The Good Loo Guide

Why Do Women Go to the Loo in Groups?

2010-12-22T02:16:00.001-08:00

Check this out http://xxfactor.wordpress.com/2010/12/22/why-do-women-go-to-the-loo-in-groups/

Pujo Posterage

2010-10-18T15:34:00.000-07:00

As observed on a lamp-post at Selimpur on Shostthi afternoon. Credits for discovery originally go to Sohini, Nilanjana and Sucheta.

artistic toilet paper.

2010-08-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

Seen in Dubai airport.

Swiss Loo

2009-11-23T19:36:00.001-08:00

Apparently, bharotiyo loo technology does travel. Friend of mine took this photo in Geneva a week ago, and tremendously excited, emailed me at once.

Toilet paper and its various uses

2009-06-27T22:51:00.001-07:00

Toilet paper can prove very useful at times. It is no hidden secret that a lot of people (including myself) use it as tissue paper sometimes and wipe our faces and other various body parts. It can also prove a useful writing surface. Les 120 journées de Sodome was written on toilet paper (photo of the mansucript above). In such cases, thick toilet paper proves a blessing.

Howrah Station

2009-01-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

I must give a big thumbs-up to Howrah station maintenance workers for keeping the loo (both peeing and shitting, and for both men and women) in good condition. It's not perfect but considering the amount of traffic it handles, the loos near the food plaza are good.

On a similar note, Sealdah gets a big thumbs-down for having crappy crapping places.

The loo at 8B bus stand is to be avoided except by peeing men. The loos in the JU engineering buildings are far better. On that note, which are the best loos in the JU engineering areas?

JUDE Loos for Women: Before and After

2008-12-26T20:56:00.000-08:00

This is what the women's loo at JUDE, recently refurbished and never maintained after that, looked like when I attacked it on the 23rd of December with Harpic and a loo brush.

This is what it now looks like. However, four of the five cubicles have defects, the worst being the fourth from the door which is not draining, The second from the door also produces interesting fountain effects when flushed: stand well back. The first leaks into the pot, the third has a detached seat. For all of these I will write a letter of complaint to the Estate Maintenance office.

People have been pushing the limits of loo use by for eg puking in the basins and (I suspect) shoving stuff where it shouldn't go. I want people to monitor and report regularly on the state of this loo. We need to make sure the official cleaning staff are doing their job as well as users behaving properly.

To be fair to the cleaners, the loos hadn't been properly cleaned since they were made and were covered in a layer of cement waste, which captures dirt and isn't amenable to ordinary cleaning. There's still some of it left on the floor outside the cubicles, making the tiles gritty.

Now all cubicles have plastic mugs as of yesterday: I will be watching to see how long they take to get stolen. In the meantime, we need fun notices saying the following things. Our celebrated loo artists who last struck during the BA admissions could please come up with suitable artwork.

PLEASE DO NOT PUKE IN THE BASINS. Use the loos. They are there for both ends of you.
PLEASE THROW ALL SANITARY WASTE IN THE BIN BY THE DOOR. Loos will choke on them and drown you on the next flush.
PLEASE DO FLUSH. Be nice.
PLEASE DON'T GO ON THE FLOOR UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Never mind what you do at home.
PLEASE DO NOT WALK AWAY WITH THE MUGS. They cost Rs 12 each. If you are desperate we'll have a whip-round and buy you one.

***
OK, do me these in English and Bangla and we'll laminate them and put them up.

The most scenic loos in the world

2008-10-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

This appeared in the Independent recently:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/a-loo-with-a-view-the-worlds-most-scenic-lavatories-962692.html

My First Colonic

2008-08-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

Same Shit. Different Day.

So yesterday I finally went for my first colonic - otherwise known as Colon Hydrotherapy, Colon Irrigation, Colon Cleansing, Intestinal Mucosoid Plaque Removal, Glorified Enema or Deluxe Assisted Water-Up-The-Ass Crap. (Thanks, George Carlin. R.I.P.)

