Keswick town centre, Cumbria, 27th December 2005.

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A tourist honeypot throught the seasons, Keswick is a popular walkers' centre and serves the surrounding communities' retail needs. This time of year however, sees the town bristling and bustling to overflowing with outdoorsy folk milling around in search of that missing je ne sais quoi factor in their depleted lives.

Oh and the Christmas dinner etc etc over the past day or two is rapidly catching up with them. After all, who can resist that bowel urge to "go"?
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Located down a quaint cobbled Lake District alleyway and smack bang opposite the main town centre car park, is located the very volumous Toilet 16, catering for the residual urges of, I would venture hundreds of thousands each year. This has to be one of the most frequented toilets in Chrisendom, outwith those horrendously oversubscribed motorway loos, where privacy and sanitation are things of the past. Your humble bog blogger could not find a single second in which a gent did not fill the camera frame, either coming in or going out of the place. Amazing. That festive food and drink overload was sure going some!

Another walk-in latrine . . . click to enlarge this pic and you will see what I mean - there's another satisfied customer barging out at the same time.
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The innards of the gents section, on this occasion defeated your humble bogblogger's mission in the regard of there being just too many half-sozzled blokes loitering about betwixt trap, urinal, wash basin and hand dryer.

Oh and just for good measure, several parading wallflower-like in front of the mirrors, combs in hands. Well, actually, some of the rugs did rather look like they'd been dragged hedge through a backwards TM. What the hell, at this time of year everything's f**ked up.

Too many upperty Scrooges there in fact, to risk being taken for some extraordinary new breed of pervert - the lavatory snapper. So believe it or not, I am forced to complete my official documentation of this ever so popular convenience on my return south from Scotland on New Years Eve.

Even then, as we see later, I find only a mere two minutes free time to take my pics before being rudely interrupted by yet another gent walking in, ugring for the urinal.

My Lord the food & drink ingestion that must have gone on. Talk about pigging-out.
So I pop in smartish and snap away. The first impression is of an incredibly vast toilet space of arcadian proportions, replete with an elongated 20' SS urinal to the right, three traps to the left and a neat line of wash basins with attendant mirrors above, reflecting back the keen image of YT, digicam to squinting eye, taking his art seriously.

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Panning - if you excuse the expression - upwards, the digicam captures the resplendant headroom here, a good 30 ft in fact, to the apex of the iron-beamed skylight roof, reminiscent in height of the Ugly Pink Sister of Sanqhar ( Toilet 14, check it out ). This roof area, as we will see from trap 1 later, reminds in some strange sense of an aviary (note chicken wire fence up on the left)

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Oh yeah, there I am
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The whole shooting match has been tiled up to the max; terracottas on the floor & urinal step space, the walls being entirely clad with standard sanitary white oblongs interspersed with a single line of tasteful oyster blues. The four wash basins are modern, clinically clean and functional -as they would well need to be to cater for the massive day-long demand in this busy busy bog.

Getting nervous here, expecting interruption any second.
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Before making a dive for trap one to record the hidden delights therein, it's time to check out more of the furniture



Some Mega trough this - takes on all comers - with room for at least a dozen standing bladders bursting with the processed remains of Keswick's finest alcoholic beverages.
Now for a look @ trap 1
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Cubicle one was relatively clean and well kempt, the regulation black plastic lid hiding yet another bog standard Shanks bowl. I can only assume the atttendant was on duty and had recently done a round of cleaning here, for I had been in the trap for less than five seconds before footfalls spoke of the toilet seeing another half dozen post Christmas-full touristy bodies meandering in, in search of blessed relief.

Sitting on the black lid, I see the closed trap door opposite gives away a few more clues as to the weird psychology going on here from time to time.

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. . .and this beats the Beast of Brecon for past door kick-ins. .
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What's this been all about then? I'd wager you don't get this kind of fixated tripe in the Ladies ( don't click to enlarge if you are easily offended)
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. . .totally distasteful and uncouth, but I bring this to you bogblog fans purely in the line of duty in the form of research into the hidden side of this perculiar country we live in.

Anyways, looking up to get away from that vile imagery, we are reminded again, in some surreal sense that I cannot explain, of the roof of an aviary or big bird house, with the use of wire mesh to either side ( to combat over-the-wall peepers I presume) combined with the conservatory feel. A conservatory lavatory. . . ah well, it takes all kinds I suppose.

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Waiting for a quiet minute to ensure we have a vacant loo again, I pretend-flush the bowl in trap 1 and sally forth into the main arena to immediately take a quick sneak peep round the corner, to the only unexplored part of the Post Festivity Repository so far unseen by the roving bogbloggers eye. Out comes the digicam again. . . the snap revealing a couple of dinky hand dryers and a disappointingly decrepit waste paper bin which, it has to be said, lowers the tone of the entire toilet.
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A fraction of a second after taking this pic I was startled from behind by some agricultural-looking guy entering the joint. I turned and attempted to conceal the camera at the same time but I'd been rumbled. Our eyes met, he looked bloody darned suspicious it has to be said.

I could peripheral-sense his head turn and local redneck eyes drill into the back of my exiting LONSDALE of London baseball capped head as he stood at the urinal, unzipping himself. What a weirdo, he must have thought.

Ah well, you can't win em all.

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