The 'squat' toilet comes to England

[tay]

Warehouse installs European-style squat toilet because foreign workers 'kept breaking the loo by standing on it'

• Bosses at DHL warehouse in Swindon have ordered a new squat toilet
• Eastern European workers are said to have broken the traditional loo
  

Squat toilets are rarely seen in the UK despite their popularity in many other countries around the world.


British tourists in France frequently complain that only 'hole-in-the-ground' facilities are available in restaurants and service stations.


And in some Asian countries, such as India and Japan, British-style toilets were virtually unknown until relatively recently.


However, squat loos may be set to gain in popularity in Britain, thanks to doctors who claim that the squatting posture brings health benefits.


Some medics believe that squatting while going to the toilet is a more 'natural' position, and could protect against disease.


Swindon warehouse installs squat toilet because workers 'kept breaking loo' | Mail Online

 

[Liberalman]

Is the hole big enough to accept the brown trout?

 

[Blackleaf]

It doesn't surprise me that the French crap in a hole in the ground.

Not that long ago they use to crap on the floor of the Palace of Versailles.

 

[Nuggler]

Is the hole big enough to accept the brown trout?

A certain accuracy would be required. A mirror, maybe. Hoonose

 

[Blackleaf]

My hero Karl Pilkington has had trouble with squat toilets. He encountered one in India in the first series of An Idiot Abroad (we obviously didn't civilise those Indians properly):

Karl Pilkington - Toilet Trouble...[HQ] - YouTube


Karl sees similar toilets in China in the first series of An Idiot Abroad. And he is also dismayed that, despite being public toilets, there are no doors on the cubicles (we didn't get much chance to civilise the Chinese. They can't even write properly). British Comedy Gold:


An idiot abroad - Toilets in China - YouTube

 

[Sal]

for a public toilet they are probably much more hygienic

 

[Blackleaf]

for a public toilet they are probably much more hygienic

Except when you're standing in the piss.

 

[Sal]

Except when you're standing in the piss.

yeah I thought of that too but at least you have shoes on, when you sit on a seat naked who knows what kind of a rse has been on it before and what kind of disease they are carrying. Same with the toilet seat handle, even at work I flush with my foot, and turn the tap off with paper towel which I then use to open the bathroom door and staff room door.

The other day I was sitting in the staffroom eating lunch and someone went in, used the toilet and walked right out without washing their hands. I would NEVER have thought that about that particular individual...we never know how clean someone is.

 

[Liberalman]

One has to be well balanced to use it if not then the rest of the day will be crappy

 

[taxslave]

Somehow that hole in the floor does not look wheelchair acessable or even bad knee friendly.

 

[DaSleeper]

Some safety bars would be needed for older folks,
And where is the toilet paper roll........unless......

 

[Blackleaf]

yeah I thought of that too but at least you have shoes on, when you sit on a seat naked who knows what kind of a rse has been on it before and what kind of disease they are carrying. Same with the toilet seat handle, even at work I flush with my foot, and turn the tap off with paper towel which I then use to open the bathroom door and staff room door.

The other day I was sitting in the staffroom eating lunch and someone went in, used the toilet and walked right out without washing their hands. I would NEVER have thought that about that particular individual...we never know how clean someone is.

What happens if you want to use the squat toilet in the middle of the night in bare feet?

By the way, flushing with the foot is something I do, too. I thought it was just me who did that.

 

[damngrumpy]

Imagine in a modern world some people can't grasp the idea of how to use a modern toilet.
Takes all kinds to make a world I suppose. The outcry will soon begin people coming to the
modern world must speak the language, wear the same cloths and now they have to use the
same toilet (no that is not a protesting statement merely an observation)

 

[Blackleaf]

TOILET HISTORY


I think it was Sir John Harrington who invented the flushing toilet in the 16th Century. He installed one of his new-fangled inventions at his manor in Kelston, Somerset.

In 1596 he built one for his godmother, Elizabeth I, and she loved it apparently. Remember that was the days when people used to just chuck their urinary and faecal waste out of the window.

Harrington joked that the installation of one of his water-closets ‘in the palace of Richmond, or Greenwich’ would be a deed worthy of his being rewarded with a place among Elizabeth I’s gentlemen of the Privy Chamber.

In the 17th century, the soldiers at the Tower of London were warned not ‘to ease themselves in any place than that appointed for that purpose, nor make water within six paces of the Guard, nor throw soile there or ashes, nor empty any pot, nor throw water out of any window’.

At Hampton Court Palace William III’s guards slept in the Guard Chamber of the king’s state apartments, and had more fortunately had the benefit of a ‘pissing cestorn’ installed for them in 1700.

King George II, the last British monarch to lead troops into battle, died on the toilet in 1760

One British monarch even died on the loo. In 1760, George II met his end in ‘the water closet’ at Kensington Palace: his ‘German valet de Chambre heard a noise, listened, heard something like a groan, ran in, and found the hero of [the battles of] Oudenarde and Dettingen, on the floor, with a gash on his right temple, by falling against the corner of a bureau’.

George’s great-granddaughters had a flushing toilet in their closets at Kew Palace, but like Sir John Harrington’s toilet two hundred years before their cistern had to be filled and emptied manually before and after use.


Historic Royal Palaces > Home > Discover the palaces > History and stories > Life in the palaces > Toilets and bathrooms

 

[El Barto]

Looks like back then they carried their toilet paper around their necks

 

[lone wolf]

What happens if you want to use the squat toilet in the middle of the night in bare feet?

Then you can clear up your athlete's feet and foot fungus too

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

I calculate the Engerlish, 'specially Little Englanders like Schwarzblatt, will take to the squat toilet.

They're good at squatting.

 

[MHz]

Looks about right as a birthing chamber also.

 

[Dixie Cup]

Guess that rules me out - I can't squat!! Haven't been able to since I was a teen because of really bad knees!

 

[MHz]

It would work for the dog and cat.