Close Encounters Of The Turd Kind

A visual guide to assist in our tale

Picture the scene.

You’re a newcomer to the Houses of Parliament. You’ve recently started a job working for an MP as their research assistant. The days are long, the pay is piss poor.

You need the toilet. So, being a normal human being, you go and find one.

There are plenty of them about, so the search doesn’t take long. A slight problem at first in trying to work out whether a) the entrance door to the toilet is locked; b) whether it opens inwards or outwards; and c) whether there are clean, appropriate facilities inside.

Eventually you arrive upon the answer to all three and gain suitable access. Inside awaits two cubicles, both doors shut but no obvious sign of locked status. It would be embarrassing in any circumstance to turd-burgle a cubicle occupant, but here, in a Royal Palace, when literally anyone could be behind that door, would indeed bring a crimson flush to the cheeks of even the palest face.

You take a chance on the left door, and enter.

Immediately your senses are assaulted in the sense of a Larry David “olfactory nightmare”. The toilet would be OK if it wasn’t for the fact that it clearly had a previous occupant very recently and he, for it could only have been a man, had possibly been the victim of a “bad pint” or maybe a particularly strong curry.

Not being a person with a strong stomach for such a pernicious odour, you choose to exit the cubicle and use the other one instead.

You turn, open the door and step out.

At the same time to your right, the main door to the toilets opens. Fearing undignified eye contact you scurry to the other cubicle door as quickly as possible… but it is too late. Having an outstanding and freakish ability to put names to the face of most people, you immediately recognise the unwelcome intruder.

In the door frame stands Malcolm Bruce MP. You make the unfortunate eye contact just as you’re opening the door to the other cubicle.

The MP immediately knows something is amiss. Changing cubicles? A sign of significant danger, to be sure.

Worse! The MP speaks… “Is it not safe in there?” (or words to that effect). No, you reply. Not at all.

The MP laughs and departs. You then begin to wonder if the MP thinks you were the culprit. Surely not! Surely he would understand that most sane people would change urinatory venue in the face of such an assault?

We will never truly know the answer. But you resolve never to make eye contact with Malcolm Bruce MP again, lest he remember such an awkward moment.