Hm. Now that looks inviting!

I’m not sure I get it. I thought that the people who did the “squat”, only did so because they were not fortunate enough to be able to afford the porcelain throne. I certainly didn’t look down on countries that can’t afford toilets. But I never thought that such a thing could be considered a “cultural” trait:

For most of us, the squat toilet is nothing more than a staple of horror stories about old-fashioned French service stations or the exploits of adventurous backpackers in far-flung parts of India.

But this basic form of plumbing, also known as a Turkish toilet or Nile pan, could be coming to a shopping centre near you – and all in the name of cultural sensitivity.

From next week, shoppers in Rochdale who push open the cubicle door expecting the reassuring sight of a modern, clean lavatory could instead be faced with little more than a hole in the ground.

Bosses of the Greater Manchester town’s Exchange mall have installed two as part of an upgrade costing several thousand pounds after attending a cultural awareness course run by a local Muslim community activist.

Not that I can profess to be particularly knowledgeable about this, but I imagine that the British toilet would serve the needs of women far better than a hole in the floor. Men can always stand and aim into anything, but women inevitably have to crouch. Truthfully, I ran into a few of these kind of toilets even while travelling in Eastern Europe.

Tune in next week when Great Britain meets the cultural sensitivity needs of East Indian immigrants by providing them with a heap of rubbish through which they can rummage.