Other Useful (?) Toilet Links

Toilet Museums, On-line Exhibits, and How-To Pages

• The Sulabh International Museum of Toilets in New Delhi, India is run by Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, Ph.D., D.Litt., the founder of a non-profit sanitation organization. The web page includes the "elaborate drill for defecation" as prescribed in the scripture Manusmriti Vishnupuran.

• What about the latrines in Titan I ICBM complexes? The Toilets of Doom were shock-mounted like everything else in the facility — pipes, conduits, fixtures, etc., were required to have 6 to 12 inches of space to move and anything mounted to the floor or any other surface had to have its own suspension system. This was to help the system withstand near hits from inbound Soviet counter-battery ICBMs. See their recent pictures of now-vandalized intercontinental ballistic toilets.

• Christine Powell's A Matter of Convenience explains the historical background of sanitation in the 17th century.

• An interactive privy excavation news source covering toiletological archaeology, or perhaps archaeological toiletology.

• Perhaps your question is "I want to know how to use a squat toilet, and I would prefer the explaination to be in the form of cartoon figures." See this page, which I would guess is from a hostel in India.

• What if you want to ask "Where is the toilet?" in some other language? Ask the Travlang.com site. I have received complaints that they don't list enough languages (!!) or that the precise semantics for the Farsi is a bit off (!!!), but complain to them and not to me.

• The Himeji City Science Museum (in Himeji, Japan) created the exhibit Za Unchi-ten (or The Poop Exhibit) showcasing the dung of 100 animals and exploring the relationship between feces and health. The museum's site is, naturally enough, in Japanese, but here is an English description.

• Jochen Zeh was working on an art project that would "draw a line made of sparkling white toilets into a green, hilly field of upcoming wheat" in Tuscany. All he needed was: "Somebody who will lend me 200 toilets for one or two weeks. A photographer specialized in landscape and architectural photos. A magazine who will publish the photos." Unsurprisingly, this project seems to have failed. It was once discussed here and here

• Someone is trying to "collect the largest collection of weird and wonderful toilets and may even publish the pics", so if you want to help, email them: bogpics-owner@yahoogroups.co.uk or bogpics@yahoogroups.co.uk

Home Improvement

• Appeal Blinds — Specializing in conservatory blinds, motorized blinds, soloar blinds, etc

Plumbers and Plumbing Directories

• Plumbing Directory, "your ultimate plumbing directory of local plumbing contractors" — http://www.aplumbers.com

• Plumber Los Angeles provides residential, commercial and 24/7 emergency plumbing services in the Greater Los Angeles area — http://www.plumbers-los-angeles.com

• Phoenix Plumber provides emergency commercial & residential plumbing services in Phoenix, Arizona — http://www.plumber-phoenix.com

Buying and Repairing Toilet Hardware and Related Items

• Answering the question, "But what if my existing toilet provides inadequate radiological contrast when the patient eliminates waste in a normal position?" and introducing the obscure term defecography: Build your own radiological commode! There used to be one of those for sale at http://www.neocast.net/2147415262.html, but that domain has disappeared.
• On the other hand, if your question is more like "But what if I am so grotesquely obese that I need a specially designed toilet to support my quivering bulk?", then check out the Big John Toilet Seat and Support Company. Their toilets are tested to a weight capacity of a a 1,200-pound load! And by "1,200-pound load" they mean over a half-ton of flesh upon its extra-wide seat, and not, ah, you know what I mean. They seem to have taken the market niche formerly held by the Great John Toilet Company, which marketed a unit tested to a full ton, 2,000 pounds!
• Rainwater Tanks Australia — Grumpyb Water Tanks, one of the leading online water tank suppliers in Australia offers high quality water tank accessories, rain water tanks, water pumps, poly tanks, raised garden beds, slimline water tanks in different shape and sizes. As they are water tank volume sellers, offer the best prices and free delivery services in Australia including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and NSW.
• Exeloo manufactures automated self-cleaning public toilets with automatic toilet paper dispensers.
• Envirolet manufactures a composting toilet that looks disturbingly like a wood stove, and they encourage owners to send in photos of theirs.
• John M. Tootabeanie operates letterfromjohn.com, and prints restroom graffiti on t-shirts. Buy shirts! Contribute designs! Buy shirts!
• Toiletology 101 is a web site dedicated to toilet repair.
• This Old Toilet hosts the toilet tank lid replacement service, selling used and salvaged toilet tank lids from 1929 through today in a variety of colors. Really.
• TSU-Tech specializes in Japanese advanced technology toilet seats, computer-controlled misting units etc.
• Aquatron sells a composting toilet system: "two medium-sized Aquatron models were at the end of 1999 installed in a cabin on a mountain top in the Swedish mountains. The cabin belongs to the Swedish Tourist Association, the national organization for Tourism in Sweden. It was reported that several skiing tourists during the Easter Holidays were astonished when finding modern WC facilities at this altitude. Especially these cabins have been renown for primitive latrines."
• The Bumper Dumper is a low-tech portable toilet mounted on a trailer hitch.
• The Stadium Pal is an external catheter and leg-mounted collection bag for use while watching sporting events.

