Cassis Beach

Wednesday 29 August 2007. We are in the French Riviera town of Cassis and after walking around the harbour with its pastel houses, colourful boats and Gallic atmosphere we set out to walk to the beach.

Cassis beach was a clean sandy beach and from the looks of the lines running across it, it had been raked or smoothed out by a tractor. A row of buoys marked out a safe bathing area and there was a row of towels, beach umbrellas and sunbeds, with an equal number of people either under them or lying on them. Well... under the umbrellas and lying on the towels or sunbeds. We didn't see anyone lying on top of an umbrella...

It wasn't gorgeously sunny, but it was bright and it was very warm, well up in the 30s and certainly enough for us to look for somewhere to sit for a while in the shade with a long cool drink. We found this place, a small cafe sitting on the beach by the harbour and we ordered a drink and settled down for a while to watch the total lack of interest in the row of pedallo boats lined up along the sea's edge. We lingered for a while and then decided to use the loo before moving on. There were two wooden doors marked "Privé" and two rather large keys hanging on the wall outside. A chap from our coach had taken key No.1 so Fran therefore took key No.2. "Non! Non! Les Hommes en deux!" came a cry from the cafe.
"He wants us to swap," said Fran. So they did. However they didn't swap keys and these were needed to lock the doors from inside! "I had to sit stretched out holding the door shut!" Fran complained.

I found out later why men had to use No.2. It had a hole in the ground and a porcelain surround with two places for your feet. Ugh! But someone might have piddled over those little raised platforms! I stood behind the porcelain and piddled over them myself, feeling vindicated when the flush failed to wash over the foot platforms...

Return to Mediterranean Explorer Cruise, 2007 Index

The White Palace

There are lots of catalysts for nostalgia and one that I have previously neglected, nay, ignored totally is the Gents conveniences.

When I was a lad public toilets were all over the place; you almost tripped over them in every town centre and at major crossroads. Admittedly there were very few motorway services in those days, mainly because there were no motorways. Roadside cafes with a jukebox and a knife and fork chained to the side of your table and a plate of lovely fatty chips cooked in beef dripping... I still feel the same way I did when I first saw an advert for Spry Crisp and Dry cooking oil... why on earth would anyone want dry chips?!? To judge by many public eateries these days the successful chip should be little more than a crispy shell with a hint of mashed potato inside - WRONG!!!

But, forgive me for wandering off subject - let's move to the opposite end of the digestive tract for our topic...

I seem to remember quite some years ago that a photographer had gone on a mission of taking photos of Gents toilets because the majority of them were being knocked down and replaced with office blocks - "'Ere Cheryl, what's that funny smell near the coat stand?"

In fact I remember that the photographer in question was a woman, though I'm unable to recall her name or the name of the resultant book which I'm sure would have been of the nostalgic wallowing opportunity - if the subject topic and wallowing are allowed to reside in the same entry...

What made Gents toilets so architecturally and aesthetically pleasing was the well-designed urinal. There were loads of Armitage Shanks white mediocre ones - as I have to class this otherwise fine example of the White Palace - yes, you see where the title of the piece comes from?

But many were of coloured stone, green, grey-blue, marbled, different stones used to great effect and with loving artistic finials, separators and splash-backs, oops, sorry...

Anyway, this example comes from a railway hotel - the Royal in York actually, where I happened to be for work the other week. Ah... I can hear the friends now... "Why do you go about photographing toilets?!?"

Yes, but just look at that flooring! Does it not fill you with delight that someone should have gone to so much trouble to lay down mosaic designs on something destined to fulfil such a basic function? With so many public toilets having disappeared because the authorities consider that Sainsburys and the like will furnish their stores with public conveniences, I should devote myself to a survey, flashgun in hand. Ah! Sorry! er... no... I... [THUMP!]

Old Photos Jumble

Here's a bit of a mixture for you! Over the past few days there's loads of old photos gone through the scanner and many of them were one-offs or have specially interesting stories to them.

The first one was taken in 1986 I think. Blackpool Zoo orang utan Azimat had a baby daughter called Victoria. Vicky is now the grand old mother of the orang utans at Blackpool and has a glorious smile for visitors - she was trained to show her teeth as she had dental problems when young!

From the same year, here is the old Manxman. As the name suggests she was the ferry to the Isle of Man and as such was featured in one of George Formby's most famous films. It was No Limit made in 1933 and featuring the Isle of Man TT races. George played George Shuttleworth who crashed his bike but was given the chance to ride for a team and won not only the race but the girl - Florence Desmond who apparently couldn't stand him... or perhaps the way his missus stood by with a look of wrath and a tape measure every time they had to film a screen kiss!

The Manxman is shown in Preston Docks where for several years she served time as a nightclub. Wonder whether the ghost of George used to sing "Riding In The TT Races" in the main bar...?

I could almost have left this one uncaptioned and asked you to tell me what it was!

It is in fact the view down the toilet of Skipton Castle. As you can see, they preferred a long drop! The bar across guards against anyone trying to climb up the toilet to break into the castle during a seige. Not a nice job, but the tactic worked well and was a tried and tested way of sneaking into castles! Phew... what's that smell?!?

And lastly, this is Axbridge near Cheddar in Somerset. A few of us had gone down to Blagdon for a computer system course and we stayed at one of two pub/hotels in the village.

The date was 4 July 1990. Ring any bells? We sat in the bar watching England being knocked out of the FIFA World Cup in the semi final. Gazza cried and my mate Pete and I took our pints and sat in a deserted but very warm square until I decided to get the camera and take some photos.

Talking of ringing bells, our hotel was right next door to the church and the clock tower kept striking every quarter hour until two o'clock in the morning then started again at six!!!

The DIY Bowel Cancer Test

Another example of all things bizarre...

Just got off the phone talking to my uncle. They've just had an advert for a "Do-It-Yourself Bowel Cancer Test"! It's not strictly D-I-Y because what you do is collect samples from three stools from your bowel movements and send them off in the post to a laboratory who will test them for you and send the results back.

It is apparently important to catch the sample before it hits the water. This obviously makes sense as otherwise it might go too soggy and ooze through the envelope...

In the interests of appearing supportive and helpful I did suggest he could employ a catcher's glove something like the one shown here.

Also if you, dear reader, are fortunate enough to receive an advert for this service and want to take advantage of it, we further thought that any rather too solid stools should be placed in padded envelopes for safety reasons. Indeed if you were particularly badly compacted it may be best to use parcel post as otherwise the envelope may not squash through the letter box...

If you want your original back, remember to include a stamped addressed envelope.

Oh and finally - remember to mark your envelope "sort by hand". The thoughts of them being forced through the rollers of an automatic machine doesn't bear thinking of...

Where's The Gents?

From the same holiday as the Isle of Wight photos in the previous post, I couldn't resist taking a photograph of the stunningly tiled gable end of the Poole Arms at Poole in Dorset.

How many slightly inebriated folks have staggered out of the pub and then thought they were in the Gents, I wonder...?

Sorry for the short post - I'll think of another in a couple of shakes...

Large Version of the Photo: Poole Arms