It was at a pretty swish place just 15 mins away (5 on a Sunday morning); the building, housing a medical research centre and presumably fairly busy on weekdays, was empty save for a flea-ridden mongrel curled up at the locked main doors at 9:50am this Sunday. I found a side entrance open, took the elevator up to the 9th floor and found The Colon Therapy Centre.

The place was small but seemed clean and calm, with friendly female staff (’certified colon therapists’: imagine that going down with your high-school career counselor) and requisite vanilla-spa pan-pipe music. I was welcomed with a quick smile and jumped straight to the Fill Out These Forms stage, certifying that I was not a patient of Heart Disease or Hemorrhoids, did not suffer from Rheumatoid Arthritis, Depression or Suicidiality as far as I could tell, that I’d had Eczema and stitches on my head in the past, that I did not consume Alcohol daily but did drink coffee 5 times a week (ok I lied a bit - these forms make you feel like such an unhealthy loser. maybe i *do* suffer from mild depression. and there was this one time when… anyways), and that I thought I didn’t get enough fresh air or exercise in my day, and I could do with several kilos off my body. Most importantly, I read the paragraph stating that I’d been explained all the risks and contraindications for this Treatment (I had not - the receptionist had only asked over the phone the day before whether I’d ever had abdominal surgery), that the procedure had been outlined to me clearly (not beyond my own research online at home the night before) and all my questions answered to my satisfaction (I wasn’t given the chance), and that if by some chance my colon exploded or my pancreas dissolved and I died in the process, the Centre took no responsibility whatsoever. I signed on the dotted line below.

My therapist Zarin, who was hovering nearby with a big smile waiting for me to finish, politely snatched up the clipboard & pen and led me straight into one of the 3 treatment rooms. It was clean, modern-looking and the aromatherapy candle made it smell pleasant and relaxing, like a massage room rather than a House of Poo. There was a screen between the door and the Poo Basin, ensuring that if anyone walked in they wouldn’t be staring straight at you lying on your back shitting with a tube up your ass.

The Poo Basin itself looked like an elevated bathtub with a hole cut out in the middle, attached to a large box that housed the triple-filtration machines and temperature controls for the water, along with the waste drainage system. From the bottom of the Basin into the drainage box ran a wide, clear plastic tube, lit from below with a mirror positioned over it at a 45-degree angle so that I could see the contents of the tube from my lying-down position atop the Basin.

After a quick explanation from Zarin (Filtration system. Temperature control. Flow speed control. Water pipe. Disposable one-time-use sterile nozzle. Lubricant. Your Ass Goes Here. Magazines. Tummy massager. Emergency bell & flow stop buttons. Sprayer & tissues to clean up. I’ll keep checking on you every few minutes.), I undressed from the waist down, hopped up onto the Basin (well, “climbed up gingerly” is more like it: I was paranoid I’d slip and fall right onto the nozzle and jam it accidentally up my rectum), covered myself with the Token Discretion Sheet, attempted and failed to insert the lubricated nozzle, and pushed the bell for Zarin. She snapped on latex gloves, told me to relax - you can NEVER relax when someone tells you to; must be some kind of ancient defensive evolutionary strategy - and with brief, mild discomfort inserted the nozzle correctly. It really isn’t that wide or long or unpleasant at all, actually. It also helps that of late I’ve been more open to experimentation with that orifice. Anyways, back to the point.

She started the water flow, and this was probably the weirdest sensation of the whole ordeal, although it lasted only for a few seconds: water slightly cooler than body temperature rising up through the initial stretches of my colon. It was a bit cold and even ticklish at first, but my body adjusted quickly. Very soon, I felt the urge to ‘expel’, as it’s called, and with Zarin’s encouragement, did. Initially it was just water coming out, clear, as it hadn’t reached up very far yet (all this I was observing with great fascination in the mirror in front of me). Apparently the nozzle is such that no Stuff or liquid flows back down into it; it remains inserted, pushing water up; the anus expands enough to expel stuff around the nozzle into the basin below. Weird. But true.

