feeling flush....

.....you can purchase an electronically controlled toilet made by Toto with automatically warmed seat, and options for washing and blow drying the rearmost parts.

This is big business in Japan. Trouble is the wiring on some models has not been up to scratch. There have been short circuits, overheating, melting of the toilet seat and a scorched backside! Some seats have even caught fire!

Earlier this week the company's phone lines were jammed by anxious owners following a head line in the evening paper saying "Toto to fix buttock scorching bidets"

What would Thomas Crapper say? He was a master plumber of the nineteenth century and invented a spring loaded lavatory seat which as the sitter rose operated rods which automatically flushed the toilet. Over time the rubber buffers on the underside of the seat would wear causing it to stay down for a few seconds but then release itself rising quickly to smack the unfortunate user on the backside. Not a great idea. His company however is still in business.

All this reminds me of the outside tippler lavatories of the terraced houses of the Lancashire mill towns where Teapot and I grew up. These relied on a wooden board well down the shute which tipped over when the weight of accumulations reached the appropriate point.

Teapot's father is a great story teller as all who know him will confirm. One morning and half awake in the middle of winter he cleared the ashes from the downstairs grate and took them outside to the dustbin. In a moment of confusion he tipped them down the tippler which turned over sending the hot ash down and a plume of steam in return frightening him into the new day with visions of Dante's inferno.

He will be staying with us for a time towards the end of May. An extra slice of cider cake for the first blogger who can get him to tell the story!