Fidel Gastro’s

I’m a big fan of disabled toilets generally. More room to manoveur, a little rail to help you get to your feet after a particularly hard battle and your own little wash basin at knee height. Lovely. All this and a full length mirror to check yo’self before you wreck yo’self and make sure you dab all the sweat from your brow - can it get much better? Maybe. In most disabled toilets is a little red rope hanging from the ceiling to pull if you slip off the seat and fall over, drop some henious sarin-like payload and nearly asphyxiate yourself or frankly just run out of toilet roll. However in our toilet we have a button with a label saying

‘DISABLED ALARM’

Mmh, not much use really. Do I press it and absolutely nothing happens? Do I face slowly choking to death on the toilet floor, desperately jamming this button in hope the police or coast guard come to give me CPR and nobody turns up; finally I end up dead with my pants round my ankles and my face contorted in a horrific death mask?

Yes, I think is the answer. On my grave stone - ‘Cian. Died in toilet. Lord it stank - what the hell did that child eat?’

Anyway the button is so far from the toilet and so high up on the wall that even if it did anything, an able bodied person would need monkey-like arms or a general stick on their person at all times to raise help in an emergency.

It does however raise the philosophical question that if you press a disabled alarm and no-one hears it not go off did it really not go off? One hand clapping? Oo-aaa-woo-waa?