The civility of a country can be measured by the state of the public and/or shared workplace loos.

Germany, UK, America, Morocco = uncivilised
Switzerland, Korea, Japan = civilised



I think how lucky I am to be living here several times per day.

Ok, that´s an interesting theory :-)

I'll say it is a Cheesey theory...

When it comes to public bogs, the French have it sussed - so much so, that their pissoir has made it across the channel to sunny Swindon:

That's kind of similar to the sidewalk theory.

Developed world = house, doorstep, garden path, hedge with gate, sidewalk, curb, gutter, street.

Non-developed world = corrugated shack, street

Your public toilet theory kind of works for comparing developed nations, but then there's France that considers a vertical shaft with added flies and various poorly targeted deposits to be a suitable place to leave the remnants of your six course gourmet meal; so it's all rather relative.

My 5 year old found it fascinating that in France (road stops) you just pee in a 'shower room' was apparently a whole in a ground when you opened the door the room flooded to wash away all the pee....

I think you mean the living standards of a country...................

I wonder which public toilet have you used in Switzerand?

The worst public toilets I have come across were in France, specifically on the Ile de Ré off La Rochelle; no paper and shite all up the wall and over the floor and seat (excpet there was no seat, just the porcelain pan) .
The squat latrines in Kenya were cleaner.

i'm often impressed by how people are apparently able to do a double backflip while evacuating their bowels. at least i presume this is what they do, given the location of their 'deposits'.

I love the ones in Switzerland with the self cleaning revolving seats.
Which is saying something for me, I have a phobia of many public loos, especially those with the high cisterns, I literally have to put my fingers in my ears and close my eyes if I even dare to venture in to one of those! Weird I know, must have been a childhood trauma of some sort.

Well in India one squat's. And when one is finished the hungry pigs come and gobble it up. It's called recycling!

These high tech ones scare me a bit. Have the feeling that suddenly the floor will disappear under me and I will be " eaten " by the toilet.

I always get a laugh when I'm with Western tourists in Asian countries, and the ladies always freak out when they're faced with having to use a squatter.

They come back and say "no I can't go in there, it's disgusting." By "disgusting" what they mean is they have to squat and flush with a bowl of water dipped from a tub, and maybe the floor got a little wet from the transfer of water.

When I think "disgusting" I think of not wanting to touch anything because it's covered in feces.

Yes. Westerner's have forgotten how to " squat".

I'm actually physically incapable of squatting.

I'll let you all hold that image for a few moments.

Practice makes perfect
http://www.google.ch/imgres?q=squatt...w=1181&bih=839

Hmmm, probably because you are so big

No really, I can't squat. Prematurely arthritic hips mean I can't flex my hip beyond 90 degrees

The one at Bellevue must be run by a woman with OCD. I took my son in there a couple of weeks ago and she waived the 1.- charge because it was just my son who needed to use the loo and she said kids were free.

As we were washing our hands in the sink she was fussing around in the loo, giving everything another wipe. It's not like my son sprinkled any tinkle or left any skid marks but it all needed a good wipe down, just the same. Apparently.

After we had finished at the sink she was fussing around cleaning around the sink and taps, even though I'd given it a quick wipe with the paper towel we'd used to dry our hands.

There are some loos down by the lake that get a hammering over the summer season and aren't the cleanest you could wish for but the ones we know of usually have a cleaning team dropping by morning, midday and evening to give them a quick once-over and restock the bog-roll. All in all, not bad.

I'm burned after using the loos in France - the Parisian public lavs were dire and the ones we used in the south were probably a public health hazard.