Hanley toilet block is cash well spent – not money down the drain

STOKE-ON-TRENT City Council is considering getting rid of its toilets. Not for staff – passers-by needn’t fear walking below open windows at the Civic Offices – but the public facility in Hanley.

This iconic building, based loosely on the Temple of Zeus at Cyrene, has been coming to the rescue of cross-legged shoppers for decades. Who amongst us has never emitted a satisfying ‘Ahhh!’ while bathing in its UV violet light to stop drug users shooting up in the corner?

The authority’s plan is to save £20,000 by encouraging businesses to allow the brim-bladdered to relieve themselves on their premises instead.

Which exact business will be asked to partake in the scheme is unclear, although few would wish to have Betty from Halmer End burst in while discussing delicate divorce proceedings with a city centre solicitor.

I’ll be frank in admitting my bladder ain’t what it used to be. If it was an outside tap I’d have got a plumber in.

Few visits to Hanley are carried out without a visit to the Stafford Street lavatory block. Indeed, if I’ve had one too many cuppas before setting out, I impose a rule on myself not to venture outside a zone of 100 metres.

As city centre toilets go they aren’t bad. Yes, you wouldn’t stage a landmark birthday in them, but as a rule they’re both functional and clean.

Admittedly, I have, like many, on occasion, nipped in and used the facilities in a pub instead. But I’m never hugely comfortable with this scenario. It’s not uncommon to feel the wrath of the proprietor, and understandably so if you happen to be in charge of a busload of octogenarians heading for the bingo.

I have even integrated myself into pub life simply to justify using their toilet. I am now a member of five different darts teams and am halfway through the 12-step plan to recovery.

Even with the offer of a subsidy, some businesses have given the plan a cool reception. Cafés, for example, work hard to create a certain ambience. And you can see how that might easily be disturbed if there’s no public facilities available during a march by the English Defence League.

Really, many would say a public toilet in a city centre is a basic requirement. And £20,000 – well, it’s a drop in the ocean, if you’ll pardon the phrase.

I mean, it’s not like those luxury facilities at the old bus station are available anymore. I had a great affection for those toilets. In fact, I was good friends with some of the bouncers.

If we’re not careful we’re going to end up like France. And while Hanley would like to be compared with Paris, it’d not be for grown men hosing down the gutters. They don’t even seem to have those ones you stand in and peek over the top anymore. Which is a shame because I think they were a good idea, and one which I’d encourage the city council to introduce here. If nothing else it’d give the men something to do while their partners were choosing a skirt in Marks & Spencer.

I can’t honestly see the closure going through. I mean, it only gives rise to another problem – what to do with the building? A town can only take so many Wetherspoons. And I don’t envisage many other businesses queuing up to take it over. Certainly I can’t see it doing well as a bridal salon.

I see that toilet block as cash well spent, not money down the drain. Let’s face it, we’ve all had occasions, lumbered with shopping, feet in agony, stiletto snapped in an escalator, when it’s been the most satisfying thing about a trip up town.

Secret Life Of Dogs – ITV1

“THAT dog,” said Allen (CRRCT), “saved my life, my marriage, and brought me back to my children.” Even in her 80s, Lassie’s a truly amazing animal.

Actually, it was a Labrador, Endal, which transformed Allen’s life. A head injury in the Gulf War had left the former naval officer unable to recognise his wife or children. But, after a chance meeting with the bow-wow, the pair became best buddies. I’m not saying they shared bones, but it was close.

Although it was when they were both hit by a car in the dead of night that the magnificent mutt showed his true devotion. “He got up,”said Allen, “pulled me into the recovery position, retrieved his blanket from under my wheelchair, and covered me with it.” He’s since replaced the AA as the fourth emergency service.

But Endal hadn’t finished. “In the dark,” revealed Allen,“he found my mobile phone.” Don’t get carried away - he didn’t dial the ambulance.

“He brought it to my face,” continued Allen, “and then he made the brave decision to limp off to a nearby hotel to raise the alarm.” He was discovered three hours later in a foam bath in the honeymoon suite.

