No Better Man – Home entertainment round up

I CLOCKED an interesting snippet on BBC Radio 4 last week which made me laugh. At the time, the contributors to Women’s Hour were discussing parcopresis, the inability to go for a poo without enough privacy.

Now, while you might think badly of me laughing at the concept of parcopresis, I was actually laughing from a memory from many moons ago.

Thinking of the poor folks who are unable to do their business without privacy reminded me of a time I was forced to do my business, despite the lack of audio privacy. I shall explain…

It was the summer of 1994 and as a student of languages, I was living in Germany. Most importantly, as a student of languages living in Germany and making new German friends, there were many invites to sample the great and the good of German beers.

“No better man,” says I to Sven (one of my new German friends whose English was mercifully better than my Deutsch). “Lead the way.”

As everyone knows, the further away from Ireland an Irish man goes, the more Irish that Irish man actually becomes. He finds himself yearning for Tayto Cheese and Onion and spuds and more spuds. And so, at the time, 1,000 miles away in Germany, I was fairly brimming with the aul hiberno home-sickness.

That meant, of course, that an Irish bar would be the order of the day at some point and in fact, I think we may have visited one establishment (for the life of me I can’t remember the name of the place) on several occasions, all of which resulted in a right aul session.

“Vood you like anozer beer und schnapps?” asked Sven, at the tail end of one particular siege.

“No better man,” says I and the beers were duly ordered and served and swallied post-haste.

The next day, feeling as intelligent as a slug, myself and my fellow students were taken on a tour to a museum.

The problem was: My over-consumption of the fancy-Dan German beer and schnapps from the night before has resulted in digestive discomfort – or to use a more colloquial term, I had a wile dose of the scoots.

“Entschuldigen Sie, bitte,” I was forced to ask a member of the museum staff. “Können Sie mir sagen, wo die Toiletten sind?”

It was a phrase I had to learn by heart – and quickly: “Excuse me please. Can you tell me where the toilets are?”

If you’ve never been to toilets in Germany in the 1990s, let me tell you: It was a plush affair.

Uber clean, nicely perfumed and an abundance of cubicles. On this particular day I dashed to the nearest of these cubicles and flung the door open.

Whilst at first this wasn’t a concern, I noticed that quite a few of the cubicles were already occupied and a number of flaxen-haired men were dutifully washing their hands at the many sinks.

“Get in get in get in get in get in…” my brain was urging and my body obeyed.

Now, without putting too fine a point on things, I REALLY needed to go. Choice didn’t factor into proceedings.

And whilst I was visually cut off from my Toiletten associates, audibly, there was no sound proofing. Unlike those poor folks who suffer from parcopresis, to poo or not to poo, was out of my hands.

Again, without putting too fine a point on things, flatulence played a significant role in this particular digestive discomfort and so when I started to ‘go’, the decibel level increased exponentially.

At the first audible breaking of wind I thought, “Oh, no!” It was like a saxaphone in the otherwise silent Toiletten. Nevertheless, it wasn‘t as though I could stop!

Continuing with my noisy business, cringing at every turn, I was surprised and yet not astonished when someone started to laugh. Then someone else started to laugh. Then someone else started to laugh until, in the end (it seemed to me at least), the whole facility was in uproarious laughter at the stupid Irish man’s clamorous trumpeting.

“Oh, no,” I groaned, head in hands, when someone banged my cubicle door and whooped. “I can’t leave.”

And so, business taken care of, I sat on for an age in that small cubicle until I was sure none who had heard my percussive symphony could remain. Still, I was mighty sheepish as I washed my hands at the sink that day and I promised God that I’d take the pledge as soon as I returned home.

As you might imagine though, my tale from the Toiletten made for a right aul yarn later that night – over another round of beers, of course.

On with the programming!

As you can see, I‘m kinda outta space here, so see this week‘s picture captions for the recommendations.

Auf Wiedersehen!