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Actually its on Whitley Street in Reading. In a tiny carpark for the local shops. I recommend the “The Autistic Shop” with its ‘literal’ name and its erratic opening times and chaotic mix of bric-a-brac. Then the now repurposed pub from its roof a girl fell to her death. Then the large Hindu temple with its turreted facade. Otherwise its selection of mini-marts, take-aways and beauty saloons are indistinguishable from any street in any mid to large town. Like many bland UK places, its the ethnic mix that breathes life into its streets (both Whitley and Southampton street, with the Oracle Shopping Centre at its end trying to bleed any character Reading has into the River Kennet).

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First time I went to what’s locally known as “The Bearpit”, was back in 1994. I’d spent the day looking for somewhere to live with a friend. I remember it as a pleasant sunny day having a sandwich break before going onwards to Montpellier. Apparently it was more of a ‘snakepit’ -Full of belligerent beggars, dangerous druggies and malicious muggers. But I didn’t see that. But as my friend was an alcoholic rattail-wearing art-school reject and me- an anorexic hippy with acne, we probably fit perfectly… It the nexus between the anarchist Stokes Croft area, the poor St Pauls and the capitalist shitbrick of Broadmead.  It was bombed in WW2, redeveloped after the war and again in 1968, it may have been better to have left it a bomb crater. Its now being redeveloped again, Its bee-hive inspired flowerbeds have given way to its now iconic checker-pattern bear and left-wing slogans. It rightly hasn’t moved on the homeless, but tried to make it a little nicer for everyone. Its now filled with bric-a-brac stalls, arty graffiti, a taco bus and carbon monoxide. Its a bit rough around the edges but it fits in with the Stokes Croft vibe. You don’t cure the problems of poverty buy building a new Tesco Express and moving rich morons into new luxury apartments. You build a community that feels connected. In an ideal world you get rid of shitty landlords and stop bailing out banks that shit on society for its stockholders and executives. The Bearpit should reflect how the locals feel about themselves, not how others think about them. Bristol has privatised enough land already and doesn’t need another shitty Cabot Circus style redevelopment.

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Clifton Down. Perhaps not the best place for kite-flying druggies, with the best view of Bristols most scenic suicide spot - The Clifton Suspension bridge. Surprisingly one of the only needle boxes I’ve found in a public toilet. In a posh area -do the rich like drugs in toilets? Or is it for a high level of elderly diabetes sufferers who can’t travel far from the tour bus because of gouty feet? 

Diabetes 2 can be helped by jogging around the park, but stopping at the ice-cream van might be dangerous. Look fattie, just have a banana, not a bloody prick in the toilets.

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...And ‘Swallow Place’ is just round the back...

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White dog against white stucco. 

If you’re over 40, you've probably done an internet search for what happened to white dog shit? I recommend Gustav Meyrink short story “What's the Use of White Dog Shit?” This was written in 1908 (The Opal and Other Stories), so its been a vexing question for many years. Meyrink is well worth reading, imagine Stephen King possessed by the the ghost of Franz Kafka.

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Designed to be bland and blend in with the wall behind it. I think thats called context sensitive construction. Make sure it kinda looks right, but make sure its ugly but boring enough no one will complain. Its at the top of Widcombe Parade, a place full of interior design shops and cafes to discuss you rental increases you can charge. Choose your Aga and wood burning stoves and convince yourself nostalgia can be environmentally friendly. Like the 1950s was such a great time.

Baths love of bleach clean Bath Stone feels like the love of classical sculpture. Its whiteness and good taste applauded, when it was often originally brightly coloured. Keeping old buildings is good and Bath town planning had been awful in the 1960s: But trying to keep to a false sense of ‘sensitive building’ has made Bath feel sterile and ersatz. A Victorian chocolate box reproduction.

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Disused toilets under the Bennett Way overpass. The concrete area around it is now used as a skate park. A non-place on the way to somewhere else. It could do with all the roads being demolished and reconsidered. It feels like an ad-hoc design to bypass the old harbour area. Do modern roads and bridges need to be ugly? Do they even have to be considered permanent and unmovable? Even public toilets seem to have more innovation than other infrastructure.

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Cemetery Junction in Reading, Berkshire. One of the places in the South East with the worst air-pollution outside of London. But with the toilets and indoor swimming pool, it smells of chlorine. 

It does have a nice cultural mix of people with Sikh, Polish to Kenyan. Although Reading is also the place I’ve heard more racist talk than anywhere else, but it has improved. Reading is a provincial town growing into a city, both hindered and improved by being in the shadow of London.

The cemetery opposite is worth visiting, last time I went it had a family of deer living there.

The gay bar “The Granby” was right next to this toilet, but closed for a long time. Although the LGBT+ community is surprisingly strong in Reading, which has an annual Gay Pride parade and festival of its own. I guess the Granby closed not due to discrimination but for being a bit ‘provincial’. A place that still played Abba in the 21st century is doomed. Before being gay, it was awfully straight and financially screwed pub owned by Terry Venables. Now it’s apparently a pink painted ice-cream palace called Sprinkles. But I’d be fascinated with a gay ice-cream bar run by Terry Venables. The Sprinkle Spurs?

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I was born here, well... at the hospital, not in the toilets. Might have well been the toilets for the care they gave, leaving my brother brain damaged for life. So I have mixed emotions about hippy vegetarian Totnes. Being the child that (apparently) didn't get oxygen-starved, left me with survivor guilt. I grew up to be a hippy vegetarian, so should’ve been a perfect fit in Totnes. But when I see those alpaca covered, conker shoe wearing, veggie, riverford farm loving, organic patchouli smelling, longhair bourgeoisie... I’m filled with loathing and contempt...