Endal was awarded the Victoria Cross For Animal Bravery, blotting his copybook slightly by cocking his leg on Princess Anne at the medal ceremony.

But he’s not alone in such heroics. Max saved the life of 79-year-old Margaret after she got lost in woodland for several days while trying to find a short cut home after missing her stop on the bus, a scenario which adds fire to my campaign to have satellite tracking fitted to every senior citizen over 70.

Margaret survived lying under a tree for three days and two nights in freezing conditions. When they found out, the government stopped her winter fuel allowance.

“I kept getting tied up with the brambles,” she explained. “Then it got cold and dark so I lay under a big tree.” The BBC has since commissioned her to replace Ray Mears.

All the time Margaret was just 500m from her house. In fact at one stage she nipped back for a hot water bottle.

Police and volunteers combed the area trying to find her, before Max was called in. “I was relieved when I was licked all over by a dog,”said Margaret. Every now and then she covers herself in Pedigree Chum to relive the experience.

“Dogs are very efficient,” said Max’s handler. “They’re probably equal to about 10 people searching.”

It’s worth getting one just to find your glasses.

Timeshift: Eyes Down! The Story of Bingo – BBC4

“IT’S the early 1960s,” noted Timeshift, “and thousands are gripped by a new obsession.” Not the eye-level grill. Bingo.

“You get a fantastic adrenalin rush,” explained one old bird. “When you get near a line you’re nervous, you’re shaking.” Just watch your dentures don’t fall out.

Even now more people play bingo than watch football. Attendances are higher than church. You’d think they could adapt and combine it with calling out the hymn numbers.

Back in the day, bingo was the centrepiece of entire holidays. “If you’re idea of a good break is bingo from 10.30 in the morning to 10.30 at night,” said a Pathé announcer, “then Clacton is a dream come true.”If it isn’t then it’s your worst nightmare.

Blackpool too has a great bingo tradition. “What have you won?” an elderly lady emerging from a seafront game was asked. “I've got a cupcake money box,” she said, “and a frying pan.” And to think some people chuck money away on the lottery.

However, not everyone was a fan. “The most mindless ritual achieved in half a million years of human evolution,” thundered one newspaper (this was before Sudoku had come along).

Bingo’s popularity came from the fact that it allowed people to win prizes beyond their imagination. “We had cruises to Monte Carlo or Biarritz,” said one club operator. “These were things only the jet-set had at that time.” At that time? They still are.

And it gave women independence. “Women,” we heard, “were beginning to say ‘why can't I go out and have a bit of time on my own?’” Blimey, they’ll be wanting the ironing board putting away next.

“The husband was happy to give her a couple of quid to go with,” said one expert, “because he knew she was in a totally safe environment- there was no-one getting drunk and chatting her up.” No, a shout of ‘two fat ladies’ is rarely misconstrued as a sexual invite.

Talking of which, “it would be impossible to grow up in Britain,” claimed one fan, “without knowing a bingo call,”. Like ‘legs 11’ ‘two little ducks’, and the recently updated ’21 – key of the dole office’.

Sadly, the smoking ban put paid to a lot of halls. “Smoking’s a very big thing to bingo players,” said one ex-club owner. “It’s a nervous reaction when you’re playing.” Without fags, many were ejected for biting the table.

For some, bingo goes right to the heart. “I don’t want people crying at my funeral,” said one lady. “What I want is for mourners to be handed a strip of bingo tickets and the priest to call the numbers.”

The winner gets her gold teeth.

Benidorm ER – Five

BENIDORM is one of Spain’s most popular resorts. In Europe, only London and Paris have more hotel rooms. Not for nothing is it known as the Filey of the Costa Blanca.

Most visitors come here to catch the sun. Yes, they occasionally catch something else, but that’s what happens when you get too friendly with a stag party from Gateshead.

Holidays generally pass with nought more than a minor case of sunburn (never lie on your front in a thong). However, a small minority will always require the attentions of the Clinica Benidorm, a bit like Holby City but with elegant and olive-skinned medical staff rather than Nigel from EastEnders.

