Gone a bit loo-py today
Still wading through my Rhodes photos, such as they are, and I thought I’d share some again today. I found one of the inside of a public loo.
I have to admit, I don’t think I have ever taken a photo inside a public toilet before and I have not taken that many outside one, but I happened to have my camera in my pocket when the need arose. If you are in a café or eatery in the old fish market in Rhodes, you find that not many places have their own WC and you need to use the public ones under the bandstand (which is not a bandstand, though it looks like one). Years ago, these facilities were somewhere to the south of pleasant and were not well maintained at all. Nowadays though they are looked after, clean, they have locks and seats (unlike many WCs in this here part of the world) and they only coast you 50c for as long as you need. And now they come with entertainment.
By the way, I am speaking of the gents here, as I have not been into the ladies. I imagine that ladies’ loos are always much more civilised affairs. I imagine there is less avoiding eye contact to be done and they are much more sociable affairs. Whether you get a seat and a lock is another matter and please don’t drop me a line to let me know; some things are better left in the imagination. Anyway, in the gents now you can stand and do your business while watching small monitors at eye level. When I was there last I was treated to what are now called ‘fails’, those home videos you used to see on shown like ‘America’s Funniest Videos’ and ‘You’ve Been Framed.’ Which, from what I’ve seen, should be retitled ‘America’s Loudest Canned Laughter’ and ‘You’ve Been Superseded By Mildly Less-Trite Rubbish.’
A quick aside: I hate canned laugher. I recently tried to watch a British TV comedy show that I thought I would like as it was about a literary character. I turned it off after five minutes because of the ‘laughter.’ It’s not so much the sound, but the fact that I don’t understand what ‘people’ were laughing at. I mean, does the following dialogue make you howl?
‘What’s your name then?’ [Silent, expectant pause.]
‘They call me Will.’ [Mild laughter.]
‘Will what?’ [Taped sniggering.]
‘Will do anything.’ [Canned laughter at around 87% as that was soooo funny.]
‘I bet you will.’ [Screams of joyous mirth, people hysterical with humour being carried off fighting for breath…]
I mean, what’s funny about any of that?
Far funnier is standing in a public loo watching people crashing their skateboards and crushing their family jewels while trying to show off, falling face first into swimming pools, being knocked over by dogs and generally losing all self-respect by being utter twats. Now that’s what I call WC entertainment.
And I had no idea I was going to write that as I sat down to show you photos from Rhodes, but next time you are there, make sure you do the full Rhodes tour: the train, the bus the castle, the sites, the aquarium and the TVs in the men’s public toilets. As for the ladies, well, I know that the gents don’t have these screens on the back of their cubicle doors (if they did I would be there for hours with my giros and my frappe laughing my head off at other people’s misfortunes) but maybe they do in the ladies. Further investigation needed, perhaps.
