What do you read when you're "sitting it out" in the toilet?

[Ciarán]

Honestly, that was the best thread title I could come up with. Pathetic isn't it?

Anyway, I like to keep a few books in the loo at home, just in case. Certain books are ideal toilet reading material. 'The Meaning of Liff' by John Lloyd and Douglas Admas leaps to mind. I'm sure we're all familiar with it....

Fairymount noun A polite term for buggery.

That sort of thing. I've just found a great one in a bargain bin. It's called 'The Wit and Wisdom of Football', no author, but it's published by House of Raven. I'll just let the pages fall open and see what we come up with...

"I'd never allow myself to let myself call myself a coward." - Graham Taylor

"Wimbledon are putting balls into the blender." - Rodney Marsh

"It's end to end stuff, but from side to side." - Trevor Brooking

"Once you've got a bull-terrier you never want another dog. I've got six bull-terriers, a rottweiler and a bulldog." - Julian Dicks

"The 3-5-3 system isn't working for them." - Eamon Dunphy goes up to eleven.

"Chris Waddle is off the pitch at the moment, exactly the position he is at his most menacing." - Gerald Sinstadt

It's bloody funny. I'm not going to dare try and read it on the bus home.

[the midnight watch baboon]

I read old copies of Empire that always fall open at articles I've braingested a million times before.

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

The odd article from Private Eye usually.  I don't think I could ever read a book from start to finish on the loo, I'm just too regular for that

[buttgammon]

I like thumbing through my latest copy of Rothmans (now the Sky Sports Yearbook) and trying to prolong my stay on the toilet while looking at when Bury played their first league match or seeing who won the Andorran Cup last year.

'Introducing' books and the 'Very Short Introudction To...' series are also good for toilet reading. I got through about four fifths of 'Introducing Jung' while having a big shit once and I've read plenty of stuff like that in the bath.

I reckon I do most of my reading on the toilet, in the bath and on holiday. I especially read on the toilet now because our downstairs loo ('the cloakroom') has recently been redecorated so it's really nice in there and still smells of paint which masks the horrible odours within. The fact that it is located next to the front door is pretty bad if somebody comes to the house, though.

[Emma Raducanu]

I keep a fresh copy of the Sun by my toilet but that's just to wipe my arse with, not for reading. My bowels are far too efficient to afford the opportunity to read anything, three words and splash, I'm out of there. I'll leave you with that.

[_Hypnotoad_]

currently : Stephen King, The Stand

I always have a book on the go in there, although after this one, I need to hunt around for some new material. I've only ever read one book twice;

[alan nagsworth]

I should probably start buying Viz or something for bathroom reads. I an't read a bit of a proper book and then just leave it, knowing full well the only designated time to read more is when I need to lay the foundations for a log cabin. If it was a crap book I wouldn't read it anyeay, if it was good I'd end up taking it away with me.

I just sit there and play Midnight Pool on my phone, 'cuz I'm newschool.

[buttgammon]

I do use the toilet for games sometimes too. I had a phase of taking my PSP in there a while back but I stopped when I got a bit over-excited playing Tekken and almost broke it. I do play solitaire on my iPod while on the toilet sometimes, usually while playing 'Before and After Science' by Brian Eno which I also like to listen to while in the bath. i have some peculiar habits.

[alan nagsworth]

Yeah, music on the john is always good. Music everywhere is always good so the toilet is no exception.

[Hypodeemic Nerdle]

This week it's been PKD's We Can Remember It for You Wholesale & old issues of Poot! comic.  Usually it's magazines like Metal Maniacs or The Wire.  I often take the Radio Times into the bog, & while I'm sitting I'll put lines of red ink around the progs/fillums I'd most like to watch.  And then I end up not watching most of them.

My bathtime listening is usually something loud like Earth, SunnO))) or harsh Japanoise type stuff.  Something that cuts through while me lugs are full of water.

[buttgammon]

I like music everywhere and the toilet is no exception.

As for the bath, it's usually Eno, Magazine or Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works 85-92'. I even put together special playlists for listening to while having a bath.

[boxofslice]

I leave my poos to the last minute so really im just in, dump, wipe, flush, wash and out. At a friends house he has a couple of scan mags in his bathroom so when im round there i usually treat myself.

[Cack Hen]

I think we had this thread before, and there was a significant minority (including myself) who found the idea of taking something with you to pass the time away was a bit odd. Surely you just want to get in, get out and move on, why would would you want to spend that long on the toilet? Sure, if you've got bowel issues, I can understand to a degree, but even then you're not going to be particularly comfortable are you, how do you focus on reading? I can't believe everybody here has bowel issues, have they? have they?

[buttgammon]

I'm surprisingly comfortable on the toilet. I'd rather sit on a toilet than in an armchair unless the toilet in question is a filthy, smelly public toilet which is covered with wet toilet paper, somebody else's piss and used condoms. I can never sit down on public toilets but in my own home, other people's houses (provided I know them reasonably well) and hotel rooms are great. I recently stayed in a hotel room abroad which had separate rooms for the bath/sink area and the toilet/bidet and I loved it.