Toilet News and Stories

• Gizmodo had an article on The Long, Unglamorous History of the Toilet, covering:
  • The Skara Brae settlement in Orkney in 3500 BC and the Harrapa civilization in today's India in 3000 BC had toilets that drained into nearby water and subterranean clay chambers, respectively.
  • The public latrines of Rome, as at Rome itself, Britannia, Oplontis, Pompeii, and western Byzantium.
  • The horrors of the lack of plumbing in the European Dark Ages through Medieval times.
  • The first patent for a flushing toilet, awarded to Scottish inventor Alexander Cummings in 1775.
  • The 19th century English plumber coincidentally named Thomas Crapper, who did a lot to popularize the flushing toilet but did not invent it.

• Time magazine had a story in March 2009 about a toilet-themed restaurant in Taiwan. "Modern Toilet" it's called, and it's now a chain with seven outlets in Taiwan, one each in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and plans for others elsewhere in China and in Macau and Kuala Lumpur.

• Speaking of toilets and food, a Japanese scientist has announced creating a protein-based "meat" product from human feces. "Mr. Ikeda claims that in initial testing people found the feces steak to taste somewhat like beef." Sounds like a job for the Soylent Corporation!

• In the build-up to the Olympic games in Beijing, according to the BBC in March, 2008: "China is rushing to install sit-down loos for its 500,000 foreign Olympics visitors, after complaints that venues had only Asian-style squat toilets. A lack of Western-style facilities was a common complaint after some 30 test events at Games venues, officials said. 'A lot of parties have raised the question of toilets... We have told the venues to improve on this,' said Yao Hui, deputy head of venue management." Yikes, a lack of raised porcelain commodes! Much worse than China's awful human rights record, no?

• No, Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet, although he was quite the plumber and businessman. See this nicely footnoted page for thorough debunking of this urban legend. The verb "to crap", meaning "to defecate", has been in use since 1846, when Thomas Crapper was only nine years old. However, his company is on the net today.

• The Internet holds umpteen copies of a story about a USN air mission against Vietnam. They were running short of ordnance but at the same time commemorating the 6-millionth pound of ordnance dropped (well, if you're dropping it by the millions of pounds, you're going to run out before long). A toilet had been damaged on board the USS Midway, and was going to be thrown overboard. The ordnance crew made a rack, tailfins, and nose fuse for it, and it was mounted on an A-1 Skyraider of VA-25. It was then dropped in the Delta area of South Vietnam. Ask Google to search for the standard title of the account:
  "what the hell was on 572's right wing"

• A woman in western Kansas (USA) sat on her boyfriend's toilet for two years until she became stuck to it and had to be removed by medical personnel, as reported in the International Herald-Tribune.

• While I have been to the summit of Ben Nevis, the highest point in Britain (and thus the highest point in Scotland, and the highest point in the UK), it was just after the Highest Toilet in Britain (and Scotland, and the UK...) was demolished. See the John Muir Trust's pictures and story.

• Las Vegas Weekly had a story about casino urinals in July, 2009.

Toilet Maps and Locators, and iTunes and iPhone apps

Unless you make unusually detailed preparations for trips, or you travel only where you can maintain constant wireless Internet connectivity, some of these seem to be of limited use. But....

• The Poo Log is an iPhone app based on the book "What's Your Poo Telling You?" There are even YouTube videos.

• Where to Wee is an iTunes application available for download from Apple's on-line store.

• The Bathroom Diaries has the most detailed traveler-submitted directory of public-accessible toilets I've found. It lists toilets in over 120 countries, including over 9000 in the U.S.

• The Australian National Public Toilet Map describes itself as "A project of the National Continence Management Strategy". That's an unusual and admirable government strategy!

• "Where to 'Go' in the Great Outdoors" is a pamphlet for trekkers in Scotland. This includes the extremely rare British Isles Squatter! A free copy of the pamphlet is available (if you're in the U.K., anyway).

• Philippe Dorcourt has built a web site of public toilets in Paris.

Other collections of pictures, and stories, and other odds and ends

• Ode to a Composting Toilet, a poem about, well, a certain composting toilet.
• The Toilet Paper Blog is a somewhat travel-themed and entirely toilet-focused blog, soliciting your contributions along the same lines.
• WC International is a toiletological blog.
• The Toilet Nation web site shows toilets, toilet seats, toilet info, and news.
• The World Toilet web site covers many countries with detailed analysis.
• And in the specialized world of French toilets:
  • The French Toilet Zone site.
  • Het Hurk Toilet (that being Dutch for "Squatter") is a guide to French toilets for Dutch travelers.
• theplumber.com — Links to many other toiletological sites.
• Crappers Quarterly — Only quarterly for now, but perhaps bimonthly in the near future!
• Multimedia gallery of images "from our lavatorial heritage."
• Toilets of Barga, Tuscany, Italy.
• Three dirty toilets in Tokyo, Japan.
• Nick's toilet guide

Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box."

In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.

Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.

Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.

Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.

If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):

• Travel suggestions
• To Bob's main site