6th February 2007
It is in the nature of man, when stood at the urinal in the gents toilet of a pub, to gaze up at the wall in front of him. Occasionally there is a window set in the wall through which he can look out of, but to do this is seldom rewarding as it is invariably glazed with frosted glass, rendering the view outside murky if not non-existent. He might just as well look at the wall. However the wall invariably offers a no more rewarding aspect, being tiled, as it usually is, in the better establishments, or simply painted or whitewashed in the more humble. The man looks at it nevertheless.
What the man expects to see on the wall no one can say with any certainty. An amusing example of graffiti perhaps? Possibly, although men were in the habit of looking up at the wall when urinating long before someone first had the idea of informing the world that Kilroy had once visited the establishment.
One might be led to think, in view of what he was doing at the time, that it might be somewhat advantageous to look down, but urinating is a comparatively simple matter and a man would have to be especially dim-witted, or a member of the aristocracy, in order to piss on his shoes.
Some say it is an attempt to find a distraction, urinating being a boring business at the best of times.
Or perhaps there are hopes of seeing a pair of flies copulating, anything being more interesting than urinating.
Some men eschew the wall above and the chances of seeing a bit of fly fucking and find their entertainment in directing their flow of urine at the disinfectant block nestling in the bottom of the urinal – an obvious target for the sporty, but not a rewarding experience for the majority of men as most if not all of the entertainment value is nullified by the consequent acrid smell of disinfectant mixed with urine emanating from below.
Therefore the majority of men end up looking at the wall above the urinal.
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Terry Ravenscroft, 19 Ventura Court, Ollersett Avenue, New Mills, High Peak, SK22 4LL