22 h. ago Bog standard? Tokyo’s spectacular public toilets – in pictures

Public toilets are rarely thought of fondly – that is unless you’re talking about those in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. Commissioned in 2019, creatives including renowned architects Shigeru Ban and the late Fumihiko Maki designed 17 beautiful, functional, meticulously clean public toilets, some of which featured in Wim Wenders’s 2023 film Perfect Days. Hong Kong-based photographer Ulana Switucha came across the toilets, each unique, while working on a project about Japanese architecture in 2023, and went back to photograph them the following year. “These structures are works of art,” she says. “They shine as beacons in their urban setting and demonstrate that public design can go beyond functionality to represent cultural and artistic value.”Ulana Switucha is the winner of the architecture and design category of the Sony world photography awards 2025 Continue reading...

Politics

30 h. ago London council spent £13,400 making public toilets gender neutral

Kingston Council paid thousands to make toilets at Latchmere Recreation Ground in Battersea gender neutral

Economics

3 d. ago What the Supreme Court ruling over the definition of a woman means for prisons, hospitals and schools

From NHS wards to public toilets, what does Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling mean in practice?

Events

4 d. ago What does the Supreme Court gender ruling mean? All your questions answered from sharing public toilets to maternity leave and competitive sports

The case tested legally for the first time whether or not somebody with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) recognising their gender as female should be treated as a woman.

Sport

9 d. ago People 'diving behind trees and bushes' in Welsh town because of public toilet shortage

"People ask 'where, oh where, can I go to the loo when out and about"

Politics

9 d. ago Josh Barrie On the Sauce at Bermondsey Arts Club: Bar in an old WC is bog standard

Josh Barrie finds himself alone in a former loo

Politics

1 week ago Rukmini Iyer’s quick and easy recipe for spiced roast sweet potato and beetroot with chickpeas and feta | Quick and easy

Make a big batch of this highly customisable dish and keep some for the week aheadYou can use lots of different spice blends here; I like baharat, but for ease you could substitute that with Indian spices or smoked paprika. I sometimes use purple sweet potato, but you get a nicer colour contrast with the bog-standard orange variety. The beetroot will still have a little bite after 30 minutes in the oven, so if you prefer it completely soft, cut it into smaller chunks or use precooked instead. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Abigail Disney: ‘Every billionaire who can’t live on $999m is kind of a sociopath’

She is one of the heirs to the Walt Disney fortune – and has long argued for rich people like her to pay more tax. Now she is working out how best to meet the challenge of Trump, Musk and the politics of chaosMy conversation with Abigail Disney opens with the kind of bog-standard line that starts most chats. But because she is a left-leaning American, with a record of righteous criticism of the man now once again in charge of her country, I suspect it might invite a very long answer indeed.Still, out it comes: “How are you?” Continue reading...

Society

1 week ago The work of Banksy? Locals suspect graffiti of girl holding toilet seat shaped balloons outside public loos in London could be latest masterpiece by mystery street artist

A suspected Banksy artwork in Farringdon, north London, has captured the attention of locals who spotted the painting on Thursday morning.

Economics

2 w. ago ‘The leaves fall off – but I think that’s normal’: the houseplants you just can’t kill

Some indoor plants wither the moment you turn your back; others shrug off drought, darkness and even ‘watering’ by cats. Here’s how to choose the most hardy specimens. Plus, readers celebrate the greenery that survived against all the oddsThere is a good reason that we treat certain houseplants as the green wallpaper of our homes: the odd splash of water and they seem to rub along fine. These are the species that have proved, over many decades, that they are best adapted to surviving in a vast range of situations. Unfortunately, familiarity breeds contempt, so many of us dismiss snake plants, spider plants, Swiss cheese plants and dragon trees as uninspiring and basic, even though they are the species that are likely to thrive, whatever the conditions.The key to making “bog standard” houseplants look good is to display them in an atypical way: an oversized trough of snake plants rather than a few leaves in a lonely pot; the silhouette of a mass of plain green spider plants in a huge...

Events

2 w. ago 'I went to the UK's most expensive toilet and was blown away by one feature'

Influencer Callum Ryan recently visited a public toilet in London that is known for being one of the most expensive to use in the UK - and one thing left him seriously impressed

Politics

3 w. ago I was horrified to find I was being filmed by a CCTV camera while on the loo in a women's public toilets... but the council WON'T take it down

Anna, 49, suffers from an overactive bladder since having children and relies on the public toilets in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, while out and about.

Culture

3 w. ago Torturous nut crackers and slippery tongs: six kitchen gadgets that aren’t worth the money

Gathering dust in drawers everywhere, these useless utensils make home cook and former caterer Elizabeth Quinn particularly twitchyGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailI’ve written about kitchen tools I think every home cook should own, and gadget game-changers, such as bog-standard supermarket whisks. Now, with some trepidation and a notional trigger warning, I present the villains of the cutlery drawer. These items seemed like a good idea at the time and have ended up being totally useless, at least in my opinion. Continue reading...

Politics