London Shitting Opportunity of the Week: A Toilet Up Some Stairs in Stoke Newington

What Is It? Stair toilet, mate. Toilet up some stairs. What, mate – is there a problem? Is there a problem with shitting and/or pissing at the top of six small stairs?
Where Is It? Stoke Newington, home to Gilbert & George and wholesale gentrification and about 10 percent of the VICE UK staff;
What Is There to Do Locally? Bump into people from VICE UK who you kind of half-remember from the office party, like: did we talk? Do I know this person, now? I was drunk and it is hard to remember.
Alright, How Much Are They Asking? £306,000

Consider the toilet: a yawning ceramic distillery where you deposit your turds and wee, and they are turned alchemy-like into a sort of brown pissy slurry that runs beneath the city like blood runs through veins. Consider the thing you sit on anywhere between one to eight times per day and make your worst noises and smells: because you don't, do you? You don't consider your toilet. Maybe say thank you next time a toilet graciously accepts your shit. Maybe try not to sprinkle quite so much piss over the edge and the outside of it.

Now, I am a traditional man and a straightforward shitter, and so I can say: I have never turded up a toilet at the top of some stairs. I've never had a go on a toilet any more exciting than "flat on a tiled floor", if I'm honest. I think I had a go on one that was sort of on a hollow wooden plinth once – an especially grotty flatshare in Clapton, as I recall – but not one at the top of some stairs. That's special. That's elevated. That's a throne.

Look at this toilet, in a flat in Stoke Newington, recently purchased ahead of auction for £306,000. Squint closely and look. Notice anything? Yes, you're right: it is up some stairs.

A lot of people look at this toilet and say: this toilet is everything that is wrong with London and, by extension, humanity. They see a toilet crammed into a bathroom as an afterthought, a last-minute idea hampered by a low sloping roof. They see a toilet devoid of hope and devoid of any dignity. "£306,000?" they say, these sneering critics, "for a toilet? At the top of some stairs? And also a one-bedroom flat, which is attached to and in fact encompasses the stair toilet? What madness is this?" And to those people I say: have you never had a dream? Have you never had hope in your heart? Have you never had a good shit?

I, for one, would be delighted to have a go on the stair toilet. Imagine the pomp and ceremony of walking up six little stairs before taking a shit, like a Queen ascending to the throne. Imagine the sense of peace you will feel when you sit all tucked up in your little pissing alcove. And let's talk the squat: leading poop doctors say you need to really get down on your haunches to align your bowels and allow you to do shits correctly, and I just think something about the angle and placement of the stairs means you will be able to do a really healthy and immaculate one while gaining purchase with your legs across the top two to three stairs.

Plus: someone can take an entire shower while you shit and you wouldn't notice them. If anything, I'm wondering now, yelling it: why aren't all toilets like this? Why isn't every toilet a stair toilet? It's absurd that I even need to preface this toilet with the word "stair". Stair toilets should be the norm and we should have to refer to normal toilets as "flatties". This is the future of waste disposal, and we just need to embrace it. Rise, stair toilet, and consume my human garbage.

(Actually, sorry, just had a second thought: probably really hard to vomit in that thing. Where are your knees going to go? No. Sorry. No. Stair toilet is actually very bad.)

@joelgolby

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A Fucking Shed – A SHED – in Someone's Front Room

A Black Metal Dungeon