Theatre of the absurd

by Nicola Shepehrd

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A ROW is raging over�proposals to open a Museum of the Toilet in Staffordshire, but this is not the first time an exhibition has been dedicated to the bizarre.

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The Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke on Trent�has just received a �350,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to open a museum dedicated to the toilet.

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Manufacturing� toilets has sustaind�the economy of�the potteries for hundreds of years, just as the car industry sustained the Midlands. And, who would object to a car museum

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Local councillors�say they see no reason why the essential element of the smallest room in the house should not be honoured in this way. Opponents, including local MP Bill Cash, say that in an area of high unemployment there is no justification for such money being wasted.

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The permanent exhibition will trace the history of the toilet from the first flushing model invented in 1594 by Sir John Harrington for Elizabeth I - perfected by one Thomas Crapper. It will include a reconstructed sewer, complete with authentic smells, lists of slang words relating to the most private of bodily functions and jokes of the lavatorial sort.

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Far from being unusual, the museum follows in a long international line of museums dedicated to a deeper understanding of the objects that surround us, from the everyday to the very rare.

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• There is a lawnmower museum in Southport, Lancashire, which proudly displays not only Princess Diana's, but also Vanessa Feltz's lawnmower. These sit alongside the Water-Cooled Egg Boiler lawnmower - a first, and possibly last in its day - and the two-inch lawnmover, presumably designed for Barbie.
• The docks at Gloucester are home to the Robert Opie Collection of packaging. Sounds less than a 'must see' until you know it is old Sunlight Soap and Typhoo tea packaging for the nostalgia buffs.
• Los Angeles Brassiere Museum has, amongst its displays of bras of the rich and famous, Elizabeth Taylor's petticoat and Pammie Lee's garter.

The internet has given rise to a number of the most bizarre online and virtual museums. Search out Sergei Frolov's collection of Soviet calculators, My Tissue Box Cover collection, Furnace Cleaning Stickers of the 40s and 50s, the Virtual Toilet Paper museum (nothing to do with Stoke on Trent) and Graham Barker's naval fluff collection, compete with photos.