Out Of Sight: Public toilets

"The loo, the bog, the crapper, the pit, the dunny. Powder my nose, point Percy at the porcelain, visit the little boys’ room.

The toilet is an institution in British and Anglo-Saxon consciousness. Different parts of Britain offer different motifs for the place and the act, as do different parts of the US and Australia. The toilet, for all that it represents, at its base level, merely defecation and micturition, is democracy in action, or perhaps in motion. It is a symbol of equality, founded on bodily function. The toilet, especially the public toilet, is ingrained in British culture and British psyche. The late Marcus Merriman, an ebullient history professor at my university, wrote about the public toilet. More noted for his work on Mary Queen of Scots, this Anglophile American was nonetheless impressed enough by the English (and British) affinity with the public loo and its architecture to direct research into such a study. And rightly so. Though the magnificent glazed tiling of, for instance, London’s old Victorian stations has been widely vandalised by the arrival of sanitised whitewash and aluminium, the WC remains a visible sign of a history of public hygiene. But more than just a symbol, the public loo is a Briton’s right. Even if no relief is consciously required, a public toilet suddenly evokes a brain-to-bladder-or-bowel reaction that demands one “just nips to the loo”.

In Mallorca, there is no such heritage. If a national emblem of Great Britain were to be a public privy, the Mallorcan equivalent would be a tree or a wooded place, adorned preferably with an abundance of dock leaves. Or alternatively, it would be a bar or restaurant.

Need a public loo in Mallorca? Generally impossible. List three of the most frequent questions asked of tourist information offices, and among them will be “where’s the loo?”. The absence causes disorientation for the British tourist, used to getting a spatial bearing through the location of the nearest lav. For some, the non-availability is a sign of backwardness. Forget the preserved and restored historical monuments, the well-constructed and attractive marinas and promenades. These are nought in terms of achievement when set against the lack of a public pisser."

I wrote the foregoing five years ago, but felt it germane to reproduce it in honour of Palma town hall's debate as to the establishment of public lavs. It was the bit about preserved and restored historical monuments that I was reminded of when it emerged that the Association for the Revitalisation of Historic Centres had lobbied the town hall to ensure that any public lavs wouldn't actually be public. The association does not want the sight of WCs vulgarising or banalising old parts of Palma, and nor does the organisation overseeing Palma's grandiose 365 tourism plan.

As a consequence of this lobbying and of the ongoing debate, the town hall has decided to drop the idea of there being loos very obviously dotted around the city. Instead, the council is looking at the idea of housing loos in car parks. There will be loos, just that you won't be bumping into one as you make your way, for example, to the Cathedral's entrance. No vulgar toilets for us please, we're Mallorcan.

The conspicuous absence of the public loo raises the question as to why it is so rare in Mallorca. The reasons, one suspects, lie with hygiene issues in the past and also with the abundant supply of bars and cafés. It may well have been the case that bars were expected to double up as public loos, regardless of whether someone desperate for a leak bought anything, but it is no longer the case that bars willingly allow anyone to wander in off the street in order to make a pit-stop without also forking out for a drink that will demand that the same person has to then make a further bar pit-stop and go through the whole rigmarole again.

Some public loos have appeared in the past few years. One such is on the promenade in Puerto Alcúdia. While hackles are raised in Puerto Pollensa about the unsightliness of wooden cabins for nautical businesses to sell their services, no one much objected to the sudden appearance of some wooden loos in Alcúdia. When they were first put up, I did take a look inside the gents. I didn't actually go in, and nor did I need to. Had I needed to, I wouldn't have done. One trusts it doesn't have quite the same whiff that it used to have.

The merits of a public lavatory are no longer determined by their architectural design. The merits are purely to do with whether they are kept in sanitary conditions. One presumes that Palma town hall will ensure that they are, whichever car parks they end up in. The lobby against them being publicly visible was reasonable enough. The Brits may have been brought up with the public loo in highly visible locations, but there is much to be said for the fact that the loo, while not out of mind, should be out of sight.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

I Had To Chase The Sun

"Living abroad is a constant strain, because you don't know how the little things work."

This comes from a feature in "The Guardian". It is written by Alistair Fraser about his and his family's experience of moving to France. It has not been a happy time; it could just as easily have been written about Mallorca.

How the little things work. Where does one start? What are little things exactly? Registering at the town hall; registering at the foreign affairs office; getting an NIE number without which nothing much can be done; finding a gestor to help you; registering for a doctor; getting the kids into school; sorting the telephone line out (at least Telefonica have an English helpline); getting an internet account; re-registering the car if it has foreign plates; changing the driving licence; knowing that the car has to have certain things in it ... I could go on. And this all besides the buying or renting of property. How the little things work. or maybe don't. And without the language it can be hard-going.

But of course plenty of people manage to do all this. The little things can be an inconvenience and they may seem daunting, but they're not really, though the forms can make them so. And you have to accumulate so much damn documentation to do anything. Once it's done though ... . Part of the problem, especially for those from Anglo-Saxon regimes, can be that things seem inefficient. Well they are, and some things are deliberately so, or at least that is an opinion held by some. Take the registration for residency. It's a trial by queue, heat (or rain and cold) and time as locally they don't want to make it easy. It's a stupid attitude, if this indeed is the case. People have made the decision to move here. Making the registration process a hassle does not deter immigration, so why not just accept the fact and simplify it.

