The Gramaphone - Commercial Street

Last week I was at the downstairs bar of The Gramaphone in Commercial Street. The main bar is lovely, though overpriced. The downstairs bar is one of those London basements that's basically a dingy concrete room with lots of brick arches - the kind that often gets converted into parking spaces.

Anyway, their toilet set-up is a strange one. As you walk through the door you're in a small room with three open doors. On the left:

Some sort of random pipe thing. Just around the corner of that is a toilet.

The door in the middle:

Classy. The guys don't even close the door when they're having a wee.

On the right:

The sinks for the ladies. You can just see part of the cubicle on the left, there.

I'm not sure where the sinks for the guys are. Either they don't wash (eww!) or the sinks are to the left of the middle door. I saw a guy disappearing off that direction, so hopefully it was to wash his hands.

The cubicle itself was pretty boring, so here's a photo of the inside of the cubicle door instead:
I have no idea who Bloom, Olivia or Frank are but I hope they had a lovely night.

The Gramaphone, 60-62 Commercial St. London, E1 6LT

Two women, mid-twenties

This is the bathroom in an east London flat. It's rented by two women in their mid-twenties.

Lovely toilet lid cover. The flowers in the vase are a nice homely touch as well.

Note the lack of toilet-roll holder? This is very common in UK households. I don't know why. Some countries' dominant cultures call for water instead of toilet paper but the UK isn't one of them. I put it down to general laziness on the part of bathroom designers everywhere.

A small collection of bathroom products. Not the best photographic angle, I'll admit. In my defense, it was a small room and caipirinhas had been passed around earlier in the evening.

Prescott Street - Ladies

Been busy lately! Or incontinent. One of the two. Anyway, here is a photo of the ladies' toilets in an office building on Prescott Street. Guys, that's a tampon and pad dispenser stuck to the wall on the left. Most ladies' toilets have them, very few actually dispense pads. Mainly they just eat your money at a very inopportune moment, what with the bleeding and the nice clean clothes.

A cubicle. The box on the right is where you're supposed to dispose of your pads and tampons, instead of flushing them. That cotton stuff is designed to expand on contact with moisture, ladies. Shoving it down a skinny pipe filled with water is just asking for trouble.

Sorry, no larger pictures available. I forgot to change to a larger photo size on my cameraphone. (Must remember to bring proper camera from now on.)

Cineworld West India Quay

These are the bloke's toilets at Cineworld, West India Quay. Classy, hey? I particularly like the Warning and Wet Floor signs alongside the hazard tape.

Apparently, the hand-dryers are conveniently located right beside the urinals, so when it's busy right after a film they have to squeeze past a guy peeing in order to dry their hands.

And these are the ladies'. Look, we get carpet and everything since we don't pee all over the floor. Pity we can't throw stuff in the bin properly.