The 2m high stainless steel cylinder urinal is half way out of its daytime hidey hole in Victoria, British Columbia. In its full glory it will accomodate the bursting bladders of night time city center drinkers. This begs some questions: are there no toilets in bars in Canada, or are bars so far apart these halfway house piss pots are essential?

According to John Chow dot com there are similar examples in Holland and Ireland, two countries really well known for their avant garde approach to peeing! The well known saying , Don't eat yellow snow may have originated from Canada, hence their adoption of this clean and sanitary urinal system, but we never knew that Holland's House of Orange and the Irish Orange Parade were wee related terms.

More urinal stories

We could go on all day about urinals and embarrassing toilet stories, not because we are juvenile, but as an any backpacker or well-traveled soul will attest, you accumulate lots of toiletry experiences when you visit far distant lands. Most are funny, some are gross, but they are all useful to someone at sometime, somewhere.

Big toilets

The world's greatest urinal is generally believed to exist in Georgia, Russia. An English traveler to that region once remarked,

"The people are lovely, but their towns look like a toilet that was last cleaned in 1932."

French loos

France is another interesting country when it comes to relieving yourself in a public place. They gave us the English word loo from l''eau (water) A pity we didn't give them the French word for privacy and dignity in the context of a public toilet. Any visitor to Paris will surely have scrunched up their nose and gone as quickly as possible in those old cast iron cubicles that used to populate street corners. Two foot pads and a hole somewhere below. Especially nasty in winter.

Visiting foreign women were also horrified to enter the toilet facilities through the "LADIES" entrance, only to queue for the one stall - in line with men who had entered through their door at the other end.

French flushing folly

France, to its credit, is the land of the highest tech imaginable, when they put their mind to something. Think high speed trains, hydraulic suspension and high speed back-pedalling in times of joining the US war effort.

There was a fad for those self cleaning toilet cubicles. Put your 50 centimes (rip-off) into the slot and the doors slid open like a space shuttle. In you went and the door closed shut behind you. The first thing you noticed was the blue pimply rubber that coated the floor, walls and ceiling. It was glistening wet after the routine deep-cleaning spray-down after the last user. All very hygienic, but my god, when you pulled the flush and pressed the button to get out, you would crap yourself just thinking what you would do if the doors didn't open before the sprayers started up.

Women's toilets are the worst.

And before the feeling of a male domain creeps in here, we have been told by several bar staff on various occasions, that, in their opinion, women are the masters of trashing their toilet facilities. Seems hard to believe, but the doors aren't grafitti-ed they are ripped off their hinges, probably in a fury - trying to get in before those two shots of tequila burst their bladder? And it goes without saying that the bill for toilet paper is at least 4 times that of the gents'.

Mad world, innit!

Got any urinal stories you would care to share?