Just back from a week on Rab Island, Croatia, home of numerous family holidaying “large” Germans and some other nationalities - well worth visiting for this alone of course - and also cool place with secret and not-so-secret nudi beaches, super climate, friendly people (if you get away from the hordes) and of course completely imaginary saltfly fishing, although to be honest I didn't imagine very much because I did a lot of swimming and could tell it was going to be hard going even for the most imaginative angler. And so this Vortex is about toilets.

The reason this Vortex is about toilets is because the campground where we were staying, thanks to some family friends of Babuska's who very kindly lent us their caravan for the week but forgot to tell us where it was exactly (and about the interesting company), had toilet paper holders not in the toilet cubicle as one would expect, but outside the toilet cubicle FFS. And so you had to gauge how much toilet paper you thought you were going to need before “having the dump” (we're all flyfishers here and therefore men and women of the world; further embellishments to us are unnecessary). If this was a method of ensuring that the guests would use less toilet paper, no doubt by running out, then it didn't work in my case and quite literally as well as metaphorically backfired.

So it got me thinking about toilets in general and I thought I'd share some those thoughts with you. The best toilet, numero uno, the golden toilet bowl as it were, ironically has no bowl, but instead a hole and is as nature intended: a view, country air and hopefully solitude (for me anyway, I know some people get off on this stuff, but they're obviously not flyfishers; we enjoy rubber, landing nets and hardcore S&M bondage). It's very important to remember the shovel, since there's nothing worse than finding someone else has been there before you - it's not particularly finding a turd that bothers me - lots of animals go outside and being outdoor flyfishing types we can usually recognise the animal not only by its footprints but also the shape and size of its turd and it's the same with humans - so no, what bothers me the most is toilet paper; used toilet paper is far from pleasant.

Here's a outdoor loo tip for you: in Lapland and other mosquito ridden places, the best, safest and most enjoyable place to dig your private hole, is not in the gullies or hidden away in the scrub, but instead a-top the most exposed hill you can find. Try it; you'll love it.

Number two, for number two, is your own personal home toilet. Now I don't actually have a home to speak of, nor a toilet, but friends' toilets are pretty good and must come close to owning your own. The very best ones are English and American; the toilets where you get to make a direct hit into the water. I know it makes a noise, and there is potential for getting wet, but the toilets that you find in Germany and Hungary for example, where you evacuate onto a porcelain ledge and then flush it nearly all away, quite frankly have a serious design flaw, for not only does the room smell so bad that no one can enter for the next hour or two without a gasmask but also they require cleaning with the brush, every time - I mean what the hell is that about? Am I sitting on them backwards?

Moving down, or possibly up, the scale are those toilets where you squat perilously over a hole while hanging onto the door - in Thailand perhaps - and then instead of reaching for toilet paper, you reach for a bucket of water, with a scoop. Or else a hose. Sometimes these toilets are a better experience than the sit-down type, depending on whether the last person forgot to sit down, but I still haven't figured out how you're meant to walk away dry.

There are others of course, for example the New Zealand “Long Drop”, the public toilets in West Yellowstone, Montana (the ones just outside the park information centre), bum over the edge of a small sailing boat in the middle of the ocean, the trains in Hungary (something you definitely don't ever want to do by the way). As well as your own personal favourites.

And so, how does this all help you catch bigger fish, you're wondering?

Well, while sitting on the John last week I invented a cunning plan to integrate SL membership with Snapcast and our shopping partners. Sexyloops helping you even when we're meditating. More shortly...

Cheers,
Paul

30.06.08