I’ve never done a survey of what travellers talk about most – but if I did, I bet the subject of lavatories would be high on the list of topics. ‘Western style’ or ‘footprints’, or those amazingly engineered Japanese toilets. Are they/aren’t they clean, where can you find public loos anyway, why can you never find the right coins to operate them…

Here”s an addition to the stock of toilet stories.

In the recent local elections in France, one of the Candidates, a resident Englishman, was particularly concerned about the new hi-tech public lavatory in the village. He described it as a ‘disgrace’. Not because of the design, sleek and self-cleaning, or the positioning in the village square, but because of the instructions on the door. In French and German potential users are asked to pull the door open. In English, however, the instructions are to push. This, complains the English Candidate, is blatant discrimination – English speakers will arrive, desperate, and not be able to get in to make use of the sparkling new facilities. Before making this an election issue, the Candidate approached the Mayor. He, however, dismissed the matter. The English, he said, ‘can go piss in the next village’.