And so it continued, with intermittent bouts of debris-expulsion alternating with clear water flow. I was too fascinated looking at the stuff coming out to be overly concerned with the waves of peristalsis that were sweeping through my insides. I played around with the tummy-massager for a bit - but got distracted by thoughts of using it as a vibrator in lower regions - so eventually put it away and went back to massaging my abdomen with my hands, like Zarin showed me.

She kept popping in at regular intervals to check on me, and seemed pleased with how I was doing. The feeling of slight embarrassment was mine and mine alone; I guess she’s seen enough by now so that more shit from another asshole was nothing to write home about.

I guess I should explain why I wanted to do this in the first place; the best I can do is that I’ve been keen on it for a while, and wanted to see if there really was all this gunk lodged way up in my intestines that was clinging to the sides and wouldn’t come out on its own. For all the naysayers: my experience was above-average; there was a fair amount of ‘debris’ that I’m pretty sure wouldn’t have come out in my morning dump that day or 3 days from then. The stuff at the top, that came out towards the end, was also of a much darker colour and compressed, stringy consistency. Also, I didn’t do this in conjunction with any special diet of liquids/juices/supplements, psyllium husk or bentonite clay drinks, so whatever came out wasn’t influenced by the intake of stuff outside of my regular diet.

10 litres of water later, the whole thing was over and done. I cleaned up and dressed quickly, feeling good but not insanely high or converted to the cult or anything. Another clipboard session (this time it was the Feedback Form) along with a small cup of green tea out in the reception area, quick tips on what I should eat for the rest of the day (live-culture yogurt, non-oily, non-spicy, home-cooked vegetarian food) and shouldn’t (raw veggies and fruit), paid for my session and I was outta there.

As I got crossed the road to my car, I saw a Cute Guy getting out of his, clearly headed to the Colon Centre, and it cracked me up inside to think of a hypothetical future dinner party conversation: “So where’d you two meet?” “At the Colon Therapy Centre” / “While getting our asses cleansed”. I think I giggle-snorted out loud.

I got into the car and drove straight to the bookstore near my house, where there was a sale going on, and not only found the book I was looking for (probably the first time this has happened to me in this store), but 5 others as well as a 5-rupee coin. A special day indeed. And as I headed home with my clean colon and new books, it occurred to me that the shitty state (ha) my relationship is in at the moment (like it has been in so many other moments) was like having a colonic without the drainage system: I’m getting it up the ass and surrounded by a pool of shit, and it’s useful to me only as long as I can get the shit out of my system, get off the nozzle and walk away.

I’m going to be making shit jokes for next several days.

disambiguation

2008-07-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

found this a few days back while surfing random blogs. now that i've conveniently forgotten which blog i've taken this off, and hadn't remembered to note down the location either... i can't provide any detail =( but this board actually exists somewhere, as i remember this being part of someone's travel photographs. (yeah, but if i wasn't a voyeur, would you have come across this beauty? :P)

also, to all fellow GLG members, happy new year. (2008, yes? first post, yes?)

And now for something completely different...

2007-12-11T00:55:00.000-08:00

Scatology and the Sacred in Milton's Paradise Lost

kent r. lehnhof ¹ ¹CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY

¹CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY

Abstract

In his classic study, The Dialectics of Creation, Michael Lieb foregrounds the myriad ways in which Milton uses scatology throughout Paradise Lost to describe the depravity of the devil. But Satan is not the only character in the epic to be associated with excretion. Milton's angels and Milton's God are also implicated in the operations of the lower bodily stratum. In these instances, however, allusions to the evacuative functions attest to an exalted divinity rather than a disgusting diabolism. Evacuation in Paradise Lost is thus a highly complex signifier. Not simply a pejorative pointing inevitably at a damnable degradation, scatology can also signal a sublime goodness. This essay draws upon humoral theory and socio-cultural studies of manners to both emphasize and account for the richly multivalent meaning of evacuation in Milton's epic.

