Invitation Of The Week

The postal delivery service is so intermittent around Blogger Towers, now down to once a week and I have taken to recording each one on a calendar, that I am not sure whether I was invited to the Penny Mordaunt Trial of Strength show held at Westminster Abbey last Saturday or not. I rather assumed (and hoped) not.

Someone who did receive one was Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine. It always surprises me that a war-torn country seems to have functioning infra-structure services and a plentiful supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, but that is another story. So proud was she that she took to social media with a photograph of said invite.

Eagle-eyed observers spotted a massive error in the beautifully calligraphed invitation – her country’s r had been omitted. As if the country had not suffered enough. Someone will be spending the rest of their days in the Tower of London, methinks.

Discovery Of The Week (11)

To the consternation of pub quizzers the world over Japan has just announced that it has discovered it has 7,000 more islands than it had previously thought. The digital mapping exercise conducted by the Geospatial Information Agency of Japan revealed that there are 14,125 islands in Japanese territory, and not the figure of 6,852 that it has used since 1987.

The reason for the discrepancy is that the earlier technology used “was not able to distinguish between small clusters of islands and larger ones”, a spokesperson said, resulting in thousands of islands were counted as one, and not because they were hiding in the water waiting to discover that the war was over.

Red Faces Of The Week (10)

It is always good to hear of countries finding the cash to invest in public infrastructure projects. A total of 31 commuter and medium distance trains were ordered for the Spanish regions of Asturias and Calabria. That is the good news.

The bad news is that it was revealed a few weeks ago, albeit, allegedly, before the trains were built, that the original designs of the trains would not have fitted in the tunnels along the lines. You would have thought that was one of the first thing to have been checked and, not surprisingly, heads have rolled including that of Spain’s Secretary of State for Transport, Isabel Pardo de Vera.     

Discovery of the embarrassing error has meant that the regions will have to wait another two or three years before the redesigned trains are delivered. On the positive side, travel on the Asturian and Cantabrian networks affected by the delays will be free until early 2026, the government announced.

Toilet Of The Week (36)

For lovers of public toilets with a bit of style last Monday (February 20^th) was a red-letter day. The glorious Lavatory of the Madeleine (La Madeleine), nestled at the foot of the Church of the Madeleine in Paris’ Eighth Arrondissement, has opened its doors again after being closed for twelve years. Mind you it will cost you €2 to stick your nose in and point Percy at the porcelain.

It is an underground carsey, one of only six in the city, and was built in 1905, inspired by the London toilets of the 1880s and with the aim of providing the public with toilets that were not only useful and had washbasins but were also a thing of beauty and luxurious. It is a testament to the taste and ambition of the Belle Epoque, all wood of the finest quality, varnished mahogany, stained glass windows with flowers, ornate ceramics, brass faucets, and a magnificent shoe polishing chair looking like a throne.

The toilets fell on hard times in the 1990s when what was initially a ladies only loo was transformed to accommodate men, with several of the cabins modified into urinals. It finally closed in March 2011 when it was listed as a historical monument. Due to problems with the site including poor waterproofing, it has taken twelve years to restore this shining example of the Art Nouveau style. There is still more work to be done. The handrail of the staircase has had to be treated to remove lead and several cracks remain to be repaired and the mosaics will not be restored until next year.  

Sadly, the toilets are not accessible to the disabled because of the narrow winding staircase. Nevertheless, a piece of Parisian history is back with us once more.

Dildo Of The Week

Doctors were left shell-shocked when an 88-year-old man turned up at the Hôpital Sainte Musse in Toulon with an unusual complaint; he had an eight-inch long First World War artillery shell stuck up his anus which, he claimed, he had inserted for pleasure His arrival prompted a call for bomb disposal personnel, the evacuation of the adult and paediatric emergency unit, and the diversion of incoming emergencies.

Once the authorities had satisfied themselves that the shell was not live, they proceeded to remove the two-inch wide shell by performing abdominal surgery. As one doctor remarked, “it rarely comes out from where it comes in”.

The man, unnamed to spare his blushes although red cheeks were the least of his problems, was recovering well and said to be in good health.

You have to take your pleasures where you can, I suppose.