Toilet humour.

I was having a discussion with an office mate yesterday which made me think of this. I'm not normally scatalogical as a rule. However, I think that this is an important social comment, so I think we have to forge bravely ahead into this area.

I have discovered, laydees and gennlemen, what truly drives the two sexes apart. It's not the planet that you come from. It's not whether or not you want the lights off or on. It's not breast fixations, commitment issues, nagging, jokes, football, shoes or chromosomes.

It's wee.

We have a uni-sex toilet at the end of our corridor (by which I mean a facility which may be used by both sexes, not a toilet with an identity problem). There is someone- we won't make any accusations- that has some trouble a) with aim and b)with the use of the flush.

Now, it could be a particularly gymnastic woman who is using the opportunity to practice her late-night caberet impression of the Trevi Fountain, but I don't think that it is. I have a strong suspicion that it is a male of an older persuasion that hasn't quite grasped the fact that other people may need to sit on the damn toilet after him and also quite like shoes that don't smell of urine. Not that I go around sniffing shoes, and anyone who says anything to the contrary is a liar.

Now, I know men have to sit on the toilet (although I don't like to think about it. And anyone who says anything to the contrary is still a liar). I know men also possess shoes. I also know, for the injured expression on my male office mate's face, that not all men have a problem with aim or flushing.

Unfortunately, however, logic dictates that if I didn't have to share a loo with the aiming, clean-living males in my place of work, I also wouldn't have to share it with the skank-meister. That's why, wherever possible, men and women don't share toilets.

Think of the barriers that throws up. The ridiculous air of mystery that still hangs around the ablutions of the opposite sex. The chances for those strangely bonding social interactions you lose- such as passing paper under a cubicle wall or holding the door for someone when the lock's knackered.

That's it. A nation divided for the sake of a short-sighted bloke with a shaky hand.