Saturday 10 December 2016

A Rare Bit of Welsh Welcome, Intermingled with Screaming Bloody Horror

Our efforts to educate the world at large and make it harden the fuck up are, as regular readers know to their chagrin, more or less ceaseless. This educational zeal goes further, believe it or not, than ranting about non-mixer taps and taking photos of exemplary plumbing. For instance, we've been making our students watch the movie Pride a lot lately, because a) it is awesome, and b) it teaches us about human rights and solidarity. Also, we love a healthy Welsh accent as much as the next person, and thinking about Wales reminded us of the toilet photos Audiologist Friend sent us back in August!

Audiologist Friend writes (as usual, an English translation of the original Swedish follows for the linguistically challenged):

Bara Menyn Bakehouse Café i Cardigan, Wales

Äntligen ett ställe där vattenkranarna sitter så pass nära varandra så att man kan blanda till ljummet vatten! Köpte även lunch härifrån och deras smörgåsar var fantastiskt goda - detta ställe är en gömd pärla i staden Cardigan i södra Wales.



(Bara Menyn Bakehouse Café in Cardigan, Wales.

Finally a place where the taps are close enough together for one to be able to mix oneself lukewarm water! Bought lunch from here and their sandwiches were fantastic - this place is a hidden gem in Cardigan, South Wales.)

A rustic, hearty door, beckoning one closer and bidding one welcome! Just what you'd expect of a Welsh bakehouse!

This looks like a cosy and hygienic arrangement.

AAARGH. Just looking at these taps, however, gives us high blood pressure and makes that tense muscle in our neck tie itself into knots. Where did we put the diclofenac?

Moving on to a different toilet, Audiologist Friend continues:
Ett café i universitetsstaden Aberyswidh (oklar över såväl stavning som uttal [editor's note: it's spelled Aberystwyth, and pronounced thus]) hade denna varmvattenslösning: kunde ej klura ut hur den fungerade. Frustrerande.

(A café in the university town Aberyswidh (unsure of spelling as well as pronunciation [editor's note: it's spelled Aberystwyth, and pronounced thus]) had this hot water solution: was unable to figure out how it worked. Frustrating.)

THIS KIND OF CONTRAPTION MAKES US FOAM AT THE MOUTH

Samma stad men nytt café/restaurang/butik! Allt ekologiskt och fantastiskt gott. Älskar [walesiskan], se så vackert ordet toalett blir. 

(Same town but a new café/restaurant/shop! Everything organic and terrifically tasty. Love the Welsh language; look how beautiful the word toilet becomes.)

This is indeed beautiful, and makes our heart beat faster, though that could just be the effect of all the rage occasioned by the tap above.

Let us lose no time in educating Audiologist Friend about the tap in Aberystwyth that nearly gave us apoplexy! This kind of tap is one that produces boiling hot water, which is no doubt useful if one has the leisure and inclination to fill up a sink with part ragingly hot water, part cold water from the cold water tap. This is not what one wants in a public establishment, however; what one desires is a proper mixer tap in order to be able to wash one's hands satisfactorily. Also the sink tends to be extra small wherever this type of tap is in use, no doubt for sane and normal reasons. The "burn, baby, burn" type tap is known to scald the actual skin off people's hands. It is rampant in the British Isles and can be found, among other places:

In the typical British workplace

In another typical British workplace which brings the level of horror to dizzying new heights

In the 1940s kitchen at the Castle Museum in York

In an outhouse in Orkney

We shall end here, for fear of giving our readers nightmares. The world is bloody well nightmarish enough, what with all the fascism, racism, and screaming misogyny, without dwelling on these tap-related terrors.

In order to lower our pulse and becalm the cold sweat running down our neck, let us contemplate something pleasant. We note to our delight, for example, that "bara menyn" means "bread and butter" in Welsh. Woof!

Let us have a soothing Festive Video. Here's a song that's been playing at Privy Counsel HQ a lot lately, and which we find highly fitting in a non-mixer-tap context.



Festive Video - Ashley Monroe, I'm Good at Leavin'

Related Reading

All posts featuring Audiologist Friend
Read an intellectually satisfying meta-narrative about dangerous and awful British taps here
All posts featuring Wales

More posts featuring dangerous taps:
A Note On Desperate Measures
Are You British? Does Tap Sanity Elude You?
Tap Into Pain

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