Today I was working in a box-office where I had never worked before, located by the Tower of London.
Believe it or not, this place suddenly raised childhood memories involving my grandparents – my British grandparents, on my Mum’s side – which had nothing to do with seeing the crown jewels, stalking the Queen’s funny-looking guards to get to be pictured with them, or crying to get to walk on Tower Bridge. Nah. I got my flashback in the toilets.
There is, by the Tower of London, one of those modern high-tech infrastructures – like the Louvre’s Grande-Pyramide complex, the new British Museum circulation hall, the London Eye’s County Hall… -- aimed at swallowing and spitting tourists in a more efficient, industrial, or to put it in a single word, capitalist way. And so, accordingly to the premises, modern toilets, or two large corridors leading to two opposite bathrooms: the little girls’ and the little boys’ rooms – for obvious reasons I have not visited the latter. The Ladies is an absolutely gigantic square room, with loos on the four sides, and four rows of sinks and dryers in the middle. Flush, tap and dryer are, obviously, automated. The place is strikingly bare of any mirror – have you ever seen Ladies worthy of the name without mirrors?! I believe this is to emphasise the productivity in chain-weeing and pooing, as no time is wasted checking hairdos, make up, or popping zits. ‘Ladies, let’s get straight to the point: WEE!’.
All very high tech you would say.
Except for…
… the crucial moment between wee and flush:
the toilet paper
is
literally
toilet
PAPER.
Gasp. Ewww. Argh. Yep, like in the ‘good ol’ times’!
The fact that I urgently needed to blow my nose – remember, I’m recovering from a sticky cold which makes me snore glamorously at night- did markedly heighten my feeling of unease. I needed to blow my nose in this bleedin’ toilet paper and so did I. Eww. Icky.
Later, while drying my hands under the ‘woooshing’ modern jet-powered dryers, I wondered incredulously why English Heritage spends so much money on high-tech-super-efficient-wow!-loos … to spoil everything by using cheap toilet paper.
But as soon as my fingers recognised the unforgivable feeling of toilet paper, memories of my late yet beloved Nana and Grandad – bless them – whose generosity only matched their financial modesty, popped into my mind.
My childhood holidays in Crawley, Sussex, were synonym of countless visits of various castles and churches, feeding swans in gorgeous English gardens, going on rides on Brighton Pier, mimicking the adults playing Canasta by playing ‘Uno’ with my brother, watching Neighbours (or rather hiding between the wall and the couch during Neighbours. I can’t find any rational explanation for why I loved spending time there), taking the piss out of the ‘crazy neighbour’ who was mowing his lawn at least twice a day (even more in rainy weather), collecting Garfield memorabilia, playing with my mum’s, uncles’ and aunt’s old wood toys, sneaking downstairs early every morning to scare the milkman, going on old steam trains, visiting Legoland, eating my Nana’s delicious muffins and scones every evening and rice krispies every morning and …. toilet paper. I guess that was something common at the time in England; or maybe common in families who really could not afford any extras (although my brother and I never lacked anything and were rather spoilt by my grandparents).I spent the rest of the day in a kind of Twilight-Zone, in between 1988-Crawley and 2006-Tower, staring blankly at customers with a stupid smile.
Believe it or not, this place suddenly raised childhood memories involving my grandparents – my British grandparents, on my Mum’s side – which had nothing to do with seeing the crown jewels, stalking the Queen’s funny-looking guards to get to be pictured with them, or crying to get to walk on Tower Bridge. Nah. I got my flashback in the toilets.
There is, by the Tower of London, one of those modern high-tech infrastructures – like the Louvre’s Grande-Pyramide complex, the new British Museum circulation hall, the London Eye’s County Hall… -- aimed at swallowing and spitting tourists in a more efficient, industrial, or to put it in a single word, capitalist way. And so, accordingly to the premises, modern toilets, or two large corridors leading to two opposite bathrooms: the little girls’ and the little boys’ rooms – for obvious reasons I have not visited the latter. The Ladies is an absolutely gigantic square room, with loos on the four sides, and four rows of sinks and dryers in the middle. Flush, tap and dryer are, obviously, automated. The place is strikingly bare of any mirror – have you ever seen Ladies worthy of the name without mirrors?! I believe this is to emphasise the productivity in chain-weeing and pooing, as no time is wasted checking hairdos, make up, or popping zits. ‘Ladies, let’s get straight to the point: WEE!’.
All very high tech you would say.
Except for…
… the crucial moment between wee and flush:
the toilet paper
is
literally
toilet
PAPER.
Gasp. Ewww. Argh. Yep, like in the ‘good ol’ times’!
The fact that I urgently needed to blow my nose – remember, I’m recovering from a sticky cold which makes me snore glamorously at night- did markedly heighten my feeling of unease. I needed to blow my nose in this bleedin’ toilet paper and so did I. Eww. Icky.
Later, while drying my hands under the ‘woooshing’ modern jet-powered dryers, I wondered incredulously why English Heritage spends so much money on high-tech-super-efficient-wow!-loos … to spoil everything by using cheap toilet paper.
But as soon as my fingers recognised the unforgivable feeling of toilet paper, memories of my late yet beloved Nana and Grandad – bless them – whose generosity only matched their financial modesty, popped into my mind.
My childhood holidays in Crawley, Sussex, were synonym of countless visits of various castles and churches, feeding swans in gorgeous English gardens, going on rides on Brighton Pier, mimicking the adults playing Canasta by playing ‘Uno’ with my brother, watching Neighbours (or rather hiding between the wall and the couch during Neighbours. I can’t find any rational explanation for why I loved spending time there), taking the piss out of the ‘crazy neighbour’ who was mowing his lawn at least twice a day (even more in rainy weather), collecting Garfield memorabilia, playing with my mum’s, uncles’ and aunt’s old wood toys, sneaking downstairs early every morning to scare the milkman, going on old steam trains, visiting Legoland, eating my Nana’s delicious muffins and scones every evening and rice krispies every morning and …. toilet paper. I guess that was something common at the time in England; or maybe common in families who really could not afford any extras (although my brother and I never lacked anything and were rather spoilt by my grandparents).I spent the rest of the day in a kind of Twilight-Zone, in between 1988-Crawley and 2006-Tower, staring blankly at customers with a stupid smile.
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