Friday Grab Bag: In the Toilet Edition

I probably shouldn't go around whipping out my digital camera in public toilets, but I had to snap a photo of that sign. It's in the men's room in Oxford's Social Science Library on Manor Road. I just love that opening line: "There have been a lot of comments about the state of these toilets." You can just imagine the exasperated shrug that accompanied it. (For the record, the bathroom seemed fine while I was in there, though it is a bit small. It reminded me of a Japanese capsule hotel.)

Just Shoot Me
Then there's this display of books at the W.H. Smith's store on Cornmarket:


Tragic Life Stories! Buy One Get One Half Price! Get all your suicidal reading at a discount! And you've gotta love those titles: "Damaged," "Shame," "Alone," "Crying in the Dark"

I'm working on a book called "In-Grown Toenail" that I hope will make me a fortune.

BritNews RoundUp
What's the first rule of bigamy? I mean, after remembering to have more than one spouse. It's to keep your lives entirely separate. It just ain't gonna work otherwise. But Randolf Edge didn't quite grasp that, according to this story in the Daily Mail: "Bigamist caught out when he invited the same guest to BOTH his 'weddings.'" Whoops. By the way, I love the name of his two wives: Patience Carey and Edna Winkle.

I once stopped at the tourist office at Bradford on Avon just to ask how many visitors confused it with Stratford-Upon-Avon. About two or three a year, they said. Perhaps those are the same people who confused Newcastle-under-Lyme with Newcastle Upon Tyne. British bureaucrats accidentally gave 2.5 million pounds to the local government of the former when it was intended for the latter. Whoops.

I don't know how else to put this: Elephants in Australia are having pre-marital sex. A 9-year-old pachyderm at the Taronga Zoo is knocked up and animal activists are upset. It is, said a critic, "the equivalent of allowing your 12-year-old daughter to become pregnant." I like the comment a reader posted: "Where is the father in all this?"

I will resist the urge to comment on the elephant's name: Thong Dee.

Speaking of animals, how about this hardhitting expose from the BBC: "Secret lives of badgers revealed." The late-night boozing! The pre-marital sex! The welfare fraud!

Andrew Cooper, producer of a new BBC documentary on the critters, said: "Before we began filming I knew that there was a gap in our knowledge about badgers. When I spoke to one badger expert, I said to him: 'How much do we know about their life underground?,' and he simply held up a blank piece of paper."

But now, thanks to the nosy BBC, the badgers have no secrets.

Gargoyle(s) of the Week
Gargoyle-on-gargoyle action!


These gargoyles--the gargoyles that dare not speak their name--adorn the side of Magdalen College. Although, on second thought, maybe that one on the left is a woman.

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading. Here's hoping your life story isn't too tragic.