As for the focusing on reading issue, I can't read at the exact moment it's coming out but I'm fine apart from that. I find fewer distractions in the bathroom than anywhere else.

[ziggy starbucks]

do you read standing or sitting?

[Baxter]

Madness of the highest order, have you perverts got no idea of the proper place for the proper activity.

Bathrooms are for defecation and ablutions, sitting rooms with leather armchairs are the proper places for reading, why the Jim Pickett would you want to confuse these locations?

[buttgammon]

No they aren't. Sitting rooms with leather armchairs are for watching the telly in the evening and having a cup of tea while bathrooms are for defecation, urination, reading and occasionally copulation. And having baths and showers occasionally as well.

[Kapuscinski]

Does anyone write on the toilet? Not literally. I often think of witty replies to people while straining.

Best thing to read on the toilet for me is someone's diary. At the moment I'm working my way through Michael Palin's.

[wherearethespoons]

I like reading graffiti in toilets. The other day I was in a pub and one piece, badly scratched on the door, read;

KILL ALL THE PAKIES

The first thing I thought was, 'That's terrible, there shouldn't be an E in there.' And immediately I felt bad.

[TC Raymond]

old issues of Poot! comic.

I remember that, the only 'adult' comic in the world that was more twee and inoffensive than Bunty. No doubt Barrett, Fielding and J*sie L*ng were avid readers.

[alan nagsworth]

I'm surprisingly comfortable on the toilet. I'd rather sit on a toilet than in an armchair ...

There's something relaxing about listening to music and/or playing phone games, just knowing that if you have to take a dump, you don't have to break up your relaxed sit, you just shit.

do you read standing or sitting?

I laughed myself into a coma reading that. I'm okay now though.

[wherearethespoons]

I might print this thread out and read it on the shitter.

[quadraspazzed]

For the last year or so my permanently-residing-bog-books have bee the following:

The Book of Bull by Anthony Butler (1974)

A compilation of (mostly) Irish contradictions in terms and idiotic turns of phrases (called 'bulls'). eg,

"Dublin," said the tourist, "is a very ancient city." "It was in the past," said Cahill, "but things have changed a lot recently."

"Our fresh eggs and milk come straight from the cow to the customer"

"What with all the accidents on the roads and in the air it is amazing that so many people live to the hour of their death."

Funny Convulsing and Funny Confusing by Denys Parson

Basically funny and/or misprinted news headlines, reports etc. Both books are mildly amusing.

We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anti-Capitalism by various activist groups and the like. It's a load of stories and reports from the anti-capitalism movement, from Dublin to Ramallah to Lima. Published in 2003 so it's a bit out of date now, but it only cost a euro in a charity shop.

And recently (mostly on the bog) I worked my way through The Politics of Antisemitism from CounterPunch featuring the likes of Edward Said, Norman Finkelstein, Michael Neumann, The Christisons, Bob Fisk, Neve Gordon and of course Cockburn and St. Clair themselves. The essays all concern - in various ways - to quote from the Amazon blurb, "how did a term, once used accurately to describe the most virulent evil, become a charge flung at the mildest critic of Israel, particularly concerning its atrocious treatment of Palestinians?" Really rather good, but not anything I was unaware of already.

I love reading on the jacks, it's great.

[buttgammon]

Does anyone write on the toilet? Not literally. I often think of witty replies to people while straining.

Best thing to read on the toilet for me is someone's diary. At the moment I'm working my way through Michael Palin's.

I read much of Palin's diaries on the toilet and thought it was a good place to read them. Same with Che Guevara's.

Before I started doing my diary on the computer, I used to write in it on the toilet sometimes because I knew nobody could disturb me in there with the door locked. Because it was a relatively small book I sometimes took it with me places and ended up writing in it on other people's toilets!

[Gulftastic]

I do Sudoku puzzles.

[semtex]

I've never quite understood this concept. If you have enough time to read a book/magazine/whatever, then you really need to reconsider your diet. Does 'it' really take that long?!?! I'd be lucky to finish reading one classified before i'm reaching for the bog roll.

[buttgammon]

I tend to hang around longer if I'm with a book. I will often shed my load very quickly and then get on with 10-15 minutes of reading before flushing, washing, drying and doing something else.

[Paaaaul]

This is highly suitable. Loads of two page synopses of all the "classic" books that you can't be arsed reading all the way through, a few thousand quotes and quizes and loads of life-management books reduced to bullet points.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

currently : Stephen King, The Stand

I find myself wondering how many tons of shit you will have produced before you finish it.  A few, I would imagine!

I read Empire magazine, which as I try and be fairly brief in the shitter, takes me about a month per issue.

[buttgammon]

This is highly suitable. Loads of two page synopses of all the "classic" books that you can't be arsed reading all the way through, a few thousand quotes and quizes and loads of life-management books reduced to bullet points.

I'd forgotten that somehow. I'll have to give it a go when I have my nightly shit later on.