Tuesday 6 February 2007

FOREIGN INCONVENIENCES

What is it about the French and toilets? I mean, they invented the bidet - and, indeed, there are rumours that Marie Antoinette conducted audiences seated on hers - and yet public loos are either little better than a hole in the ground or, where they have the luxury of a pan, prefer not to bother with such trivialities as a lid or even a SEAT!

They also tend to be low down affairs, intended for acrobats for whom, presumably, limb-contorting squats are second nature when it comes to answering a call of nature…

On our recent trip to Paris, we stayed in hotel that despite lacking a bidet (the remnants of plumbing, glimpsed beneath a bathroom stool, showed where it had once sat) did have a properly designed lavatory pan…

Hurrah, I thought, till I discovered that I had been lured into a false state of confidence by a vindictive bathroom fitter with a grudge against tourists who had maliciously fastened the loo-roll holder at a distance from the pan where it could only be of use to a particularly long-armed orang-utan!

Medre!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gosh, Brian, that brings back lots of memories... I travelled a lot in France with my parents when I was little, in the 1960's.
My first acquaintance with a French "toilet" was disastrous... I came running out of there crying to my mother "Mummy, mummy, there aren't any toilets; just lots & lots of showers"!!!
Have you tried North Africa yet?

Frank W. Kelly said...

My worst experience with a toilet was in Australia, an outhouse on a ranch! It was horrific. Basically just just a bucket, all ready full to the brim and this giant yellow and black spider sitting in the corner, it wouldn't have been so bad except he asked me if I had a copy of todays paper. Giving the option I would have preferred to have called into Leatherfaces house and asked if I could use his loo!

Got your comment on my Nevermore blog! Thanks! I promise an invite to the premiere!!!

Brian Sibley said...

I have to say, Mr SCROOGE, I don't know how you managed in such an uncloseted situation! Or maybe you didn't...

No, SUZANNE, I've NOT "tried North Africa" for reasons that are surely obvious! I doubt if even 'Rick's Cafe' would have a decent loo...

And, as for FWKELLY's horror story of an outhouse outback in the Outback, the less-civilised areas of Oz are now also off my list of future holiday destinations!