No relief on space station

Cosmonauts and astronauts aboard the International Space Station are heading for a potential hygiene hazard with the malfunction of the toilet system. The system has been experiencing problems for the past week with each repair failing.

Without the assistance of gravity, space toilets use "fan-driven airflow to transport human waste away from a crew member's body". Read the full article here.

Currently, the crew is using the toilet in the transport trip Soyuz, but it has only a few days capacity. Fox news reports that the toilet is due to be replaced in a few months by a system that will transform urine into drinkable water.

Being stranded out in space with no toilet facilities is simply awful. Cosmonauts and astronauts already suffer many privations, but this seems to me the worst! No doubt, though, they're clever folk and they'll find relief somehow.

Pee & Poo Shop

God I love Swedish people. Really. They're awesome. I didn't think any nation could top the brilliant innovation of the Belgians, but leave it to the Swedes impress The Bog Logger.

Swedish designer Emma Megitt created Pee&Poo for her university design project and the little guys proved so popular she went into business.

"The idea of creating cuddly toys on the subject of pee and poo is not only
truly unique, both historically and now, it's also neutral, and therefore widely
applicable and acceptable, with regard to age, gender and nationality. People
just like them; they seem to have a universal appeal."

Damn straight they are. I've got all my Christmas presents sorted already!

Play while you pee, in Belgian urinal game

Play while you pee, in Belgian urinal game - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Two Belgian beer fans have launched a video game named 'Place to pee', which allows players to slalom down ski slopes or kill aliens while relieving themselves at urinals.

Werner Dupont, a software developer, and Bart Geraets, an electrical engineer, got the idea while drinking Belgian trappist beers, they said at a local festival.

"This thing had to be invented by Belgian people and that's what we are," they said.

The 'Place to pee' booth is designed for two users at a time and offers two games - blowing up aliens in outer space or skiing down a virtual slope. Gamers hit their target by aiming at sensors positioned on either side of the urinal.

A specially designed paper cone allows women to play too, the inventors say.

Their 'Place to pee' logo resembles 'Manneken Pis', the little urinating boy fountain that is among Brussels' top sightseeing attractions.

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I LOVE the Manneken Pis! Not sure if it's as 'lady friendly' as it hopes to be.

Presents in the plumbing

In my first two weeks at my new job I was struck by dirty bombs three times! I haven't been struck again since (perhaps there was something wrong with the plumbing which has been fixed) but please - ladies, gentlemen - repeat after me:

- Poo

- Flush

- Check

- Flush again !

I'm a poo professional, but really, it's just not polite to inflict your poos on other people.

Wee and wash: what next?

In this eco-conscious world o' ours, it's great to see some innovation in the bathroom. A real step up from the brick in the cistern.

That's right. It's a washing machine. On a toilet.

Of course, there are many (more sensible) eco-friendly toilet solutions.

This sexy number from Matsushita, made from organic glass

claims to be environmentally friendly as it features the industry's lowest water usage.

Or the Aqus system, which captures water from the bathroom sink to be re-used as flushing water.

And in St David's, Pembrokeshire, UK, a city trying to become the world's first carbon-neutral city, rainwater is harvested to service the public toilets.

But as regular readers will know (and I sincerely hope that you're all regular) one of the things I care most about is the provision of adequate toilets, particularly in developing countries. So I was pleased to see this week that Pump Aid co-founder Ian Thorpe (not the swimmer) is a finalist in the St Andrew's Prize for the Environment for his Elephant Toilet.

Costing just £20 each to build, the toilets use discarded objects such as plastic bottles and empty ballpoint pens in their construction. The 'elephant' toilet name comes from the two ear shapes where the user puts his or her feet and the trunk which separates liquid waste from solid.

http://www.knaresboroughpost.co.uk/harrogate-news/Innovative-toilet-design-is-no.4056293.jp

The photo comes from Christine Collier's Malawi diary.

...at one point, he squatted down on a toilet base not yet fitted in situ, to demonstrate how it works and a huge howl of children's laughter errupted at the obviously recognisable stance ... toilet humour crosses all cultural boundaries.

It sure does, Christine.

BTW, how good a name is Matsushita for a toilet company!?

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.

At your convenience

I spoke recently about having job interviews in toilets, a ridiculous opinion that I stand by (I'm just that perverse).

I particularly stand by it when I remember all my resumé cover letters which say, "I am available to meet at your convenience..."

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.

Re-employment

I'm recently re-employed again (hence the slight downturn in regular blog postings). The toilets at my new place of employment are a little on the miserable side, and it got me to thinking - job interviews should be held in toilets.

 

Seriously. There are plenty of seats, you can talk shit without it being out of place, and guys can all stand around comparing penis sizes.

 

You can learn a lot about an organisation from the condition and layout of their toilets. The ladies toilet in my new workplace has two cubicles and one separate disabled toilet into which no disabled person has ever gone or could ever go. It is the worst type of accessible toilet: it is an almost-accessible toilet. It has a tap that can be mouth-operated, a generous hand rail and a slightly wider than usual access door. Unfortunately, the door leads into a little hallway with a door which is smaller than usual. Even if a wheelchair could fit in the hall door, there isn't sufficient room in the hallway to turn into the disabled toilet, without doing an 8 point turn. Honestly, who designs these things?

 

I do like my new workplace, but there is an air of almost doing things right.

 

My old workplace was notoriously bad for people not changing the loo roll - I guess it just wasn't in anyone's job description.