Wandering around Blogville, peeking in people's doorways and listening at windows, one discovers all manner of weirdness. David Lynch has nothing on you guys.
For instance, fresh after the success of Tuna Noodle Casserole Week, our Robyn has embarked upon a week of toilet-themed blogging. Which goes to show that National Blog Posting Month can effect even the most outwardly sane of our little community.
Anyhoo … Young Robyn has set a competition which I, with my obvious encyclopædic knowledge of fæcal gallimaufry am forbidden to enter.
It's down to you lot.
As I am deprived of that joyous task I will don my pedant's hat and trump Robyn's earliest plumbed toilet reference by taking her back to 3,000 years BC and beyond, to the dusty plains of the Indus, fed from the Himalayan snows, and to the fair and non-smelly ancient city of Mohenjo-Daro.
The excavations there have so far revealed a remarkably advanced civilisation. A sizeable city, planned with a street layout aligned to allow the prevailing winds to cool the houses in the summer months; nice houses built around courtyards and - get this, Robyn - "water was piped to all but the poorest houses; bathrooms and latrines were connected to an efficient sewerage system; and the street drainage system was more advanced and complete than any known to ancient civilisations and to many modern ones".
Spiffy, huh?
They even had manhole covers so they could unblock all the crap.
Having lived there happily for several thousand years, the Indus then changed its course around 1700 BC and the happy, clean-bottomed folk of Mohenjo-Daro were fucked.
By the Aryans, who moved in from Northern Afghanistan and gave us our modern Indo-Aryan languages; everything from Sanskrit to English, but who couldn't flush a toilet to save their lives.
We didn't learn to flush toilets again until only a hundred and fifty years ago. Some people still don't seem to have developed the skill.
Draw from this what lessons you will.
Now wash your hands.
9 comments:
"fæcal gallimaufry"—amazing.
In my hunting for the various inventors of the modern toilet, I actually read about this civilization. Isn't it odd that it took so long for sanitation to become a priority again, at least for some of us.
Probably because cleaning the bathroom sucks.
it looks like your blog as well as Robyn's has gone to the toilet.
I always knew my potty mouth would lead me here eventually, Rich.
"unblock all the crap" Pun intended!
Crappy pun very definitely intended, Prudence.
Hmmm... I'm at a loss for words .... I might come back later.
joy
The Goddess In You
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Hee hee. I don't blame you, Joy. I might post about the Norwich Christmas Market later.
Liv used to be terrified to flush the toilet. She was afraid that "robbers would come out." I have no idea where this fear came from but to this day, she flushes and runs...
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