Bulgaria was, for several years and prior to Perestroika, the location of my late-season ski fix. Perfect snow, incredible value for money and wonderful people – many of whom became long-term friends. One thing I couldn’t get used to though was what went on in the washrooms – something I was reminded of following receipt of a link from a friend, to an article in one of today’s newspapers. 

  

Back to Bulgaria though… the washrooms were always pristine. I never came across a dirty one although some of the cleaning equipment must have been difficult to work with – an old jumper wrapped around something on the end of a broom handle to form a mop, for example, which happened to have been put together by a friend’s mother, who worked her magic as a cleaner in one of the hotels in Borovets. There was always a washroom attendant in the facilities I went into, which is perhaps why there were never any nasty surprises for the users! But as well as being responsible for the cleaning, the attendant was there to ‘police’ the toilet tissue: two sheets or five, depending upon what you planned to do in the cubicle. Luckily my friends and I always carried our own so were never forced to divulge our intentions or find ourselves ‘caught short’ when it came to our toilet tissue rations. 

  

The link my friend sent was to a Mail Online article, headed: “In a rush to flush: China installs timers above women's toilet cubicles at UNESCO site so fellow guests can tell how long they have been 'engaged'.” The article explains how the timers have been installed at the 1500-year-old Yungang Grottoes - ancient Buddhist temples carved into the rockface in northern China's Shanxi province, which attracted three million visitors in 2023. There’s a video of the timers in action, courtesy of the Xiaoxiang Morning Herald. The display shows ‘empty’ in green if the cubicle’s unoccupied while a red timer clocks up the minutes and seconds an occupied cubicle’s been in use. The timers have apparently been installed to cope with an increase in visitor numbers and alert the facility to any potential problems, but this doesn’t make sense to me. Are they there to shame users into hurrying up, I wonder? My view is that this is technology ‘gone too far’... a pointless exercise and a waste of money. If someone’s clocked up more time than anyone else, it would be foolish to guess that this means they’re about to vacate (if that’s the idea behind the timers). If there are long queues for the toilets, wouldn’t a better option be to build more? Or am I missing something here? 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article