Urinal cakes are made from cancer causing para-dichlorobenzene, but you can actually get organic urinal cakes made with alfalfa. Anyone willing to taste Totnes cakes? I’m sure their organically certified now...

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A fine example of a Bristolian Pissoir. In immaculate French style, first designed by Claude-Philibert Barthelot the Comte de Rambuteau whose motto for hygiene was “De l'eau, de l'air, de l'ombre”. Little did he know, the iron panels would be used as barricades for the French revolution. The French resistance apparently used them as a secretive place to pass on messages. Pissoirs took on fascists and the privileged 1% -someone had to take the piss out of them and tan their hides...

Modern stainless steel retractable pissoirs and the plastic portable ones have a modernist style to them, but lack the decorative sophistication of Victorian ingenuity. It deserves its grade II listed building status, alongside two others (Mina Road Park and the top of Whiteladies road).

Sadly padlocked, considering all the sports clubs and rugby stadium nearby, means a lot of wet walls... 

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This is another ex-toilet. This toilet is no more... But someone just wouldn't take no for an answer. Dirty protest aside, shame to see this building left unused. I’d love to have it as a converted apartment, even if unwanted packages arrive from drunk posh students, coming back from the local microbrewery. Students, the only immigrant population you can hate. Student ‘Posh Pads’ making renting difficult, their weird music, blue hair dye and militant bicycle riding! Ugh! Go back to Barnstable where you came from! At least these students have a political conscience and enjoy a biannual police kettling. A bit more social unrest than stomach upsets please. You like 80s music, but like 80s protest more, gotta fight for your right to (anarchist) party! Be no surprise I was more of a ‘Crass’ person...

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These toilets no longer exist. They were knocked down for expanded car parking for new flats and a Lidl supermarket. To be fair, they were getting tired, but no replacement was built. Instead the nearby library and a pub were designated as providers of public toilets. The pub was “The Chequers”, a rough pub now closed for ‘renovation’ or incasing in pigeon crap (whichever comes first). I once spent a fraught evening in that pub... On an opposite table I saw members of the Chelsea headhunters, just featured on a TV expose on football hooligans. I was a hippy sandwiched between a black man and a guy with learning difficulties who enjoyed starin’n’swearin’. The Headhunters were linked to other local hooligans called the Reading Youth Firm, worse they were part of Combat 18 and National Front supporters. Luckily a football match was on TV and they actually appeared to like watching it, rather than using it as an excuse for fighting.

This makes Woodley sound awful, but actually a rather nice bunch of people. A mix of wealthier elderly Waitrose shoppers and younger Iceland customers. They both meet together at the local Greggs, which usually has a queue snaking out of its shop at lunchtimes. A pleasant suburban area being eaten by Reading and Wokingham that surround it. Appears to be very child friendly place, schools and parks everywhere. Woodley precinct has some very good charity shops that often have great books and vintage items (supplied by its elderly population) and lots of toys (supplied by its younger population).

But with a population of age groups susceptible to weak bladders, Woodley precinct could do with more toilets.

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Redevelopment of Bristol docks didn't just mean more cafes and luxury apartments for Londoners. A working boat yard still exists, amongst the bland developments. And it has a redeveloped local museum for local people, but not to scare people away called it a ‘Shed’. 

“M Shed” also has had some great photography exhibitions (each contractually obliged to include a least one Martin Parr photo).  Aardman animations have an office nearby, which will always be based in Bristol, as no one else but an over 40yr-old British person knows what the f*ck plasticine is.

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The barbed wire there to dissuade burglars trying to get into shops further down, or the unambitious suicidal Cornish from certain ankle spraining. A library next door may explain the confused diagrams of penises. Its a small library and probably didn't have medical textbooks amongst the large print John Grisham and Jilly Cooper books. I shouldn't disparage any library, as its not size that counts... (The width of knowledge is important too).

Par is lovely in the summer, but like most of Cornwall its suicidally depressing in the winter. For Americans, Cornwall is like the deep South but replace Po' boy and Mtn Dew with Pasties and flat cider. (FYI the pasties must have turnip). Replace endless sunshine with a persistent drizzle.

I speak about Cornwall, but I mean Southern Cornwall, as we don't speak to the North Cornish, as they're a bunch of pallid devil worshippers.

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St. Augustine was a delightful fellow. He set up a path followed by Christian priests today, with such ideas as original sin and wanting to marry a 10 year old but deciding he couldn't wait until she was ‘legally’ 12, so became a priest. Most priests today think 12 year olds are too old for them, so little has really changed.

He’s the ideal man to name a toilet, as he coined the delightful phrase: Inter faeces et urinam nascimur. 

I think he was the original guy that turned up at a school disco and pronounced “Hey Ladies!” and shot finger guns at them. (Well, probably bow/arrow mime and a “Io Mulierculas!” but an orphanage rather than a disco).

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Upon the ruins of a once great castle, rises another: A castle in honour of bowel movements. 

Castle park came into being after bombed shops in WW2 were redeveloped, turning it into a fairly bland lumpy park. What Hitler didn't destroy, nearby Victorian and Tudor buildings, where demolished to make a new shopping area, the god awful monstrosity called Broadmead. 

Bristol always tries hard to beat itself senseless with an ugly stick: So now stands proudly alongside Plymouth and Coventry as pearls amongst English cities. As the new monstrosity of Cabot Circus supplants Broadmead with its 1990s style, Castle Park will slowly be encircled by cafes, nail bars and vape shops... Until Bristol can build something more ugly onto it. 

The Castle toilet is a defining architectural landmark of Bristol. Town planning that really is taking the shit out of us.