You talking to me?

On the travails of the female loo-goer

And you thought peeing was a simple affair.

On the subject of sexist loos

if you thought THAT was gross, check these out


The standing/bent over female bodies contain urinals. Imagine the requisite posture. The rest is obvious.


In case you were wondering, that's a pair of female legs in stockings, upended, with a urinal in them.(I had to read the caption before I could figure this out: initially I thought they were treetrunks.)

The Writing on the Wall

From loo read to loo write: this post celebrates the time-dishonoured practice of bathroom graffiti. One small request: please post all your contributions under the comments section of this particular post. That way we'll have them all in one place.

Ok, here goes:

Ashim Dasgupter kripae meyera bhalo mod khete sikheche. (First floor loo at Oly Pub)

Lisez l'Bible [read the Bible] (Toulon railway station, France)

Picasso's balls [illustrated by two cubes] (Men's toilet, first floor, UG Arts building, Jadavpur University, c.1990)

Unrelated, but....

....them whose souls crawled out of their bodies while in the loo.

And now for something completely different.

If I get the urge at midnight...I wonder how if I will manage to muster up the courage to go to these toilets...

Speaking of futuristic loos

would you use this outdoor restroom?

Toilets of The Future

This is a wireless toilet control panel for a japanese toilet with 38 (!!!) buttons. The model is a high-end model photographed in a Toto showroom. Normally, many of the buttons are covered with the lid, that is currently in a lowered position, so in normal operation the user has to choose only among 18 different buttons.




















A toilet from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which proposes a concept that it calls the Kenko Toware ("Health Toilette"). This is an electronic toilet system that checks the user's health indicators, such as weight, body fat, and the conditions of the excreta, and shows the results on a liquid crystal display beside the toilet seat. The data might also be sent to the doctor, enabling users to receive a diagnosis while at home.


A cursory glance at the state-of-the-art loo comforts, using, what else, but Google, yields Japan as the country most concerned with introducing futuristic technology to the Loo.

"Futuristic Technology, meet the Loo, let the mating ritual begin."

An account of the "Toilet Wars", that had apparently gripped Japan in 2002 here.

And the Guinness World Record Holder of the Most Sophisticated Toilet, since 1997, though it risks being dethroned what with even leaner, meaner and environment-friendly toilets announcing their appearance in the market. Perhaps we will have, in our very own loos, these space age urinals, unveiled at Glastonbury in 2004........er, or not.

Until then, we must resign ourselves to eating our prone-to-melodramatic-flutters hearts out over these beauties.

Mr Pope Takes the Piss-2

The two contestants who line up for the contest are Edmund Curll, the notorious pornographer, and Osborne, a bookseller who had claimed to sell Pope's subscription edition of Iliad at half price, when he had merely pirated it, cut the size of the book to octavo, and printed on low quality paper. Curll wins Eliza, and Osborne is crowed with the pot.


One on his manly confidence relies,
One on his vigour and superior size.
First Osborne lean'd against his letter'd post;
It rose, and labour'd to a curve at most.
So Jove's bright bow displays its wat'ry round,
(Sure sign, that no spectator shall be drown'd)
A second effort brought but new disgrace,
The wild Meander wash'd the Artist's face:
Thus the small jett, which hasty hands unlock,
Spirts in the gard'ner's eyes who turns the cock.
Not so from shameless Curl; impetuous spread
The stream, and smoking flourish'd o'er his head.
So (fam'd like thee for turbulence and horns)
Eridanus his humble fountain scorns;

Thro' half the heav'ns he pours th'exalted urn;
His rapid waters in their passage burn.
Swift as it mounts, all follow with their eyes:
Still happy Impudence obtains the prize.

Thou triumph'st, Victor of the high-wrought day,
And the pleas'd dame, soft-smiling, lead'st away.
Osborne, thro' perfect modesty o'ercome,
Crown'd with the Jordan, walks contented home.

On the Subject of Urinals....

Much as I hate to dislodge tbc's beautiful image from top post position, take a look at this...

Makes you go 'hmmm', hmmm? And in tandem with the current football madness, here's one on the same lines .....

And this goes straight to my favourites.

The site isn't completely functional yet, but do check out the History of toilets and the Aryan code of toilet.

[I don't have a caption for the picture above, neither do I possess the eloquence to describe such sheer chamber pot poetry, so I'll leave you the reaction elicited from a usually bullied and terrorized 10-year-old, on being asked to comment on the masterpiece - "If that is what the toilet is going to be like, I don't mind being flushed down the toilet!"]

Sukumar Roy: a new reading

Why Sukumar Roy, I hear you cry? What has the writer of Abol Tabol have to do with the GLG? It is my humble submission that apart from being the finest book of whimsical verse ever written, Abol Tabol also contains two of the finest poems ever written on two diametrically opposed bowel acts--diarrohea and constipation. The poems in question are 'Ahladi' and 'Ramgorurer Chana'.
Still at sea? Remember, Sukumar Roy was writing at a time when Bengali society was more Victorian than the Victorians themselves, and the poems in question could not refer directly to their theme. However, Sukumar solved this problem by doing something very clever--substituting one offending consonant by a completely harmless one. So, the first four lines of Ahladi goes:

Haschi mora, haschi dekho, haschi mora ahladi
Teenjonete jotla kore phokla hasir palla di,
Haste haste aschhe dada, aschhi ami, aschhe bhai,
haschi keno keu janena, pacche hashi haschi tai.