Keep it Simple and Stupid

2007-10-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

Most of us must have seen the loo on the Golpark end of Southern Avenue which looks like the Sydney Opera House. Instead of wasting so much money on creating such a monstrosity, the KMC (or Sulabh) should simply construct small loos like the one on the other end of Southern Avenue near Rashbehari. Maybe we can sign a petition and demand more simple loos.

keep it alive

2007-09-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

some one some body post some thing
this blog is the sleepiest one i have seen around
surely there are enough loo issues around

LOOk at a LOO

2007-08-27T07:13:00.000-07:00

there are no loos on the VIP Road .. from ultadanga to the airport.. unless you stop at haldiram pure foods.. they have nice loos... granite and ceramic .. wash basins with mirrors.. with commodes and hosepipes. hand does not work. floor height urinals. no paper in guys loo. only in girls loo.

also if any one has ever seen the american sitcom "happy days" they would have noticed that the loos in the cafe are marked "birds" and "blokes"

Loo signs at JUDE admissions 2007

2007-06-22T04:50:00.001-07:00

Here are some of the signs made by our volunteers for the JU loos.

2007-05-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

From Rainbeau Peep's archive. May she not murder me for linking.

Introspection

Paykhana-na-ma?

2007-05-29T01:20:00.000-07:00

Since the Good Loo Guide seems to be going through an acute phase of constipation, a chhora here and a chhora there might prove to be worthy laxatives...

Nandita's Arnold-inspired disasterpiece;

The butt is calm tonight.
The bowel is full,
the pot lies fair upon the floor;
the turds stand,
stinking and hard,
Out in the tranquil way.
Come to the rectum, sweet is the fart air!
......
Listen!you hear the grating roar
Of wind which the turds draw back,
and fling...

slightly gross but...

2007-04-20T11:20:00.001-07:00

ladies' loo at gariahat crossing.

Greeting received on the morning of 1 Baisakh, 1414

2007-04-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

Rate hok ba dine hok,
bharat hok ba chine hok,
shokto hok ba norom hok,
thanda hok ba gorom hok,
holud hok ba kalo hok,
tomar hagu bhalo hok.

Joo

2007-03-02T07:13:00.000-08:00

What about loos in the uni? The men's loo in the department is usable (used by some ladies--who have the misfortune of not having their dwelling places close to the university--as well). You can always pant all the way up to the economics department...the loo there is usually clean...or you can cross your fingers and hope there's a seminar going on at the Anita Banerjee Memorial Hall and use the loo downstairs...believe it or not, on a certain occasion i have seen five ladies (not counting me) from the department queuing up before the said loo...

Salty puddle

2007-02-03T07:42:00.000-08:00

Having peed inside houses in Salt Lake for twenty-one years, I haven't found a place other than the complex at the Karunamoyee bus-stand where one can pee inside Salt Lake outside homes. The total disregard by the civic authorities for basic human necessities such as urinating, is appalling. Of course, now all the fancy loos in all the fancy restaurants, shopping malls and departmental stores go a long way in covering up for the civic authorities' inadequacy but still one is aware that the commoner will not be allowed in such posh places. Therefore the commoner is forced to relieve (himself) in public or suffer physical agony (herself).

Park Circus Crossing

2007-01-31T10:00:00.000-08:00

This is a tough one, by all accounts. Where does one go if caught short at the Park Circus crossing? National Medical College? Lady Brabourne (shudder)? Or the wide open greensward on Park Circus maidan, the only place in Calcutta where you can crap along with the hippo and the elephant? Or does one sneak into the tram depot?

Return to sanitary sanity

2007-01-31T09:43:00.000-08:00

The Goodlooguide has become somewhat moribund of late, so now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party and recall the noble impulses which went to the making of this blog. So at the cost of repeating myself, let me remind you of what the blog undertook to feature in its first fine careless rapture:

1. A list of loos for those inconvenient moments in time and space, in all the major world cities. If you have any loos to recommend, please post the location in the ‘Comments’ section, giving full details about opening hours, tariffs, softness of loo paper and so on.
2. A rating of all major loos, on a scale of one to five.
3. The loo in history: nothing less than a comprehensive history of toilets and its impact on human civilization.
4. Loo Read: what to read in the loo and what has been written about loos in world literature
5. Loos of the future: a loo(k) at what the future holds in store.

