up and sped up just a notch. It was palpably different to all the other rather nice country towns we drove through. I'm not saying that the Bells Hotel is as scary as Drake - but it is completely incongruous in its location.

AND it serves XXXX Gold on tap.

My pal put ten bucks through a poker machine while I read the local Sydney City Council propaganda. The cricket was on. An old geezer took ten minutes to walk from the door to the bar and the barman came round and gave him a stool. The girlfriend/wife/drinking buddy of the barman was wearing short shorts and white sneakers and had hair the colour of skank. It was all I could want on a Sunday afternoon drinking session.

On returning from the gents, my pal said that the toilets were as olde worlde as the rest of the pub.

"Is it a long drop?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"Oh," I said. "Has it got one of those pull chain cisterns?"

He paused. "No," he said. "I guess it's just an old toilet."

Unfazed, I visited the ladies toilets. I was transported back to country towns and school toilets of my youth. Check out these awesome tiles.



The ladies toilets did, in fact, have a pull chain cistern, and also some really poignant graffiti (for 'poignant' read 'pissed').






The graffiti reads

Angelique 07
loves glamma
and goggles

Well. That's nice, Angelique 07.

Someone was so enamoured of this poem they wrote it twice.

AND ALL THE MIRRORS, RUSTED AND FLAKED
ARE SMUDGED WITH HARLEQUIN PAINT
And all the mirrors, rusted and flaked,
Are smudged with harlequin paint

I guess Angelique's friend felt the need to yell it out the first time and then repeat it quietly, sadly, looking down to her left, her hands clasped in front of her. Just for effect.



Thanks Bells. You were a lovely Sunday sesh.









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Water Under the Bridge

It's not often I get to review men's toilets. Swanning into the men's room with a camera and asking the chaps at the urinal to smile would probably land me in an uncomfortable situation. But, hell, maybe if I were drunk...

If you walk around The Rocks, up past the various over-priced but really very pleasant pubs, right up until you're under the Sydney Harbour Bridge itself, you'll find this curious landmark.


Some schoolboys who were walking past when I was taking the photo asked what I was taking a photo of. "It's a toilet," I said. They were amazed.





The Sydney Architecture website tells me that it is a 19th century cast iron urinal. The building is doorless and holds two side-by-side urinals of reasonable cleanliness. My friend took a piss in one and it seemed to perform its function adequately.






I notice, actually, that there's only one cistern for both urinals. That seems a dreadful waste of water. But then - I don't reckon these loos get used all that often.


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One Water launches in Australia

A friend recently pointed out that paying $1 a litre for petrol is nothing, when in the same service station you can pay up to $9 a litre for water. Why Australians would pay so much for something that comes out of our taps in abundance practically for free is a mystery. Particularly when billions of people don't have simple access to clean water.

Bottled water brand One Water has just launched in Australia. Styling itself as Australia's first ethical water brand, it donates all of its profits to charities and says that, by simply switching brands, people can make a real difference in places where people don't have access to clean water.

One Water funds projects such as SkyHydrant, a water filtration system, and PlayPump which enables water to be pumped by using a child's merry-go-round. The idea is simple and effective, and costs are kept down by leasing advertising space on the attached water tower. This immediately sets off dubious alarm bells, and I wasn't surprised to see Coca Cola's Environmental Affairs Manager quoted on the site. However, the water towers will also host health messages so perhaps all is well.

We are a poor school….no seesaws or exercise rings like the kind most children play with. Because of our water crisis, such things are not in our budget. But now the children have this merry-go-round, and both problems are solved."
Sylvia Nkambule, teacher in Swaziland

The brand is well supported by minor Australian celebrities, such as Ruby Rose. The thinking behind the brand is that people who purchase bottled water will switch to an ethical brand. But it begs the question of the actual ethical problems associated with bottled water in the first place. It takes up to 6 litres of water to make one 1 litre plastic bottle and a large proportion of plastic bottles end up in landfill. While I applaud One Water for its ethical human commitment, I think the next step will be to ween people off their dangerous addiction to bottled water.

V-Wall Tavern, Nambucca Heads

We took two days off work and headed up the north coast to Nambucca Heads for a weekend of camping, fishing and beering. We nailed the camping part, and, of course, we totally nailed the beering part, but we found the fishing part a little difficult. The locals in the pub, the V-Wall Tavern, thought we must be serious fisher-people, because we certainly had all the gear. But what with the gale force winds that weekend, and worms being tricky bastards to put onto hooks, and us not knowing how to tie a hook properly onto a line, and the overabundance of good cold beer, well... fishing just didn't really happen.

The View from the Loo

Located towards the rear of the V-Wall Tavern, these toilets represent everything good about seaside bars - roomy, welcoming and well-appointed.



The toilets were clean and, for some reason, I really liked the shape of the spout. It looks a little like a puppy.


The bar has the usual selection of beers on tap and service always came with a smile. One of the nights we were there, a great band was playing. We drank a lot of beer that weekend, so I can't remember their name. The something or other experience...



The chips at the bar were okay, but the 'damper' was really disappointing; just a bread roll warmed up. A nice bread roll, sure, but come on! this is the heart of anglo-saxon Straya - you've got to get the damper right!

Nice dunnies, V-Wall. The Bog Logger says "Your nanna might not like the band, but she'll love the loos".

Divisions of labour

In the 'Boring but important' section of The Week this week, there's a story about India's push to provide a toilet for every Indian household by 2012. Currently, dry toilets are 'serviced' by people who are considered untouchable. Plenty of work has been done by organisations such as Sulabh International to provide different job opportunities for these shit clearers, but plenty more needs to be done.