The little things are the nuisances of everyday living. In themselves, they are not important. What is, is the adaptation to change in lifestyle, culture and language. One has to want to adapt. Fraser refers to the initial move being like an "extended holiday". For some expats, that extended holiday extends indefinitely. Take it from me, living in Mallorca is not one great long holiday, and nor should it be. But from the poolside, the dream of moving here is very different from the reality of actually doing so.

In the past I have spoken about the transience of the local expat population. While there is obvious transience in respect of seasonal workers, it exists also where permanent incomers are concerned. That word - transience - was used the other day by an expat I know well. He said that there seems to be a time limit on much immigration - five, six, seven years perhaps. He and his family want to sell the house and the business and go to England; he's been here seven years. It's not a seven-year itch necessarily. Fraser makes the point that it can take five years to really settle in - or to find that you cannot. The holiday can extend that long maybe.

Five years should not really be necessary though to start understanding some realities. For those who have retired, it is one thing; for those who work it's a different matter. Remember that "bloody country" remark of three days ago; that came from someone who runs a successful bar. The little things can come and hit you any time. You chase the sun and then discover that it isn't all sun or indeed warmth. Here's Fraser again:

"When the weather turned in November, the house turned against us, too. Those features that had kept us cool in the hot summer - the thick walls and flagstones - made it feel like we were living in a fridge."

Once more, this could apply to Mallorca. Even with outside temperatures towards the 20 degree mark, interiors can be cold. Can be? Are. Unless there is very good heating. Those charming stone-walled houses with their stone floors. Freezing. And the same goes for much of the housing stock. And it can be cold in other respects - not much to do, not a lot of work. Relationships can be strained, budgets squeezed, and some seek solace on a bar stool or from powders. And above all else is the language. There comes a point where reliance on those who can speak the native or on professionals gets too much. It takes five, six, seven years to perhaps really speak the language. Or it takes this long to discover that you have never bothered to really try or cannot. Chasing the sun, living the dream, and suddenly the miserable British climate may not seem so bad after all.

*For the article in "The Guardian", go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/30/family

Incidentally, the same newspaper ran a competition for readers' travel writing. The winner wrote about the Tramuntana mountains. Here it is - http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2008/aug/30/travelwritingcompetition.adventure


PUERTO POLLENSA - WATER OF A DIFFERENT SORT
Water closets this time. Toilets in other words. They've put up some public loos on the seafront. Where before was a desert of privies there is now an oasis of water closetry, in both ports of Alcúdia and Pollensa. Everyone's coming out of the closet; and everyone's going into it. Well, oasis is maybe stretching it. And you really must have had a dodgy curry the night before to dream of using the lavs on Alcúdia's promenade. Which leads to the fuss about the Pollensa bogs. According to the "Diario", the local neighbourhood association has the concession for the toilets. Perhaps they have had a look in the Alcúdia loos, as they're charging 50 centimos a go. Unreasonable? Not at all I would have said, especially if that 50 centimos go towards keeping them clean, which is what the association is arguing. However, along comes the virtuous, anti-profit brigade of the local political opposition - the Partido Popular (not a party naturally disinclined to the pursuit of moolah) - to allege that a "fraud" is being perpetrated through this charge.

Now the fact is that the charge has not been approved by the town hall; the bloke with overall responsibility for the environment admits that there is an "illegality", but has explained why the charge exists - for keeping the toilets in decent order. This all seems fair enough, but this isn't good enough for the PP who want to know if the 50 centimos - only 50 centimos don't forget - is "symbolic" or "lucrative". In which case then, why don't they enquire of the bars that make a charge to non-guests for using the toilets? The bars have long offered a public service in this respect. 50 cents for God's sake. Knickers in a twist; knickers in a twist sitting on a piece of public porcelain.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Bon Jovi, "Wanted Dead Or Alive" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k99h5aikc4g). Today's title - a line from a current song by one of the few geniuses of popular music. A clue may be found in the recent piece about the Elvises.

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)


