Aphedron

Clifton Down. Perhaps not the best place for kite-flying druggies, with the best view of Bristols most scenic suicide spot - The Clifton Suspension bridge. Surprisingly one of the only needle boxes I’ve found in a public toilet. In a posh area -do the rich like drugs in toilets? Or is it for a high level of elderly diabetes sufferers who can’t travel far from the tour bus because of gouty feet? 

White dog against white stucco. 

Designed to be bland and blend in with the wall behind it. I think thats called context sensitive construction. Make sure it kinda looks right, but make sure its ugly but boring enough no one will complain. Its at the top of Widcombe Parade, a place full of interior design shops and cafes to discuss you rental increases you can charge. Choose your Aga and wood burning stoves and convince yourself nostalgia can be environmentally friendly. Like the 1950s was such a great time.

Cemetery Junction in Reading, Berkshire. One of the places in the South East with the worst air-pollution outside of London. But with the toilets and indoor swimming pool, it smells of chlorine. 

It does have a nice cultural mix of people with Sikh, Polish to Kenyan. Although Reading is also the place I’ve heard more racist talk than anywhere else, but it has improved. Reading is a provincial town growing into a city, both hindered and improved by being in the shadow of London.

The cemetery opposite is worth visiting, last time I went it had a family of deer living there.

I was born here, well... at the hospital, not in the toilets. Might have well been the toilets for the care they gave, leaving my brother brain damaged for life. So I have mixed emotions about hippy vegetarian Totnes. Being the child that (apparently) didn't get oxygen-starved, left me with survivor guilt. I grew up to be a hippy vegetarian, so should’ve been a perfect fit in Totnes. But when I see those alpaca covered, conker shoe wearing, veggie, riverford farm loving, organic patchouli smelling, longhair bourgeoisie... I’m filled with loathing and contempt...

A fine example of a Bristolian Pissoir. In immaculate French style, first designed by Claude-Philibert Barthelot the Comte de Rambuteau whose motto for hygiene was “De l'eau, de l'air, de l'ombre”. Little did he know, the iron panels would be used as barricades for the French revolution. The French resistance apparently used them as a secretive place to pass on messages. Pissoirs took on fascists and the privileged 1% -someone had to take the piss out of them and tan their hides...

Modern stainless steel retractable pissoirs and the plastic portable ones have a modernist style to them, but lack the decorative sophistication of Victorian ingenuity. It deserves its grade II listed building status, alongside two others (Mina Road Park and the top of Whiteladies road).

These toilets no longer exist. They were knocked down for expanded car parking for new flats and a Lidl supermarket. To be fair, they were getting tired, but no replacement was built. Instead the nearby library and a pub were designated as providers of public toilets. The pub was “The Chequers”, a rough pub now closed for ‘renovation’ or incasing in pigeon crap (whichever comes first). I once spent a fraught evening in that pub... On an opposite table I saw members of the Chelsea headhunters, just featured on a TV expose on football hooligans. I was a hippy sandwiched between a black man and a guy with learning difficulties who enjoyed starin’n’swearin’. The Headhunters were linked to other local hooligans called the Reading Youth Firm, worse they were part of Combat 18 and National Front supporters. Luckily a football match was on TV and they actually appeared to like watching it, rather than using it as an excuse for fighting.

This makes Woodley sound awful, but actually a rather nice bunch of people. A mix of wealthier elderly Waitrose shoppers and younger Iceland customers. They both meet together at the local Greggs, which usually has a queue snaking out of its shop at lunchtimes. A pleasant suburban area being eaten by Reading and Wokingham that surround it. Appears to be very child friendly place, schools and parks everywhere. Woodley precinct has some very good charity shops that often have great books and vintage items (supplied by its elderly population) and lots of toys (supplied by its younger population).

Redevelopment of Bristol docks didn't just mean more cafes and luxury apartments for Londoners. A working boat yard still exists, amongst the bland developments. And it has a redeveloped local museum for local people, but not to scare people away called it a ‘Shed’. 

The barbed wire there to dissuade burglars trying to get into shops further down, or the unambitious suicidal Cornish from certain ankle spraining. A library next door may explain the confused diagrams of penises. Its a small library and probably didn't have medical textbooks amongst the large print John Grisham and Jilly Cooper books. I shouldn't disparage any library, as its not size that counts... (The width of knowledge is important too).

Par is lovely in the summer, but like most of Cornwall its suicidally depressing in the winter. For Americans, Cornwall is like the deep South but replace Po' boy and Mtn Dew with Pasties and flat cider. (FYI the pasties must have turnip). Replace endless sunshine with a persistent drizzle.

St. Augustine was a delightful fellow. He set up a path followed by Christian priests today, with such ideas as original sin and wanting to marry a 10 year old but deciding he couldn't wait until she was ‘legally’ 12, so became a priest. Most priests today think 12 year olds are too old for them, so little has really changed.

He’s the ideal man to name a toilet, as he coined the delightful phrase: Inter faeces et urinam nascimur. 

Upon the ruins of a once great castle, rises another: A castle in honour of bowel movements. 

Castle park came into being after bombed shops in WW2 were redeveloped, turning it into a fairly bland lumpy park. What Hitler didn't destroy, nearby Victorian and Tudor buildings, where demolished to make a new shopping area, the god awful monstrosity called Broadmead. 

Bristol always tries hard to beat itself senseless with an ugly stick: So now stands proudly alongside Plymouth and Coventry as pearls amongst English cities. As the new monstrosity of Cabot Circus supplants Broadmead with its 1990s style, Castle Park will slowly be encircled by cafes, nail bars and vape shops... Until Bristol can build something more ugly onto it.