![]() In a scruffy room in Reims I stand gazing at the doors of four cubicles, one locked and labelled with a female silhouette, the rest unmarked and empty, wondering how long I’ll have to wait, before sternly reminding myself that this is a unisex room and a toilet is a toilet. I remember this scene when travelling through France in summer 2018, where the architecture of restaurant toilets becomes a source of piquant fascination. ![]() What difference does it make who uses it?” My daughter and aunt go to the toilet at the same time, and as they return to the table, my daughter asks: “Why did you use the men’s toilet?” My aunt, who lives in a suburb of Athens, isn’t on social media, and knows nothing of the argument surrounding gender-neutral toilets, frowns and replies: “It’s a toilet. Each has one of those ersatz Victorian sign plates on its door, depicting, to the left, a besuited man with cane and top hat, and on the right, a woman encased in full skirt with bustle. The restaurant where I’m having lunch with extended family has dusty green paintwork, tourist-trap tables in a long row outside, and at the back, up a short flight of stairs, on either side of a small landing, two toilets. The time is Easter 2017, the place Nafplio in the Peloponnese, a patterned silk scarf of a seaside town, the kind of place a cruise might pause for a shopping expedition. ![]() Trips to the toilet are the stuff of neither postcards home nor poetry but none the less that’s where I’m going to start. ![]()
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