08-03-2025
The murky yet fascinating world of the toilet
Contrary to public opinion, Thomas Crapper did not invent the toilet. He did however open the world's first bath, toilet and sink showroom in 1850.
So why start a column with such a titbit of trivia? Well, I recently wrote a column about awards and was struck, not literally, by the loo of the year award (note: there is a rival 'toilet of the year award'). Nominations for toilets outside the homestead can be made and OFSTED style unannounced visits are undertaken to judge your latrine on cleanliness, décor, signage, and customer care.
The centre, Livingston, flew the flag this year and, looking back at all of the winners since the inaugural award in 1987, I was surprised to see I had visited a few of the winners, with one used when I dropped the kids off at the pool, literally, on a visit to Peppa Pigs Paulton's Park (2021 winners).
Other winners, inextricably include the Wetherspoons pub chain. Having undertaken the hike numerous times (why are they all a 6km round trip from the bar?), I found nothing award worthy, in spite of the hourly 'this toilet had been cleaned by' Dave at 11.15am poster on the back of the door which I'm sure are pre-populated days in advance.
On a micro scale, there are localised awards. The Lewisham community toilet scheme, recently rebranded themselves as 'Loowisham' and awarded the Corbett community library first place with a golden bog brush trophy which looks suspiciously like the original Jules Rimet.
Despite this being a jocular theme from the column outset, the further I reach into the pan, the more I become enamoured by our porcelain friends. There seems to be a psychology with toilets.
I remember watching 'Cracker' and Robbie Coltrane ascertained that a man, bludgeoned to death by a hammer whilst at the urinal, must have had someone else in the toilet at the same time as he didn't use the end trough (its an animalistic thing to feel protected from one side apparently).
It is true though, when visiting, us gentlemen always go for the corner. Studies have shown the first toilet is the least used, and hence the most hygienic and therefore you are less likely to get ill should you use that one.
Grossly, only five per cent of people wash their hands for the recommended 15 seconds and the average adult spends a total of three years of their life sitting on the pan.
The average human apparently visits the bog 2,500 times annually and the amount of time spend on the throne is directly related to the number of apps we have on our smartphones.
I often get angry when visiting and see the previous incumbent hasn't flushed, but I now understand having read that the average toilet flush handle has 40,000 germs per square inch.
Factoids aside, it is a serious business. The British Toilet Association campaigns for better toilets through their consultancy services and are sponsored by the unfortunately named 'Reckitt' solutions.
It does become sinister however when ramping up the anti and reading the world toilet association blurb where they state more than a quarter of the world's population lack basic sanitation which is a public health emergency in any language.
With one of their advisors aptly named 'Royce Wee,' their movement is, nobly, to ensure the one billion people who practice 'open defecation' don't have to, and with a child dying every two minutes from diarrhoea, to ensure access to sanitation is a human right, not a want.
And so, with the monotony of middle aged firmly ingrained in my chi, I may delve further into this murky yet fascinating world and make it a mission to visit the ten most recent 'toilets of the year' and feed back my findings, not that you're interested.
Still, it will give me opportunity to flush away the hours as I continue to overcome the trauma of using the medicated Izal toilet paper which was favoured by my grandparent's generation, and which left your under carriage looking as crimson as a low rent slaughterhouse…
Brett Ellis is a teacher
