\u201cGet on with it!\u201d I hear you say. \u201cWhat\u2019s the topic today, Kelv?\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, I\u2019ll tell you Raymondo (obscure reference: leave a comment if you remember where this is from.) It\u2019s the National Poo Museum in England, which opened in April 2016, and which will go on tour later in the year. I actually learned about this a few months ago, but it\u2019s taken until now to get to the bottom of the news article.<\/p>\n
The museum is at Sandown Zoo, on the Isle of Wight. (it would have been more appropriate on Brownsea Island.) It has a website <\/a>and it\u2019s a hoot (or should I say it\u2019s a toot?). There are pictures, facts, jokes, and many other faecets (not a typo) of the topic. There\u2019s a section called \u201cPootube\u201d that contains videos showing (among other things) lemur poo being blast-frozen (with a fire extinguisher no less\u2014presumably lemurs love vindaloo) and a guy whose job it is to dive into sewage. A quote from that latter video says it all about the mindset of this \u201cbrave\u201d young man: \u201cclean pipes don\u2019t inspire me.\u201d<\/p>\n And in what is surely a serendipitous coincidence for the poo museum, I noted that their address includes a Portsmouth post code\u2014\u201cPO\u201d: I\u2019m sure the delivery service is regular. (In case you need it explained; a “po” is an informal name for a chamber pot in British English.)<\/p>\n But the prize-winning item on the whole site must be a song and accompanying video\u2014\u201cPoo at the Zoo\u201d. You can watch it here<\/a>.\u00a0 I won\u2019t pass comment on it here\u2014go and watch it. Runner-up is probably the Parrotfish song<\/a>; another gem!<\/p>\n I\u2019d alerted one of my correspondents to the existence of this museum several weeks ago, and received the following reply.<\/p>\n I’ve always wanted to sneak my own piece of art into a museum, like that guy that hung up his stuff in the Louvre.<\/p>\n I think I may have just found my venue.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Priceless!<\/p>\n I\u2019m absolutely sure that this museum wasn\u2019t set up just to satisfy the juvenile sense of humour of people like me (although I\u2019m sure that people like me will be the most appreciative of its exhibits and whole raison d\u2019\u00eatre). I\u2019m equally convinced that there is immense educational value in the enterprise. But they\u2019ve spared no expense on the lavatorial puns in the making of their website. Their tagline is \u201cHave you been?\u201d I\u2019ve already mentioned \u201cPootube\u201d. And their mission is \u201cto lift the lid on the secret world of poo\u201d.<\/p>\n If I still lived in England, I\u2019d almost certainly be applying for a job (a big job?) at this special place. I\u2019d feel so at home there. At the opening \u201cceremony\u201d, guess what they used in place of ribbon?<\/p>\n That\u2019s right\u2014TP! (Toilet paper; toilet tissue; bathroom tissue; continuous lavatorial stationery)<\/p>\n I think if I did get a job there, one of the first things I\u2019d do is to put the following sign on the washroom doors.<\/p>\n But then again, perhaps not. It might make the penny-spending public nervous about where the plumbing might lead to.<\/p>\n But wait \u2013 there\u2019s more! There\u2019s a link to a BBC \u201cHands-on History\u201d activity sheet that shows you how to make fake fossil poo containing clues to what the depositer might have eaten. I wonder how this would go down with the 40\u201350 eight- to ten-year-old Cubs in my Cub Scout pack?<\/p>\n A quote from a Blackadder episode says it all for me. The Red Baron has captured Blackadder and Baldrick, and is expressing his desire to learn more about the British sense of humour. He says, \u201cHow lucky you English are to find the toilet so amusing; for us it is a mundane and functional item, for you it is the basis of an entire culture.\u201d<\/p>\n It seems that the Red Baron may have got his wish if he\u2019d lived long enough (and had really said that!) There exists on YouTube a version of \u201cThe Poo Song<\/a>\u201d from Scrubs with German subtitles\u2014clearly there\u2019s now an appetite for such humour among our German friends.<\/p>\n But back to the National Poo Museum and its website. I strongly recommend that you browse the site, and if it moves you, to pay a visit to the museum itself. The website\u2019s blog contains a number of incredible articles and videos\u2014check out the pooper scooper app that allows you to leave your dog\u2019s poop where it falls and have it collected.<\/p>\n Apparently the museum will be touring the country at some point in the future\u2014I wonder if they plan to call the tour \u201cThe Poo Museum in motion; passing near you\u201d? (Note to the Poo Museum: if you do, please credit Kelvin D. Hatch!)<\/p>\n I hope you\u2019ve enjoyed this piece. I have to say, I enjoyed writing it; you might say I was like a pig in\u2026<\/p>\n Have you<\/em> been? To the National Poo Museum, I mean. If so, please share your thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you\u2019re averse to scatological pieces, you may prefer to read some of my other (faeces-free) pieces. It was my daughter who recently pointed out a common thread in many of my articles. \u201cDad,\u201d she said, \u201cyou seem to have a fixation with poo.\u201d To many people, such an observation made by offspring to sire might seem shocking, but here… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[489],"tags":[145,142,143,144],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scat","tag-fake-fossil-poo","tag-national-poo-museum","tag-pootube","tag-scatological-puns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![\"PooMuseumSign\"](\"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/PooMuseumSign.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYour Turn<\/h1>\n