Pissing

July 06, 2007

China public restroom has 1,000 stalls

BEIJING - They're flush with pride in a southwestern Chinese city where a recently-opened porcelain palace features an Egyptian facade, soothing music and more than 1,000 toilets spread out over 32,290 square feet.

Officials in Chongqing are preparing to submit an application to Guinness World Records to have the free four-story public bathroom listed as the world's largest, the state-run China Central Television reported Friday.

"We are spreading toilet culture. People can listen to gentle music and watch TV," said Lu Xiaoqing, an official with the Yangrenjie, or "Foreigners Street," tourist area where the bathroom is located. "After they use the bathroom they will be very, very happy."

Footage aired on CCTV showed people milling about the sprawling facility and washing their hands at trough sinks. For open-aired relief, there is a cluster of stalls without a roof.

Some urinals are uniquely shaped, including ones inside open crocodile mouths and several that are topped by the bust of a woman resembling the Virgin Mary.

"Other bathrooms are all the same. This one is very special, I've never seen anything like it," one visitor to the tourist area told CCTV.

There are also plans to build a supermarket nearby, which will sell toilet-related items, CCTV reported.

Posted by ronnie at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

December 14, 2006

Teacher under fire for bottle bathroom

SALISBURY, Maryland - A teacher who did not have time to escort three students to the restroom is under fire for allegedly telling them to urinate in a soda bottle.

The students did as they were told, said Thomas Field, interim superintendent of Wicomico County schools.

The incident happened Friday at Salisbury Middle School, where restroom vandalism led to a policy that some students had to be escorted to the restroom. Students said the eighth grade teacher — who was not identified by the school pending a review of the matter — could not find anyone to escort three students and told them to urinate into a soda bottle.

Although the teacher has not been disciplined, Field said the administration's investigation was focused on the behavior of the teacher, not the students.

"In our judgement, now, the students did not do anything to warrant disciplinary action," Field told The Associated Press. "They did what they were told to do. We hold the adult responsible for what happened."

The fate of the teacher has yet to be determined, said Allen Brown, Wicomico County's assistant superintendent for Student Services.

Posted by ronnie at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

December 05, 2006

Briton fined for relieving self on famed Latvian monument

RIGA (AFP) - A court in the Latvian capital Riga has fined a British national 810 lats (1,200 euros, 1,600 dollars) for relieving himself on the highly symbolic Freedom Monument in the centre of the city, officials said.

"It doesn't matter if the offender is local or a foreigner, whether he's Latvian, Russian or British. If he shows disrespect for a national symbol -- and every country has a such a venerated symbol -- then he will be dealt with by the courts as was done in this case," Atis Lots, spokesman of the Latvian Foreign Ministry, told AFP.

Court officials said the 30-year-old British citizen was detained in the small hours of November 11 after police noticed him as he drunkenly urinated against the towering monument of Mother Latvia holding three stars, representing the country's regions, above her head.

A criminal case was opened for hooliganism, which carries a sentence of up to two years in jail, community work or a fine.

The man, who was ordered to remain in Latvia until sentence had been passed, is now free to return to Britain.

Many young British men travel to Latvia to celebrate their stag nights, taking advantage of the cheap alcoholic beverages and lively nightlife in Riga.

But they are increasingly falling foul of ordinary locals and officials here.

During the visit to Latvia in October of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, a small Latvian political party invited the 80-year-old monarch to extend her stay in the Baltic state and go for a night out in Riga to see how young British men have given her subjects a bad name.

"You won't find a single inhabitant of Riga who, while in the old city at night, hasn't encountered a band of drunken and bellowing Brits," said the leader of the Conservative Party, Modris Lujans, in a statement.

Built in 1935 using donations from the public, the Freedom Monument is revered here as a symbol of Latvians' unquenchable thirst for liberty.

During the long Soviet occupation, from 1945 until 1991, Latvians were barred from assembling at the monument or from laying flowers there.