THE NAKED CITY: BEWARE THE LIMBO DANCER!

So called ‘toilet humour’ is nothing new in society and scatological references designed to make us chuckle can be found in literature and art going back hundreds of years. The phrase is often used today to describe humour which is not only physically below the belt but considered crude and demeaning. Yet poo jokes aside there is a seldom highlighted culture of the surreal and bizarre pertaining to the actual loo itself.

These days you might find the odd tag or hieroglyphic genitals on the back of a toilet door — I can only speak of the men’s, the women’s may be far more creative. I can however  remember the days when engaging and often witty dunny door reading abounded to keep you occupied during nature’s call. Pubs and music venues such as the somewhat infamous Manzil Room in Kings Cross always provided a good laugh in their often dilapidated dunnies. I don’t know how many times I read the inscription “the worst chewing gum I have ever tasted” under the condom vending machine or a warning across the bottom of a cubicle, “beware the limbo dancer”.

In your slightly inebriated state these old chestnuts greeted you like long lost friends every time you visited the lav.  There was “pull your own uni degree” directly under the toilet paper holder, the somewhat poignant “here I sit broken hearted, I came to shit but only farted” and an old Manzil Room favourite, though not particularly scatological, “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy”.

In New York in the 1980s one aspiring writer is reported to have written an entire novel on the back of cubicle doors in the city’s then scary as hell public toilets. After you finished a page on one door you were directed to the next so called restroom and appropriate cubicle to continue your literary odyssey. It’s not known whether anybody managed to read the entire novel (a door opener rather than a page turner) but today only the odd paragraph has survived the cleaner’s scrub.

Anybody who has been to an outdoor music festival will be familiar with the sanitary dystopia (albeit necessary evil) that is the portaloo. At the end of the day they are often a quagmire of discarded toilet paper, chunks of freshly regurgitated vomit and the occasional misplaced bong – not to mention a stink that would kill a rhinoceros. Nothing funny about that but who wouldn’t laugh when we read those apocryphal tales of stoned and drunken punters, asleep in the loos, being carted off at the end of the night on the portaloo trucks.

Perhaps the world’s most amusing, unusual and slightly off putting urinal experience can be found in the much celebrated toy museum on Penang Island in Malaysia – an Egyptian theme that is just crying out for a selfie. In a country governed by a highly restrictive moral code, that’s probably not a great idea unless you have the entire convenience to yourself. The experience does however recall a now legendary incident that took place in Sydney back in 1963.

The then fledgling satirical magazine Oz featured a cover with its three young editors Richard Neville, Richard Walsh and Martin Sharp supposedly urinating into the Tom Bass sculpture that graced the P&O building at 55 Hunter Street in the Sydney CBD. It would hardly raise an eyebrow today but the trio was subsequently charged with obscenity, hauled into court and each fined twenty pounds.  Since then it has actually been urinated into numerous times, by cheeky school kids, hoons running wild and even respectable businessmen after a night out on the juice.

In the following years it’s become almost an interactive piece of folk art, much loved by Sydneysiders, if not for its artistic qualities then certainly for the controversy that once surrounded it. Sadly it has now been removed to make way for one of those grandiose Metro stations but hopefully it will be soon relocated in a prime CBD position. Might I suggest directly in front of State Parliament House in Macquarie Street where disgruntled citizens could express their political disdain with a very public faux pee and photo opp.