Life, the Universe and Everything

Is there anything more depressing than the experience of using a gent’s toilet in a pub? Even those with a rota pinned to the wall assuring patrons that they are inspected at least once each hour are just dreadful. You can even imagine a member of the bar staff reporting to the landlord following the inspection: “The urinals are still surrounded by a huge, suspicious puddle and there is no paper in any of the cubicles; one of which was not flushed by the last occupant and that will be a danger to shipping when that hits the Channel.”

I am not going to dwell on suspicious puddles and un-flushed toilets: I am not trying to generate unnecessary mental images. What I am going to focus on is the apparent mutual exclusivity of toilet roll and the lock on the cubicle door. Why if there is toilet roll must you protect your dignity by sitting with a foot jammed against the door: yet if you can sit safe in the knowledge of being undisturbed, you have to improvise with a combination of the cardboard tube, handkerchiefs or the old credit card slips (now very rare: an unrecognised consequence of Chip and Pin) and receipts you have found tucked into a spare pocket in your wallet.

On the rare occasions that you find the holy grail of water closets where lock is upon the door and toilet roll dispenser is full, why has some enemy of humanity removed the toilet seat and hung it from the cistern?