We began well, by reporting extensively on loos at the 8B bus terminus, Jadavpur University and Anwar Shah Road. But then, for some obscure reason, we became obsessed with no. 5--loos of the future. Also, there was a brief but deplorable period of fascination with genitalia-shaped loos.

Time to return to sanitary sanity.

From this post onwards, the GLG will focus on specific areas of our fair city, with one neighbourhood covered per post. As before, please post all information under the ‘Comments’ section of the relevant neighbourhood.

In the beginning was Okhil-babu

2007-01-17T10:51:00.000-08:00

Okhil Babu’s letter to the Railway Department (early 1900’s ) =============================================

“I am arrive by passenger train Ahmedpur station and my belly is too much swelling with jackfruit. I am therefore went to privy. Just I doing the nuisance that guard making whistle blow for train to go off and I am running with ‘lotah’ in one hand and ‘dhoti’ in the next when I am fall over and expose all shocking to man and female women on plateform. I am got leaved at Ahmedpur station. This too much bad, if passenger go to make dung that dam guard not wait train five minutes for him. I am therefore pray your honour to make big fine on that guard for public sake. Otherwise I am making big report to papers.”

Okhil Chandra Sen wrote this letter to the Sahibganj divisional railway office in 1909. It is on display at the Railway Museum in New Delhi. It was also reproduced under the caption “Travellers’ Tales” in the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Apparently this letter led to the introduction of toilets on trains in India.

pots and pans and things in between

2006-11-29T10:53:00.000-08:00

how come no one has ever debated the relative merits of pots and pans and others..?
i believe pans are healthier as they promote a more natural defecating posture... thus leading to easier evacuation of your colon... where as pots are more comfortable than pans but since they adopt a less natural defecating posture they often lead to incomplete evacuation... there are those contraptions which attempt to mimic a median path... i believe they are called mixed /hybrid commodes or orissa commodes by the plumbing community. however i fail tounderstand how its pan function can be used by squatting perched so high up.. first of all it will take too much time when you are in a hurry to settle and perch... and secondly won't it be even more uncomfortable to perch and squat?

...without a paddle

2006-09-26T11:16:00.000-07:00

The British introduced the first sanitation Bill in India in 1878, which made the construction of toilets compulsory even in huts in Calcutta (now Kolkata), then the capital of India. The Bill also proposed the construction of public toilets. The Interstate Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Condition of Service) Act, 1979, mandates toilet and washing facilities at all workplaces, including construction sites. The Sanitation Act that made dry latrine and its manual cleaning a punishable offence came in 1993. But this law remains only on paper. Even today about six lakh scavengers lift night soil from over 72 lakh dry latrines in 2,587 towns.

Read this Frontline article for more on the sorry state of sanitation in India.

Reflections on a train toilet

2006-09-26T06:58:00.000-07:00

My brother, a formidable loo-goer, wrote the following poem when he was in college, and had to travel between Siliguri and Benares quite frequently.

REFLECTIONS ON A TRAIN TOILET

Crouched upon my lofty perch
Vulnerable to every lurch
How am I supposed to hit
The centre of the hole with shit ??