Also in the same section was a statistic that says Australian adults are spending more time at work and with families; as a result, men are spending less time on housework, while women are spending more.

The progress in sharing housework that was recorded from 1992 to 1997 has now stalled.

I can't understand why, in a modern age, the division of housework is still a point of contention between men and women. Surely everyone wants to live in a moderately clean home and each person should work to their strengths. Don't like a stinky toilet - clean it! Can't stand doing dishes - leave it to your partner. Take out the garbage instead.

Sometimes I think the fundamentally patriarchal nature of male-female relationships in western society means that things like housework will continue to be a sticking point. Housework will always be seen as 'women's work' as long as women continue to be encouraged to value aesthetics over function.

(Of course, I hardly need to add that all people are encouraged to value aesthetics in 'feminine' things, such as women's personal appearance and domestic lives. When viewing men and manly things, they should desire strength and a sense of humour.)

(I also don't need to add that most of the shit lifters in India are women, in spite of the fact that women in slum areas of India have little or no access to toilets for their own use.)

A ship shape and scanty sea shanty

I recently won a lunch and tour of the P&O ship The Pacific Dawn. I'm a huge fan of boats and ships, but up until a few weeks ago the biggest ships I've been on have been car ferries. The ferry from Dover to Calais many years ago was, of course exciting; but it was part of an absolute marathon bus ride I took from Cleethorpes to Zagreb, and the excitement may have been from merely being outside the bloody bus.

Once, from Dubrovnik to Bari, I learned that it is impossible to use a squat toilet on a ferry.




The tour and lunch aboard the Pacific Dawn was to celebrate its first birthday with P & O. The ship itself was painfully, woefully, middle-class, middle-aged, white and straight, and while it was fun for a brief while I don't think I could ever do a whole cruise. Whether by design or good fortune we were seated with the only other gays at the whole event, which made lunch infinitely more tolerable.



The toilets were certainly ship shape, but there was a queue of 4 women in front of me and only 3 cubicles. This was toilet 'rush hour' - between the main and dessert. We had been directed to use these toilets by the banquet staff and I was surprised that they didn't make more toilets available. I can understand that they didn't want people wandering over the ship, but 3 cubicles is pretty measly for a whole banquet hall of people. I wonder how they fare when the ship is full?

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.

Friday Flush 08.08.08

An auspicious day, according to the Chinese, and with the opening of the Olympics today, Beijing can be proud to boast that it has 5,333 public toilets and 8,000 toilet attendants.

 

Topping the list of most useful items in this week's flush is The Woon Box, an all-in-one toilet, kitchen and shower. Sounds like my last apartment. Oh, those wacky Dutch.

 

 

In England, a Morecambe man has been banned from every public toilet in the UK after an attempted sexual assault. Don't be alarmed if he knocks on your door asking to use your loo; he is a man of previous good character.

 

The development of an iPhone application which locates toilets in Australia by using the National Toilet Map has been scuppered by government bureaucracy.

 

Okay, so this next story has a lot of problems for me. First of all, it involves Christian motorcyclists. Like, what? Secondly, the Christian motorcyclists are meeting at the Kum and Go. Okay, now in my country, that word just there, that K word, kum, that's totally dirty. Usually it's spelled with a 'c' but still, dirty. And thirdly, and why it's making it onto The Bog Logger, is that these Christian motorcyclists are meeting at the Kum and Go (whatever that is - I'd rather not know) to go on a 'toilet paper run'. They're doing this for some organisation which doesn't receive government funds or denominational support, nor, apparently, toilet paper. Oh, those wacky Christians. Read the full story here and let me know what it's about. Cheers.

 

That's all for me today. It's almost time for the Opening Ceremony.

 

 

Birds nest? Looks more like a glowing toilet seat to me.

What's normal?

I received a bookmark in the post on Friday for the new Australian Government website dedicated to bladder and bowel health www.bladderbowel.gov.au.

 

The new website is part of the National Continence Management Strategy and builds on the success of the National Toilet map. I love the Toilet Map. There are a number of toilet map initiatives on the web, such as the Bathroom Diaries, and Public Toilets dot org, but the Toilet Map is the only government funded map of its kind. Because it has funding, it's very comprehensive (although the Find by Points of Interest section didn't recognise the Sydney Opera House as a location. Hmm....)

 

The Bladder Bowel website has a wonderful section about 'what is normal'. Did you know that your small bowel is 6 metres long?? I didn't even know I had a 'large' bowel and a 'small' bowel!

 

How your bowel works

The bowel is the lower part of your food digestive system. It connects your stomach to your back passage, where waste materials (called bowel motions or faeces) are passed out of your body. The job of the bowel is to finish digesting food by taking up water and nutrients.

Your bowel has three linked parts:

• Small bowel - mainly takes up goodness (nutrients) from broken-down food;
• Colon - mainly takes up water as digested food passes through;
• Rectum - stores waste material until it is passed through the back passage.

The small bowel is about 6 metres long. The large bowel, the name for the colon and rectum together, is a tube about 1.5 metres long. The small bowel is called 'small' because it is narrower than the large bowel even though it is longer.

Everybody has different bowel habits. Some of us empty our bowel 3 times a day. Others may empty their bowel 3 times a week. Normally each bowel movement should take a minute or so. At the end of a bowel movement you should feel empty.

 

I like that my bowel connects my stomach to my back passage. I like the idea of having a 'back passage'. It makes me sound like an Edwardian country house.

 

Thanks for sending through the bookmark, Stevie! I'll use it in "Clean and Decent" a book about the history of toilets and bathrooms that I'm currently reading. Review up here soon!