Monday 16 March 2009

This update brought to you by The SDU and YOU.

York SDU #1: My friend John (who is awesome and designed the Honeymoon Period logo based on little other than a wobbly drawing I had emailed him) took us to a shopping centre outside York and then on to York proper last weekend and we spotted a good, a bad, and ...instead of an ugly, I actually think this one almost qualifies as cute. But this is mainly because of my disorder where I see cute faces in everything. But come on - don't those chrome hinges cry out to be eyes staring lovingly up at you, the overflow valve and bowl presenting an alien as adorable as Doctor Who's Adipose babies?




While ridiculous and unnecessary, this SDU is less offensive than normal. It has room to chill on the diagonal, a long trap door, curvy edges and a chunky foot pedal. Without incurring the wrath of certain corporations, I'm suggesting it could be called an iSDU. Just don't hit shuffle.


York SDU #2:



This is a classic problem - the short trap door plus a lax cleaning rota. Last year's York centre SDU nirvana may have been a one-off. This was taken in the other public toilet built and maintained for shoppers and tourists in York city centre, and it let me down.

My accidental SDU tourism has taught me two things though -

  1. York has the most stylish units in the UK, evidenced by twice-seen rakishly angled design choices - the debonair dandies of the public convenience world.
  2. It would be wise for none of us to accept old-lady free toilet hook ups in the future. Visitors and Citizens of York: Pay the 20 pence charge from now on to avoid crimes against SDU-manity.
Oh yeah - there were replica Viking ships in the mall.

Chella

3 comments:

Riot Kitty said...

Stylish toilets! Who knew? Hey, are you going to sponsor my walk? Sorry, but if you aren't able to get e-mail, this is my shot!

Chella Quint said...

LOL. Course I am! Email Sarah and she'll forward it to me - don't know why I'm not getting your emails. Let's take a moment to marvel at the wonders of technology.

Ok, moment over.

Yeah - I don't like SDUs but I try to praise them when they're sensibly executed. Ideally a normal bin would suffice, of course. There is some good work being done about sexist industrial design environments - will try to dig out the post for you later.

C

Riot Kitty said...

Thanks, I did! BTW, you should e-mail the Feminist Review editor about doing a links exchange.