Comments on: Waiting

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 05:23:34 +0000

That would be ‘use’ the cubicle, not ’sue’ it….. although I’ve seen plenty of cubicles in my time that were very offensive and should have been charged with some offence or other….

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 05:20:00 +0000

It’s a regular occurance at the races during Spring Carnival…. plenty of well lubricated gals ducking into the gents bathroom. (or “loo”, “crapper”, “dunny” “insert word of choice’).

I also had a vaguely uncomfortable wee in a bathroom at a petrol station just outside Amsterdam. Very relaxed attitude to nudity the Dutch. The men’s urinals were actually against a wall in a communal bathroom with the mens and womens ’sit down’ dunnys in cubicles at one end. So I was standing up having a wee when two women walked in and waited to sue the cubicle standing right behind me and having a chatter.

By: FDB

FDB — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:49:23 +0000

“At music festivals like the Big Day Out females use the male toilets all the time.”

The ultimate toilet festivals are Meredith/Golden Plains (same venue). Either side of the stage, heading back towards the camping areas, they’ve got open-air urinals about 15 metres long that just leach into the groundwater, then about 30 unisex cubicles in a C-shaped design, on decking. Each toilet just drops straight into a wheelie bin, and each time you use it you chuck a scoop of sawdust down after your business. They use no water or chemicals, they don’t smell bad (even on day 3!), the bins are emptied into a truck that leaves 3 or 4 times over the festival to a nearby farm where the whole lot is composted. And over 3 days of festival I’ve never seen a queue for the urinals at all, and only ever waited 2 or 3 minutes for a sit-down.

They also do pretty good music, but it’s worth the price of admission just to piss and shit there.

By: Jacques de Molay

Jacques de Molay — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 10:36:02 +0000

At music festivals like the Big Day Out females use the male toilets all the time. I think it’s pretty poor if you consider the fact what would happen if a guy did the reverse at such festivals, with the heavy security he’d probably be arrested or at the least accused of something.

Anyway, cute photo of the little kitties!

By: The Worst of Perth

The Worst of Perth — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:26:53 +0000

Yeah, but WHERE is this small bar in Perth?

By: fatfingers

fatfingers — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:30:17 +0000

Pavlov and Joe2, I’m actually kind of pleased I didn’t know about the current state of the art in female upright peeing technology. But thanks anyway!

By: amphibious

amphibious — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 10:45:49 +0000

SATP -sadly I hear “step up to the plate” constantly from politicians, also “whole new ball game” and “ballpark figure”.
I found “loo” in the 60s to be a Sloane Ranger word that the sarf London dolly birds took up instead of the cumbersome “spend a penny”. Presumably enough Oz gels on the Grand Tour adopted it in preference to ‘dunny’ but why Oz men use it I don’t know.
Brian - I think “thuderbox” originally referred to the fold & carry commodes used by Raj officers on campaigns, with the decibel level varying according to region, vindaloo, kedgeree, garum masala or the dreaded chapatti & dahl, probably now classified as a WMD.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:09:25 +0000

Men’s toilets SMELL

Yep, Casey, that’s the loos @ Rics!

By: Casey

Casey — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 07:55:44 +0000

“I was shocked once to see an enterprising woman emerge out of the cubicle in the boy’s loo @ Rics while I was at the urinal”

Oh Mark,it was probably me.I have a habit of walking into the wrong toilets after a few reds.

After closing the door of my cubicle and settling in, the first thing that alerts me Im in the wrong place is the smell. Men’s toilets SMELL. The second thing that alerts me is the sound of a steady stream pinging off metal. Generally, when in such situations, I slowly raise my high heels and wait until the noise stops. When I hear the tap running I charge out. All the guy generally sees is a blur on heels.

I get back to my seat in time to see the unhappy dude rush out of the loo,looking left and right, and shivering like someone just walked over his grave.

Its always funny. Im always pissed my girlfriends dont come in and let me know either.

But its true - no lines! Guys dont use the cubicles very much.

By: joe2

joe2 — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 07:12:46 +0000

Yes, fatfingers, it is a mistake to imagine that inventors have not been banging away at exciting new female urinal devices in her or his shed, both portable or fixed, for ages.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/festivalvulture/2007/06/24/spotted_at_glastonbury_the_she.html

http://www.popgadget.net/2005/07/to_sit_or_not_t.php

By: Pavlov's Cat

Pavlov's Cat — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:10:57 +0000

Of course, someone could just invent a female urinal

Oh, but someone has!

By: fatfingers

fatfingers — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 06:06:23 +0000

“I’m not aware of any research, however, into the relative capacities of men’s and women’s bladders”

Men’s are actually larger, though the amount of daily urine is roughly equivalent. Because of this, women go to the toilet more often, but pee less. Research (that probably shouldn’t have been funded) controlling for types of drinks, etc, backs this up.

Someone in the rent-a-loo industry told me best practice is a 3:2 ratio for women’s and men’s facilities, because women take longer. Women take longer because they favour a seated position and use of toilet paper, clothing design, and tendency to wash their hands more often.

Of course, someone could just invent a female urinal

By: Tony T

Tony T — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:11:21 +0000

Please. The correct pro-noun-ciation is “torlet”.

By: John Greenfield

John Greenfield — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 03:24:28 +0000

Anna

This a fabulous piece of anthropological research! I have always been fascinated by the mechanics of gendered loo queues. You know if you actually put together a small team and submitted this hypothesis to scholarly standards of data collection and analysis it would make a cracker of a paper and win you instant fame and notoriety. It would not be very difficult to do. Perhaps I could be your co-researcher!

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:42:56 +0000

Never used to do it myself. Smoke gets up your nose while you’re smoking and then you sneeze and then - disaster! Quite embarrasing walking up the street afterwards.

By: su

su — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:36:11 +0000

If I wos their mothers I’d peg ‘em out to dry and make them smoke them down to the filter!

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:32:28 +0000

Su @ 36
Because they finish their smoke while they’re having a piss?

By: su

su — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:25:37 +0000

I say ‘loo’ if we are doing a poll. Never bathroom, though we used to call ours the ‘throne room’.

This thread has everything: Tom Petty and Gerald Durrell - I am back in my childhood! The old house I lived in had a magnificant loo. You had to ascend a concrete dais and the chain was miles above my head. The peeling paint on the opposite wall made interesting shapes to muse over; there was a cat and the fish- headed messenger from Tenniel’s Alice.

Why do chaps throw cigarette butts into urinals, is this a thing of the past? I used to clean when I was at uni and those butts were horrible to deal with.

By: Pavlov's Cat

Pavlov's Cat — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:47:20 +0000

A friend who’d lived in New York for some years took a while to work out that if, here in Adelaide, she asked a waitperson for the ‘washroom’ she would get nothing but a puzzled stare.

I say loo or ladies’ or ladies’ loo. I’ve always resisted ‘lavatory’ precisely because it was supposed to be genteel. The etymology of ‘lavatory’, of course, is more or less ‘place to wash’. But this isn’t about etymology.

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:18:45 +0000

On the farm it was always “dunny” I think, though “thunder box” was not unknown.