Index for August 2008

Airlines - 21 August 2008
All-inclusives - 2 August 2008, 7 August 2008
Bars - 4 August 2008, 6 August 2008
Basketball - 18 August 2008
Beaches - 7 August 2008, 8 August 2008
Burglary - 30 August 2008
Café del Mar - 3 August 2008
Can Picafort - 1 August 2008, 17 August 2008
Canals - 19 August 2008, 20 August 2008
Chefs - 6 August 2008
Cheques - 22 August 2008
Chill-out - 3 August 2008, 7 August 2008, 8 August 2008
China shops - 27 August 2008
Community relations - 5 August 2008
Dakota Tex-Mex - 25 August 2008
Dogs - 28 August 2008, 29 August 2008
Ducks - 17 August 2008
Electricity bills - 28 August 2008
Expatriates - 6 August 2008, 15 August 2008, 31 August 2008
Fiestas - 1 August 2008, 17 August 2008
Fireworks - 17 August 2008
Grupo Boulevard - 25 August 2008
Holidays - 14 August 2008
Hotels - 2 August 2008, 5 August 2008, 20 August 2008
Integration - 15 August 2008
Kissing - 10 August 2008
Kitesurfing - 26 August 2008, 28 August 2008
La Villa Chinese restaurant - 8 August 2008
Language - 15 August 2008
Luxury properties - 16 August 2008
Mare de Déu d'Agost 2008 - 1 August 2008, 17 August 2008
Markets - 11 August 2008, 12 August 2008, 21 August 2008
Music - 3 August 2008
Olympics - 18 August 2008
Ones, Can Picafort - 27 August 2008
Playa de Muro - 21 August 2008
Poblat GESA - 23 August 2008
Property market - 16 August 2008, 29 August 2008
Railways - 9 August 2008
Rancho Grande - 30 August 2008
Recycling - 23 August 2008
Restaurants - 4 August 2008, 8 August 2008, 25 August 2008
Roads - 25 August 2008, 26 August 2008
Rubbish - 23 August 2008, 27 August 2008
September - 27 August 2008
Spanair - 21 August 2008
Street cleaning - 28 August 2008
Summer - 12 August 2008
Toilets, public - 31 August 2008
Tourist spend - 4 August 2008
Trains - 9 August 2008
Tribute acts - 24 August 2008
Wind - 13 August 2008

With A Paper Folded Outside The Loo

The loo, the bog, the crapper, the pit, the dunny. Powder my nose, point Percy at the porcelain, visit the little boys’ room.

The toilet is an institution in British and Anglo-Saxon consciousness. Different parts of Britain offer different motifs for the place and the act, as do different parts of the US and Australia. The toilet for all that it represents, at its base level, merely defecation and micturition, is democracy in action, or perhaps in motion. It is a symbol of equality, founded on bodily function. The toilet, especially the public toilet, is engrained into British culture and British psyche. The late Marcus Merriman, an ebullient history professor at my Alma Mater, wrote about the public toilet. More noted for his work on Mary Queen of Scots, this Anglophile American was nonetheless impressed enough by the English (and British) affinity with the public loo and its architecture to direct research into such a study. And rightly so. Though the magnificent glazed tiling of, for instance, London’s old Victorian stations, has been widely vandalised by the arrival of sanitised whitewash and aluminium, the WC remains a visible sign of a history of public hygiene. But more than just a symbol, the public loo is a Briton’s right. Even if no relief is consciously required, a public toilet suddenly evokes a brain-to-bladder-or-bowel reaction that demands one “just nips to the loo”.

In Mallorca, there is no such heritage. If a national emblem of Great Britain were to be a public privy, the Mallorcan equivalent would be a tree or a wooded place, adorned preferably with an abundance of dock leaves. Or alternatively, it would be a bar or restaurant.

Need a public loo in Mallorca? Generally impossible. List three of the most frequent questions asked of tourist information offices, and among them will be “where’s the loo?”. The absence causes disorientation for the British tourist, used to getting a spatial bearing through the location of the nearest lav. For some, the non-availability is a sign of backwardness. Forget the preserved and restored historical monuments, the well-constructed and attractive marinas and promenades. These are nought in terms of achievement when set against the lack of a public pisser.

While many bars will happily oblige gratis someone with cross-legged desperation, not all do. Some charge. Some even require that one asks for a key, and then charge. Except of course if one stops for a drink, which means that in some short future while the whole exercise has to be repeated. Go for a day out, and it is an endless round of drink-now, pee-a-bit-later. The best solution, and the one with more luxury than the average bar, is the hotel, unless one is in the old towns of Alcúdia and Pollensa where the “petit” hotels don’t afford the level of anonymity that a large one of some 900 guests might. It is not that there are no public toilets, just that they are rare and situated in the most unlikely places. Go for a ramble through the forest between Playa de Muro and Can Picafort, and you will stumble across a two-cubicled hut that only those with a most pressing requirement would entertain.

For restaurants in Mallorca, the toilet is usually a purely functional necessity. It is uncommon for it to be a thing of beauty. One particular restaurant’s loos have received critical remarks - I haven’t yet published them and probably won’t. But this is not always so. On a first visit to Can Costa in Pollensa after William had taken it on, he was keen to point out the splendour of the WCs. And they were just that, in keeping with the fineness of the restaurant itself. But there again he’s British. Natch. A less-resplendent but still welcoming toilet is that at L’Ombra, also in Pollensa, also run by Brits.

Which all leads me to believe that here is a rich vein of research. In honour of Marcus Merriman, the search is on for the finest lavatories in northern Mallorca. Anyone with any nominations are welcome to email me.

And somewhat in keeping with today’s theme ... It duly peed it down yesterday, especially in the south where, once more, the new metro was flooded (see previous 22 August: It’s August, Jim, But Not As We Know It).


QUIZ
Yesterday - Manic Street Preachers. Today’s title - struggled a bit to think of a toilet reference, but here’s a corker, which also features the line “Rain falls like Elvis tears”.

PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)