First in this week was Hannah who had a nasty cut to her scalp.“I rolled over in bed,” she said, “and hit my head right on the corner of the bedside cabinet.” Why there isn’t a Public Information Film about that kind of think I‘ll never know.

For Hannah the incident had put the tin hat on what had clearly, right from the start, been a nightmare holiday. “We arrived,” she said, “and for three hours we were looking for a McDonald’s.” The hardships some people have to suffer. It’s like Touching The Void.

Hannah had to be held down by a pal, possibly a Klondike Kate tribute, while she had the wound stapled. The bad news was she was in a grotesque amount of pain. The good news was it reminded me I needed to go to Ryman’s in the morning.

“My head is on fire,” she caterwauled. “It feels like it’s exploded.” I’m just hoping she never pops up on One Born Every Minute.

Elsewhere, Freda (always nice when parents name their child after the Blue Peter tortoise) was cradling a ‘very painful finger’ after an accident in a nightspot. “I went to the toilet,” she said, “and as I turned to lock the door I trapped my finger.” You’d be right in thinking it’s hardly the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

“I think it might be broken,” she added, “because I could hear it crack.” Either that or a big girl had bust the seat in the next door cubicle.

In a scene with all the drama and tension of a peculiarly underwhelming episode of Peppa Pig, Freda was called into the doctor’s room to hear the X-Ray result. “No break,” said the doc, her svelte beauty intensified by the venereal disease poster on the wall, “just soft tissue damage.”

We can all sleep easy tonight.

EastEnders – BBC1

SHARON’S been neglecting little Dennis in EastEnders, a fact brought home when she realised she was missing off all the family drawings he’d brought home from school. Although it could just have been they didn’t have a crayon that colour.

“I see Dennis is drawing weird pictures,” mocked Bianca, a woman who is to compassion what Swarfega is to grease. “My Tiffany went through that.” I remember that storyline - when Tiffany’s teachers asked her to draw a picture of family life, they were somewhat bemused to find she’d sketched Vesuvius.

“My son is nothing like your kids,” snapped Sharon. True. Bianca’s offspring are overseen by the UN. Little Dennis, on the other hand, looks like a bemused Little Lord Fauntleroy. My suspicion is there was a mix-up at the hospital. Somewhere a member of the minor aristocracy is wondering why their son wants to run a car lot and keeps asking for jellied eels.

“He's just feeling a bit jealous of you and Lexi,”soothed Jack. “He just feels a little bit left out.” Poor lad - it’s months since she involved him in a gangland turf war.

Sharon made amends in the pub. In a classic piece of mothering, she asked Dennis to draw a picture of her while she swilled a G&T.“Is that supposed to be me?” she enquired of the result. And, to be honest, I thought it was a Yeti too.

Elsewhere, Ian was trying to woo Minute Mart manager Denise, inviting her round for a meal. “I’ve got a lovely bit of haddock,” he charmed. “It’s on the turn so I could do with getting it ate tonight – you’d be doing me a favour.” The only question is what they’ll be sharing next – a bed or a toilet.

“That has to be the worst invitation I've ever heard in my life,” said Denise, forgetting that time Phil asked her to share his porridge at the Scrubs.

Elsewhere, Cora was doing all she could to stop daughter Tanya inviting serial philanderer Max back into her life. “You can chuck all his stuff out on the street,” she told him, “cufflinks, dodgy CDs, odd socks, but unless you get him out of your head you’re never going to be free.” No, but getting rid of his socks has got to be a start. To stop bluebottles coming in if nothing else.

Cora’s certainly not to be messed with. She’s like Big Mo with bells on. “Take one more step and it'll be your last,” she told Max as he advanced on Tanya’s door.

Why she wasn’t Greco-Roman wrestling at London 2012 I’m unsure.

Wonders Of Life – BBC2

“What,” ponders professor Brian Cox, “is the difference between the living and the dead?” I’m no scientist but I’d say not much in the case of the Bruce Forsyth.

