THE NAKED CITY – POO, POLES AND PRIORITIES!
You might have recently read a call to the City Of Sydney to provide more 24-hour toilets to cater for both the homeless and punters out for a late night on the town. It’s not the first time this issue has been raised and you may remember the concept of “pissoirs”, emerging hydraulically from the pavement, that was mooted for Kings Cross and environs some years ago. However, the problem this time around is not so much number ones, but number twos.
Apparently residents in the city and inner city have complained of the increasing sighting of fecal remains, attributed to humans rather than dogs, possums and other species. Despite this ad hoc scatological survey, the Council has rejected a recent call by Labor councillor Linda Scott to provide more 24-hour conveniences.
Meanwhile you might have noticed the small army of cleaners who diligently attend to the city’s light poles, fastidiously removing any traces of sticky tape used by the pole posterers and even applying toothbrush style devices to leave them totally pristine. Immaculate at least for a couple of days, until the posterers reappear and there’s a poster on every pole from Kings Cross to Town Hall.
The same absurd scenario is repeated au nauseam and the annual bill must surely run to hundreds of thousands. Common sense suggests that the Council actually rent out the space on the poles to the poster people and reap a sizeable benefit. The pole posters themselves are more colourful than unsightly and do a lot to brighten up a number of otherwise drab thoroughfares like William Street.
The money saved by dispensing with the toothbrush brigade and the renting out of poles could be put towards supplying more round the clock thunder boxes (if you will excuse the colloquialism). Once again imagination and creativity could come to the forefront, with Sydney providing a series of tourist friendly outdoor crappers.
The classic ramshackle Australian outback dunny is an icon and Hyde Park could easily house a whole series of them, blasting out a non-stop loop of Slim Newtown’s ‘Redback On A Toilet Seat’ and providing a priceless photo opp for thousands of international visitors. Down in Belmore Park, a multicultural theme could be adopted, with the Council importing funky and almost folkloric latrines from all over the globe – like the Tunisian model pictured above.
Finally in this app mad world, the door is open for an enterprising start up – A’P’N’P (I.e. “air pee and poo”). City residents could list the use of their toilets, for a reasonable fee, offering a 24-hour service for anybody absolutely desperate to go (toilet paper included). On a busy Saturday night with a turnover of multiple patrons this could easily become quite lucrative and just another manifestation of the so-called sharing society.
In the meantime the only advice I can offer is just watch where you step!
