How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [23]
Perhaps because of this relaxed attitude, Japanese people can expect to live longer than anyone else on Earth. Like the French and the Icelanders, who also smoke a lot and eat well, they have a good chance of reaching 100. It’s only slaves to the American way who drop dead in a gym, aged six.
There is, however, one aspect of Japanese life that is neither similar to the system we have in Britain nor something we should covet: going to the lavatory. This is a fairly standard procedure over much of the globe. Except in Germany, where you are invited to inspect your stools with a lollipop stick before flushing them away. Unfortunately, though, the Japanese have examined the simple water closet and decided that it could be improved with some electronics. The result, I’m afraid, is a disaster.
It’s why the Japanese economy is now in such a mess: all their top people and scientists are stuck in their bathrooms, unable to wipe their bottoms.
First of all the seat is warmed – and there is no way for the round-eye to know this, which means I had to sit there imagining the heat had come from the lorry driver who’d been the last person to use the motorway service-station cubicle. This is unnerving. Soon I became convinced that it was possible to catch encephalitis from the latent heat of a Japanese lorry driver’s bottom.
Wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible, I turned and discovered to my horror that the loo roll had been replaced with what can only be described as the Starship Enterprise’s dashboard. And it was all in Japanese. The first button I pushed, with a trembly finger, made the seat get even warmer. Realizing that unless I acted quickly I’d be cooked, I stabbed at another button – which made a gout of liquid nitrogen shoot up my bottom. So hurriedly, and in great pain, I turned a hopeful-looking knob that simply redirected the fountain into my scrotum. In a state of some distress I pushed a slider control all the way down and immediately got a pretty good idea of what it might be like accidentally to impale yourself on the fuel rod from a nuclear power station. I was now in real trouble.
And I didn’t understand why. Who would want to steam-clean their nether regions? Who wants a lavatory seat that can reach the same temperature as a barbecue? And, conversely, who gets up in the morning and thinks: ‘I know, I’ll stop off at the Brue Boar services this morning and deep-freeze my testicles’?
Which brings me on to the next question. Why is it necessary to have directional control for the fountain of fire and ice? I can understand why a lady might need – and even enjoy – such a feature. But for chaps it’s jolly painful.
And then there’s the problem with the flush. The first button I pressed filled the cubicle with karaoke tunes. The second started the tap in the corner. It wasn’t till I got to the sub-menu in the eighth quadrant that I was treated to the sound of water being sucked away.
Unfortunately it was just the recording of a flush being played through the WC’s speaker system. Am I missing something here? I can think of no reason anyone might want to convince people in neighbouring cubicles that they are flushing the bog when in fact they are not. And why would you want to play this sound at a volume that could kill bats? Because, trust me, you can.
Finally I leant over the unit to see if there was a conventional handle, and somehow while doing this I made a jet of water squirt into my crotch. Which meant I eventually emerged from the cubicle looking as though I hadn’t bothered to lower my trousers. Everyone in the restaurant laughed at my misfortune. And once again I felt very much at home.
Sunday 25 May 2008
Argh!