The Thrones That Are Our Toilets

Jan 22, 2013 by admin

If toilets were people they would have some serious personality issues in terms of their self-esteem, because on the one hand toilets are considered the ultimate no-no at a dinner party, and anyone who dares to mention the toilet is looked upon as an absolute villain, while on the other hand anyone who has tried to throw a dinner party without a working toilet will attest to the virtual impossibility of it all.  
Toilets are great because as long as you keep them relatively well serviced they will not let down. The mechanism which runs a toilet is so simple that that almost anyone can get to feel like the DIY master by fixing a toilet, even if it involves removing all the innards of the toilet, this is still not a particularly challenging job for the part time fixer.
 
The flushing mechanism has evolved quite a bit over the years: it is has gone from the bucket of water, to the long chain hanging down the side of the wall, to the most common of all, the trusty handle and nowadays we have reached the push button stage. These toilet flushing evolutions are all window dressing because the essential theory upon which the domestic toilet in western homes is built, has remained the same through the changes: people are still trying to get their personal waste out of the way using the force of water and gravity, hopefully this can be accomplished without leaving too much evidence clinging to the sides.
 
Sadly too few people realise the purpose of the brush that rests next to most toilets; either that or they just cannot be bothered to effectively clean up after themselves, and that really is a tragedy. This lack of change in the basic design and construction in the domestic toilet is not restricted to western toilets. On the contrary, western toilets have evolved far more than any other type of toilet among=g the major cultures around the world. The Indian toilet is pretty much exactly the same today as it was three hundred years ago, though what implies is a mystery.