“What is life?” added the smilesome academic. “What is it that animates living things? What is the difference between a piece of rock carved into a gravestone and me?” The answer being you don’t need an A-level refresher course to understand a piece of rock carved into a gravestone.

To be fair, Cox is trying, in terms most of us can understand, to explain the origins of life. “The question ‘what is life?’,” he opined, “is surely one of the grandest of all.” Right up there with ‘can you pass the ketchup?’ and ‘who’s that at the door?’.

“How is it this magnificent complexity that we call life could have assembled itself on a planet that itself formed from nothing more than a collapsing cloud of gas and dust?” It’s a question rarely used as an ice-breaker at a swingers’ party.

Where some believe life to have been created by a higher being – how else can you explain Bradley Wiggins? – Cox sees it in more black and white terms. “Living things can be explained by the laws of physics,” he says, “the very same laws that explain the falling of the rain or the shining of the stars.” Although even physicians are baffled by the existence of John McCririck.

Cox accepts though, that some things that don’t quite appear to add up. For instance, while dead stuff decomposes, “how can it be that a living organism avoids decay?” Clearly he hasn’t clapped eyes on Princess Anne for a while.

To get his ideas across, Cox tries to incorporate objects familiar to us all. At one stage, for example, he tried to explain changes in energy by showing thermal images of a chicken. “The chicken,” he said, “is radiating disorder out into the wider universe.” I’ve no idea what he meant but, if that’s their game, I don’t feel quite so bad about eating them.

Later Cox performed a neat trick where he isolated his DNA with washing-up liquid, salt, and vodka. “In that cloudy innocuous looking solid,” he revealed, “are all the instructions to build a human being.” For Loose Women presenters, double the vodka.

“We're connected,” he stated, “not only to every animal alive today, but to every single thing that has ever lived.” Surely not the dung beetle.

“Life,” he concluded, “is not a thing, it’s a collection of chemical processes.” So there you have it. Our precious existence. Nought more than de-scaling the kettle.

Fighter Wives: The World Of MMA – Five

“THERE are men in Britain,” revealed Channel 5’s documentary, “who make their living by fighting in a cage.” Is this the depths to which those laid off by the civil service have fallen?

MMA is a no-holds barred contact sport which combines boxing, wrestling and martial arts. It’s practised predominantly by women in city centres after chucking out time on a Saturday.

It’s taken the sporting public by storm, upwards of 50 people routinely packing out a back room in Watford.

“It’s brutal, bloody, and,” claimed the programme, “very big business indeed.” In many ways it’s similar to pensioners’ night at the bingo.

For partners it’s not easy seeing a loved-one beaten and mauled in the ring. It’s one of the reasons I gave up lion taming. But for Maria it had at least stopped her beloved Colin getting up to no good elsewhere. Their marriage had seen him “transform from local thug to professional fighter”. The change had been immediate – he went 10 rounds with his mother-in-law at the reception.

“When I first met him,” said Maria, “he did used to fight with people, not for money or in a ring.” It was more something to do on the way home from Sainsburys.

“I’d see him,” she continued, “and there’d be blood where a lad had tried to bite his nose. I said ‘if you’re with me you won’t be able to do that anymore’.” No, if you’re going to be a cage fighter, you’re going to have to give up primary school teaching.

Maria didn’t like fight time. “I’m not going to freak him out,” she said, “but he knows I’m on the verge of vomiting.” Keep your coat on if you’re in the seat in front of her.

She didn’t let their two children attend, but instead hoped to capture it on film. “It’ll be nice to pass down the DVDs to their children,”she said, “so they can see what their granddad did.” They’re just awaiting the age ruling from the British Board of Film Classification.

Elsewhere, Poppy had found a career as a ring girl, one of those women who parade round in their skimpies, much admired by Germaine Greer. “For me it was a bit scary,” she admitted of her debut. “You’re going to be there in a cage half naked and everyone’s looking at you.” It reminded me of a nightmare I once had about Debbie McGee.

Pal Lexi was a little more confident. “Being out in front of all these people half naked,” she said, “there’s nothing better.” I’ll hand it to her - she’d have made a great Olympic Games Maker.