It’s office party season — late nights, boozing and the pungent odour of men’s fresh urine
IT’S NOT easy for women to urinate in public. Having grown up in the countryside, I have spent many a moment entangled in some thorny bush in the middle of a three-hour walk, crouched and hopping about from one leg to another like a deranged crab. Bucolic expeditions were often interrupted by a search for a grassy knoll or tree trunk. Or when chancing it, the local rambling association would appear around the corner the moment your skinny jeans decide to wedge themselves firmly at knee height.
It’s why you will not find females at every dark corner relieving ourselves around London — on the way home, after the pub, or merely in the middle of the day. A deserted hillside is not the same as a city teeming with five million people, and way too many men whip out their genitalia in public and pee on our city.
Yesterday, I observed one sober, nattily dressed millennial use the wall one metre from the exit of a busy Underground station. It was 4.30pm, he barely glanced up before unzipping, forcing a young woman and her baby to rapidly sidestep his proficient stream (and offering an eyeful of his privates; what a teatime treat!). Most evenings, weaving down backstreets, I pass a man spraying a nearby wall. My husband, for the record, goes ballistic if my two young sons try to use our front garden; plenty of men abhor this behaviour too.
This weekend is the unofficial start of the festive season of office parties, late nights and overindulgence. And the pungent odour of fresh urine. For as the level of alcohol steeply rises, so will the leaking. We have laws for littering, for indecency, for noise from loud parties. But we have confused options regarding pissing in the street or ensuring London’s pretty alleyways don’t possess a stench so foul that you gag.
In Paris they introduced zero tolerance; in America it is illegal in every state. It’s not a glamorous subject to champion; it’s not going to traffic well on Twitter. But more boroughs should be following the City, where there are Toilet Apps (the Free City Toilet App) and maps, never mind the Urilifts — urinals stored in the ground during the day that magically airlift at night, while 75 businesses have signed up to the Community Toilet Scheme to use their facilities. Strict by-laws could be introduced and a £1,000 fine should halt culprits in their briefs.
Public urinals are in decline (and what we do have is SO far from the glamour of the Tokyo toilet, which air- dries your derriere while playing classical music; Netflix’s revelation that seven per cent of its audience is watching in public bathrooms does not apply in London). But there’s always the disposable pee bag (it works for boys and girls). Or at every well-urinated spot graffiti artists could use their wit to discourage it loudly.
As for the next six weeks, women can hold it in, so why can’t you?
Strict by-laws could be introduced — and a £1,000 fine should halt culprits in their briefs
SEVENTY-ONE confirmed dead yesterday within Grenfell Tower. That a figure has been reached will bring no solace to those who lost their families inside, or ease the trauma of the many who escaped.
Each time I have driven past the tower I am unable to comprehend the horror of the wreckage — it is repeatedly deeply shocking, blackened and torched in the skyline.
In 2012 I was observing Prime Minister’s Questions from the press gallery when, abruptly, the mood turned sombre and charged with emotion. Some MPs wept as the then PM David Cameron made a statement, profusely apologising on behalf of the country and the Government for the mistakes by many, including the police, (and the cover-ups) that meant 41 out of the 91 dead at the Hillsborough football disaster could have survived if different measures had been taken. This was 23 years after the event.
The Grenfell Inquiry has just been delayed. The quaint expression “time heals” is not always the case. But determination for a swift resolution of justice will certainly help.