Squatters

A shopping centre in Rochdale has installed squat toilets to ‘improve the service they offer the community’, many of whom are of Indian or Pakistani origin, where squat toilets are preferred for hygiene and cultural reasons. There are also ‘normal’ toilets there, for those of you who prefer to sit rather than squat. (Rochdale, that is, not India or Pakistan. I don’t think you get much choice over there).

I have in my time used a number of squat toilets, all of them abroad. Most people think of them as being purely the reserve of Asia but there are many much closer to home. France and Italy, particularly, are pretty keen on them – I’ve stayed on many a campsite where the only option is to crouch in order to...err...relieve oneself. That crouch, incidentally, is one of the reasons they are preferred by some – it helps...how do I put this in terms my mother wouldn’t mind reading...get everything out. There, that’ll do. Which is fine and, in fact, I don’t have a particular problem with that theory – it works, I am happy to report from experience. It’s not so much fun when you’re bleary eyed and still a bit wobbly from sleep on a campsite in France, having spent days on end cycling nonstop. Then, I am not so happy to report, a little choice wouldn’t go amiss. Tipping over, in these circumstances, is not an option. It is, however, sometimes unavoidable, I can report from experience.

What, I hear you ask, has this got to with anything? Well, apart from the Rochdale connection, not a lot. This is a blog, remember. What more do you want, a picture? Oh, go on then.


NB: This is not in Rochdale, just a generic squat toilet picture.