Now simply replace all the 's'-s in the haschi words by 'g'. And read the passage out aloud....

And similarly,

Ramgorurer chana, hashte tader mana
hashir kotha bolle bole hashbo nananana.

Sodai more trase, oi bujhi keu hase...
Ekchokhe tai mitmitiye takay ashepashe.


I rest my case.

Check this out

You gotta read this!

Loo Read

Since no one is doing the honours, let me kick off with the loo read thread. Let this be a kind of internal tag, so all of you have to post on this.
1. Most common loo read: Computer magazines courtesy brother.
2. Weirdest loo read: galley proofs of my own novel.
3. Most abused loo read: An archie comics digest belonging to a cousin which was ruthlessly sacrificed in the absence of water/paper.
4. Least appreciated loo read: National Geographic Magazine. To be found in loos all over the world, but in most cases containing images of such ferocity as to cause permanent constipation.

Opening the floodgates

Since the comments section of the GLG is beginning to resemble a never-ending
(sc)roll of loo paper, I have decided to invite all of you to have new post rights. Please send me your emails asap (here, on blab or at offog2@gmail.com) so I can add you.

Mr Pope takes the piss

To give a tone of academic respectability to this forum, the GLG will occasionally report on instances of loo-going in world literature. Here is an excerpt from Alexander Pope’s rambling and cantankerous mock-epic poem The Dunciad:

See in the circle next, Eliza placed,
Two babes of love close clinging to her waist;
Fair as before her works she stands confess'd,
In flowers and pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress'd.
The goddess then: 'Who best can send on high
The salient spout, far-streaming to the sky;
His be yon Juno of majestic size,
With cow-like udders, and with ox-like eyes.
This China Jordan let the chief o'ercome
Replenish, not ingloriously, at home.'

(Note: In this section, poets, printers and publishers are competing in a series of games for the crown of Dulness. This game is a pissing contest—who can pee the highest—and the prize is the unfortunate playwright and novelist, Eliza Haywood. A Jordan, of course, is a chamber pot or a guzunder.)

Watch this space for the result of the pissing match.

The Toilet at the 8B Bus Terminus

Thank you all for your inputs as well as outputs over the past fortnight, especially to bhooter raja and alluder. Thanks to their indefatigable research, the following facts are now known about the 8B bus terminus loo:
--it costs 50p to micturate and Re 1 to defecate
--there is a fine of Rs 51 for those washing clothes inside the loo; compulsive clothes-washers, beware. Btw, has anyone ever washed clothes in the Arts Faculty jheel?
--a condom vending machine dispenses a pack of three ‘Ustad’ condoms for a Rs 5 coin

Enough about the 8B loo. Let us now move further afield.

As has been mentioned earlier, the numerous loos situated inside JU are a very ready source of relief to all and sundry. However, what if the need for such relief arises after 8 in the evening, when most of the buildings inside the campus—other than the hostels—are locked up? An ever-present help to the male of the species is the Jadavpur University Main Hostel next to the police station (query: is there any info on police thana loos?) whose rusted and creaky gates remain open 24-7. There are loos on every landing though their cleanliness leaves a lot to be desired. If one feels intimidated at the prospect of venturing into the den of iniquity that is the hostel, one can always hotfoot it down to the shulav shouchalay on one’s left just before the Lord’s Bakery Crossing. There is also another shulav in Jodhpur Park, next to the big park which holds the annual durga puja.

Regular visitors to Dakshinapan need not be told that there are two loos there—one free, and one paying. The free loo is situated close to Dolly’s tea shop—one simply follows the aisle opposite, turns left and there is a flight of stairs leading to the ladies and the gent’s. The paying loo is situated at the back of the shopping complex, on the ground floor and is quite clean.

Golpark has become quite a problem for loo-goers ever since the old sulabh was demolished and the new one failed to come up. During working hours however, the loo on the ground floor of the Ramkrishna Mission Institute of Culture is your best bet. Just walk nonchalantly passed the reception counter and head for the corridor in a north-north-westerly direction. The loos will be on your left. If the RKIC is closed and you are really desperate, you can head into Caffeine, order an espresso and rush into the loo. Otherwise, there is always the ‘abar ashibo phire’ loo at Gariahat Mor.

The Good Loo Guide is dismayed to find that there is very little feedback from women. Doubtless this is owing to the fact that women find it far more difficult to find a decent loo in the city, and are additionally unable to take the al fresco approach to peeing which seems to come so naturally to men. But nothing will be gained by remaining silent, least of all good loos. Speak out and demand your rightful loos through this forum.