2006-08-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

Why me?--- the great complaint of the constipated. Why doesn't the world work for me? The lonely sitting man in the porcelain machine. What did i do wrong yesterday? How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me? Unlock me! Exhausted Houdini! Lost ordinary magic! The squatting man bargains with god, submitting list after list of New Year's Resolutions. I will eat only lettuce. Give me diarrhea if I've got to have something. Let me help the flowers and dung beetles. Let me into the world club. I am not enjoying sunsets, then for whom do they burn? I'll miss my train. My portion of the world's work will not be done, I warn you. If sphincter must be coin let it be Chinese coin. Why me? I'll use science against you. I'll drop in pills like depth charges. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, don't make it tighter. Nothing helps, is that what you want me to learn? The straining man perched on a circle prepares to abandon all systems. Take hope, take cathedrals, take the radio, take my research. These are hard to give up, but a load of shit is harder still. How can I exist as a vessel of yesterday's slaughter? Is meat punishing me? Are there wild herds who think poorly of me? We are grooming beings to eat! Does God love the world? What a monstrous system of nourishment! Humans, the dietary nazis! Who will apologize to the cows? It's not our fault, we didn't think this whole thing up. Tomorrow I will begin my fast. I resign. But I can't resign with a full stomach. I would stink at an autopsy. Nobody wants to eat me i'm sure. I am the sealed, dead, impervious museum of my appetite. This is the brutal solitude of constipation, this is the way the world is lost.

excerpt from:
Beautiful Losers
by Leonard Cohen

Q2P or Bombay Belly-2

2006-08-17T10:12:00.000-07:00

In case any of you are in Bombay tomorrow...

Q2P
(Documentary, 55 minutes, DV, English, Hindi)

LOOK AT THE
TOILET ...
... SEE THE CITY

Director: PAROMITA VOHRA
Producer: PUKAR
Camera: AJAY NORONHA
Editing: JABEEN MERCHANT
Sound: ANITA KUSHWAHA and SAMINA MISHRA
Animation: SHILPA RANADE
Music: TARUN SHAHANI and NIRAV GANDHI

When:
FRIDAY 18 AUGUST 2006 at 6.30 p.m.

Where:
Little Theatre
National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA)
Nariman Point, Mumbai 400021

About the Film:

Q2P peers through the dream of a futuristic Bombay and and finds...
public toilets... not enough of them....

Q2P is a film about toilets and the city. It sifts through the dream of
Mumbai as a future Shanghai and searches for public toilets, watching
who has to queue to pee. As the film observes who has access to toilets
and who doesn’t, we begin to also see the imagination of gender that
underlies the city’s shape, the constantly shifting boundaries between
public and private space; we learn of small acts of survival that people
in the city’s bottom half cobble together and quixotic ideas of social
change that thrive with mixed results; we hear the silence that
surrounds toilets and sense how similar it is to the silence that
surrounds inequality. The toilet becomes a riddle with many answers and
some of those answers are questions – about gender, about class, about
caste and most of all about space, urban development and the twisted
myth of the global metropolis.

About the Director:

PAROMITA VOHRA is a filmmaker and writer. Her films as director include
Where’s Sandra, Work In Progress, Cosmopolis: Two Tales of A City,
Unlimited Girls, A Short Film About Time, A Woman’s Place and Annapurna:
Goddess of Food. Her films as writer include the feature Khamosh Pani,
and the documentaries A Few Things I Know About Her, and If You Pause:
In A Museum of Craft and Skin Deep. She teaches scriptwriting as
visiting faculty at the Sophia Polytechnic and is a PUKAR Associate.

And now for something completely different (not!)...

2006-08-10T12:50:00.000-07:00

check this out:

Excellent transport idea

2006-08-04T07:34:00.000-07:00

This should solve offog's problems nicely.

Bombay Belly

2006-06-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

Friends, it is with a heavy heart-and stomach-that I make the following announcement:

There are no loos in Bombay.

In any case, there are no loos in the best eateries in Bombay.

At least, in the Colaba area.

It almost seems to be an unwritten rule in maximum city that the better the food the less chance you have of rushing off to the WC as soon as you have stuffed yourself to the gills.

A random and by no means exhaustive roll-call of eateries without loos: Martin's (Goan), Theobroma (confectioneries), Olyampia [sic] (Mughlai), Cafe Churchill (continental), Baghdadi's (Iranian and Mughlai), Anantashram (Marathi), Cafe Ideal (continental breakfast).

If caught short in any of the top five, your best bet is to rush to Leopold's or Mondegar's, both spitting distance away from Regal Cinema. Anantashram is in somebody's house so you could try being nice to them, though I doubt that it would work.

