Going through the motions: the rise and rise of stool-gazing
Locked down and worrying about our wellbeing, more and more of us have been looking for clues in what we leave in the toilet. Are we wasting our time?
We’ve already left. This is no time to start becoming all more German.
We stay at Centre Parcs, Port Zeland, the Netherlands every two years for a music weekend (tho’ sadly not this year – should’ve been this week).
The first time, I was amused to see the shelf in the toilet pan, to allow you to go poking about. Made for ‘interesting’ smells in the lodge. The accommodation has now since been refurbished and proper toilets are now installed.
I found one of those in Holland years ago. I can understand the Germans – the stuff they eat is almost guaranteed to give you intestinal parasites. Is this a big thing in the Netherlands though?
Lat time I was in Germany they didn’t seem as widespread, but the we were in the more western parts – the Mosel and Ahr valleys.
I think the difference is that traditional Netherlands pans flush from the front to the back whereas German pans flush from the back towards the front. Or is it the other way round? My Dutch colleagues told me that it is useful to detect bowel cancer, which is why rates of such are low in the Netherlands
My Austrian plumbers found it most amusing that I insisted on a “Tiefspueler” and threatened to sack and sue them if they ordered the bogs with shelves.
The irony of an article about stool gazing being in the Guardian is not lost on us.
My information tells me a better test for bowel cancer is to examine the toilet paper rather than poke around in the stools. If there’s blood on the paper, have a checkup. Most likely, could be simply tearing from a rough passage, could be polyps, could be piles, least likely could be cancer. Certainly don’t need to go dunny diving.
I shat on a shelf in Switzerland. Ok, it was in the Swiss German part and it was many years ago.
I was struck by the first line. A Guardian writer was minding her own business.
Is this a first?
This is a tricky one. I can see the benefit of checking for bowel cancer, but would rather everything was nicely submerged to keep the smells down.
I think I fall between two stools…
The Dutch do it too. Indeed their home bogs are designed with a trap to hold the said stool for it to be gazed upon pre flush out of the water.
You still get a much better flush from those toilets than you do in a present day British bog
Dennis — very good!
I once spent a few moments examining one of my stools while it was on a shelf but now I’m not allowed back into Tesco.