While picking a book off my shelf in response to a comment from a few days back, (On Humour by Simon Critchley) I noticed a couple of other books up there that I haven't thought about in a long time, items I picked up while researching 'the History of Humour'. There's Naughty Shakespeare by Michael Macrone (1998) for instance, (subtitled 'the lascivious lines, offensive oaths, and politically incorrect notions of the baddest bard of all.') and Tailwinds ('The lore and language of fizzles, farts and toots') by Peter Furze (also 1998). Here's an excerpt:

"A married couple had lived together for nearly forty years. The only thing that threatened to come between them in all that time was the husband's habit of breaking wind every morning immediately after waking. The noise would wake up his wife and the smell would make her eyes water. On countless occasions she pleaded with him to do something about his morning flatulations. He told her that there was nothing he could do about a natural bodily function and that she would just have to put up with it. His wife said there was nothing natural about it at all, and if he didn't stop there would come a day when he would fart all his guts out. The husband merely laughed.
Years went by. The wife continued to suffer and the husband continued to dismiss her warnings about farting his guts out. Then, one thanksgiving morning, the wife rose very early and went downstairs to prepare the family feast. It was while she was taking out the turkey's innards that the wife had an idea. Smiling to herself, she put the turkey guts into a bowl and quietly went upstairs to the bedroom. Her flatulent husband was still fast asleep. Gently she pulled back the bed covers, then spread the turkey guts over the sheet, near her husband's posterior. She then replaced the bedclothes and tip-toed back downstairs to finish preparing the family meal.
Some time later the sound of flatulent explosions from upstairs told her that her husband had woken up. Moments later she heard a terrible scream, then the sound of frantic footsteps as her husband ran to the bathroom. The wife laughed aloud. After years of putting up with her husband's morning bombshells she had finally gotten her revenge. But she controlled her amusemant and went upstairs, calling to her husband to ask what was the matter. Muffled cries of 'Nothing, it's all right,' came from behind the bathroom door. Five minutes later, her husband emerged, a look of horrror in his eyes. The wife began to feel rather sorry for him, and again asked him what was wrong.
"I didn't listen to you," said the hiusband. "All those years you warned me and I didn't listen to you." "What do you mean?" said the wife, innocently. "Well you always told me that I would end up farting my guts out, and today it finally happened." The wife was about to put him out of his misery and admit to her prank, but her husband continued: "But by the grace of God and these two fingers, I think I got'em all back in."

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Coincidentally, my two most regular suppliers of links have sent me stories about toilets today.
Olympics crisis over squat loos

BBC NEWS- 19 Mar- China is rushing to install sit-down loos for its 500,000 foreign Olympics visitors, after complaints that venues had only Asian-style squat toilets. (via wee hayley campbell)

Noir Thriller Plays in Public Bathrooms

NEW YORK (AP) -19 Mar- For most visitors to Central Park, the public bathrooms are a facility of last resort, visited only in desperation after consuming one too many cups of coffee. They're dark and creepy, filled with spiders, foul odors and puddles of questionable origin.
But for Irish director and playwright Paul Walker, the damp, the chill and even the smell are all part of the experience - the theatergoing experience.
His prize-winning play, "Ladies & Gents," is a noir thriller performed entirely in the covered men's and women's bathrooms in Central Park's Bethesda Terrace.
The space is intimate, unpretentious and uncomfortable. Walker's previous site-specific plays involved busing bewildered patrons to an abandoned warehouse, and a play that meandered through all the rooms of Dublin's Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Home... (via Bob Morales)