As for Cafe Ideal, there is always the Arabian Sea.

How about this, then?

2006-06-22T04:39:00.000-07:00

The great Shonedeep has spoken!

Somewhere in Jaipur

2006-06-16T12:39:00.000-07:00

"Only urinal. Sorry for invconenience due to litigation."

Needed: one loo preferably clean

2006-06-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

I was caught loo less today at elliot road and again at anwar shah.. any suggestions for later reference?

It couldnt get better

2006-05-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

Picture this. Your at a party. Getting a lil drunk. You are, say, middle aged. You are single. You havent had sex for a really long time. You look around you and you see couples getting it on everywhere. YOu start to twitch. You start to sweat.

And THEN you want to go to the loo.

You talking to me?

2006-05-27T20:47:00.000-07:00

On the travails of the female loo-goer

2006-05-27T02:38:00.000-07:00

And you thought peeing was a simple affair.

On the subject of sexist loos

2006-05-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

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.)

Loo-Lure!

2006-05-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

Image by FlamingText.com

The Writing on the Wall

2006-05-25T10:10:00.000-07:00

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....

2006-05-25T00:12:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

And now for something completely different.

2006-05-23T02:54:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

would you use this outdoor restroom?

Toilets of The Future

2006-05-22T02:41:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-22T01:32:00.000-07:00

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....

2006-05-21T19:03:00.000-07:00

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 .....

2006-05-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-18T08:31:00.000-07:00

You gotta read this!

Loo Read

2006-05-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

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

2006-05-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

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.

In the beginning

2006-04-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

The idea of a Good Loo Guide goes back almost 10 years, when I suggested it as a possible book to a friend who was then (and still is) in charge of commissioning new MSS for a well-known publishing house. You have restaurant guides, hotel guides, bar and pub guides—for all you know, even brothel guides (‘the sheets were clean, but there were two holes bored in the wall next to the bed’)—but no guide to the toilets of the world. Even the Hitch-Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, that indispensable vade-mecum for all interplanetary travellers, is strangely silent on this score. What does one do if one is in receipt of a sudden and urgent call of nature at midnight in, say, St Peter’s Square, Rome or Gariahater Mor, Calcutta? How does know which button to press for what in a public convenience in Kobe, Japan? How many minutes will elapse before the automatic door of a lavabo on Rue Moufftard swings open, exposing the occupant to the eyes of Gay Paree? What sort of pen is most suitable for writing graffiti on the walls of airport toilet cubicles? Is it possible to burnish wood with the toilet paper dispensed by the authorities at Otopeni Airport, Bucharest?

Questions of great pith and moment, you would think. But the men in grey who skulked in the S&M department of the publishing house (‘Sales and Marketing’, would you credit it?) nixed the proposal, saying they would not be able to sell the book, and besides, it would considerably lower the tone of their list! Huh!! Wait till you find yourself without a pot to piss in in a local train from Howrah to Rampurhat!!! (There is in fact such a train called Bamdeb Local between these two stations, notorious for its slowness and lack of loos. Technically, its engine is a DMU [Diesel Mechanical Unit] but is more popularly expanded as ‘Dada Moote Uthoon’ and ‘Didi Moote Uthben’. Note the extra courtesy extended to the dis of the species in the injunction.)

So, finally, almost after a decade of simmering on the back burner as it were, the Good Loo Guide is loosed upon the world, from a great height. The world will never be the same.

What will the GLG contain?

1. A list of loos for those inconvenient moments in time and space, in all the major world cities. If you have any loos to recommend, please post the location in the ‘Comments’ section, giving full details about opening hours, tariffs, softness of loo paper and so on.
2. A rating of all major loos, on a scale of one to five.
3. The loo in history: nothing less than a comprehensive history of toilets and its impact on human civilization.
4. Loo Read: what to read in the loo and what has been written about loos in world literature
5. Loos of the future: a loo(k) at what the future holds in store.

Let it begin.