When you gotta go...

I recently concluded a poll asking the question: “Have you ever relieved yourself in a "public" place coming home from the pub?” There were 41 responses and the results were:

Often: 9 (22%)
From time to time: 9 (22%)
On rare occasions 19 (46%)
Never: 4 (10%)

Obviously the readership of this blog is somewhat self-selecting, but it’s significant that 9 out of 10 respondents had done this at least occasionally, and nearly a quarter see it as a routine part of their pubgoing life.

There was a time when councils provided numerous basic urinals around their streets precisely to deal with this issue – older Stockport residents may recall the one behind the Lord Nelson on Wellington Road South opposite the town hall. However, decades of cost-saving and concerns about sex equality have put paid to them, so nowadays people have no choice but to find a large bush or dark alleyway. Indeed, in town and city centres at weekends you will often see young blokes openly relieving themselves without any attempt at concealment.

And councillors and council bureaucrats should remember all the by-laws and enforcement in the world won’t stop people pissing in the open if they are not provided with any alternative. Closing all the public toilets doesn’t change the basic laws of human fluid dynamics.