h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How come it's drunken *males* that urinate against walls?

Females need to go to - so how come we are better at finding toilets?

Duuuh.... should have been 'females need to go too'

I believe the answer is two-fold.

1. Chaps are more likely to drink a higher volume (pints after pint of nasty lager,) whereas ladies are more likely to drink fewer pints or smaller-volume drinks hence resulting in a more pressing need to micturate for men. This is by no means definitive I know, Reading is after all a University town, but females don't seem to see drinking shorts or wine while out as demonstrating a weakness because they're not as pathetic as us chaps.

2. It's much easier for men to wee wherever they desire, having as we do a built-in hose.

As an aside, I'm not suprised that Reading has a problem with this. The whole town is an utter toilet after all.

You obviously haven't met the 'ladies' I work with...

I was going to say that my female colleagues (as well as the male ones) in the hotel and restaurant business are pretty heavy -drinkers

I seem to be missing something here, probably because I am a foreigner.

In Reading, a buy-your-drinks-and-socialize-here establishment is not required to have its own loo before it gets licensed by the health department to operate?

What is the cost of a ticket there for public micturition?

Not required to have a loo?

I had no idea! I've never been to a pub or drinking establishments that hasn't had a loo - no, make that loos (more than one) - I wonder if the law is different in Sweden?

Absolutely sea-change. As with all establishments within the EU, all Pubs, restaurants, bars etc. must provide bathroom facilities for its customers (or if in a shopping centre have proper facilities within a certain distance, about 30 metres I think.)

However, lager is a fickle lover. It will stay with you for 3 or 4 pints, then leave you with alarming regularity. The moral? Always go before you leave the bar.

It's the current fashionable 'thing' in Los Angeles for doctors, nutritionists, chiropractors etc. to direct everyone to drink 8 8-oz. glasses of water a day. From experience in trying to do this barmy thing, I know that if I drink 4 pints of just water, I know that I will have to use facilities forthwith. Do the British hold this much fluid in their system as a regular thing?

My mind is trying to conclude from this, that the Reading council think that part of the pleasure of the tourist is to mark territory. I'd prefer not to. The reason I do think this, is because the cost of an additional policeman who is dedicated to only cite folks until they become civilized is equivalent to just one of these fancy contraptions they are installing.

As you said, it's the just a current fashion, so don't. If there was a real need for drinking that much, evolution would have made you thirstier. (Not perfectly true, but true enough. )

And unless you stop drinking way before closing time you _will_ need to pee before the buss home arrives.

It's true that drinking that much is the current fashion, yet what I feel would be a better option would be to simply keep all public toilets open at night. I don't actually live in Reading, but where I live in Sandown which has a high proportion of elderly persons who are incontinent, the public toilets tend to close at around 4pm, and all winter. This has meant that for them they feel they cannot leave their houses.

<BB<

Aha! Now I know what I was missing. When bars 'close' in LA, that just means they stop serving alcoholic drinks. Some do indeed close their doors sharpish at this time, but enough don't, and there are very late closing restaurants on the Sunset Strip (nearby where I live) that you could find an indoors loo.

Ahhh there's the rub. When a bar closes in old Blighty you actually have only 20 minutes to leave by law. Any later and both you and the bar can be prosecuted. I just love living in forward-thinking countries...

the reason public toilets are not often open 24 hours has to do with crime. vandalism mostly, but also drug use, innappropriate sexual activity, and assaults.

something about toilets that brings out the worst in some folks.