Gallery: toilets of the world!

If you want to avoid heated arguments, never discuss religion, politics, or whether the toilet paper roll should go over or under

Al Yankovic

As someone who always has to change the paper roll if it’s going the wrong way (that is under, rather than the correct over), I can identify with that quote. And yet, here I am discussing that taboo topic!

First, a disclaimer. I don’t make a habit of photographing toilets! But the signs outside them are another matter and yes, sometimes even the toilets themselves just have to be captured. Inspired by a conversation with Annie of ‘The Adventures of Annie and Steven Berger’, here is a collection of some of the most amusing / interesting / downright bizarre ones I have come across on my travels.

What’s in a name?

The English seem to have an endless supply of words to describe this essential facility. Among our favourites are:

• Loo: probably our most-used word for toilet, this derived from the French phrase ‘guardez l’eau’, meaning ‘watch out for the water’, and goes back to a time when chamber pots were emptied out of the window on to the street below!
• Bog: this started life as ‘boghouse’, eighteenth century slang for the act of going to the toilet.
• John: taken from Sir John Harrington who was the inventor of the forerunner of the first flushing toilet.
• Netty: a popular term in the north east of England where pub drinkers, for example, will often excuse themselves from the group by announcing that they are ‘gannin’ to the netty’
• WC: short for ‘water closet’ and perhaps a more gentile choice compared to the above

Meanwhile our US friends seem shy of naming the actual function of these spaces, preferring ‘rest room’ or ‘bathroom’. These always strike me as slightly odd euphemisms, as I would want neither to rest nor to bathe in the toilet!

But I digress. Here, as promised, are some toilets of the world!

My feature photo is of the toilets at the Wilderspin National School Museum in Barton upon Humber, England, of which more in a future post …

Signposting the way …

Hover over any image to see where it was taken, and refresh the page if they don’t all load the first time

In the Spíler Biergarten, Budapest

In a B&B near Syracuse, Sicily

In the Esetleg Bistro, Budapest

In a restaurant in Paoay, Philippines

In a Chicago coffee shop

In a bar in Newcastle, north east England

In a service station near Indian Springs, Nevada

In the Diego Rivera Mural Museum, Mexico City

Now, let’s go inside …

As before, hover over any image to see the caption

In Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas

In the hire car hub at Las Vegas Airport

In a service station near Indian Springs, Nevada

In an Indian restaurant in London

In a restaurant in Ortigia, Sicily

In our rented apartment in Budapest

In the Panmunjomkwan Restaurant, DMZ, North Korea

And finally, I couldn’t post about toilets without including the most famous user thereof (or perhaps not?) in the world, Brussels’ Manneken Pis!

I wonder if Natalie will accept these toilet signs as public art?!