PalenqueBob

In what is surely old news to Parisians and several times before discussed here i nevertheless just read something rather humorous about the Parisian street cleaning squads who are combatting an old plague here that they euphemistically call 'canine ejections'.
Whereas several years ago someone calculated that a person, if not looking down, would step in canine ejections once very few hundred steps or so - not sure exact number but it was shockingly high.

But several years ago an anti-canine ejections operation was put into force - first caninettes (sp?) or special sidewalk cleaning machines were out to work and 'vesapachiens,' or special doggie toilets - sandboxes in parks for instance were set up. (A play on the word Vespasienne, or Turkish toilet, still common in French public toilets - the proverbial whole in the floor, named apparently after Roman Emperor Vespasian, who allegedly introduced them to Gaul.)
But in recent years authorities got a lot tougher and now imposed 200 euro fines on dog owners who don't police their dog's ejections. So sidewalks are now much much cleaner and safe to walk in than before.
Now if they would just stop the clochards from urinating at will on sidewalks - just last Decemeber right in front of Gare de l'Est a wino was whizzing a big stream on a storefront as pedestrians passed by - the rivulets of this clochards ejections often make dark beads in the asphalt pavements - look closely and you'll see them everywhere.
But with the new antisecptic Paris trattoirs comes a loss of a certain Bohemian character and tradition, cherished or not!

jody

I actually saw people taking bags from the Toutounet machines and using them!

http://www.toutounet-ville-propre.co...de_chiens.html

Michael

Vespasienne - nom donné aux édicules créés par le préfet Rambuteau , d'après Vespasien, empereur romain à qui l'on avait attribué l'établissement d'urinoirs publics à Rome. (Le petit Robert). Nothing to do with Turkish toilets.

Paris has been cleaner of dog droppings for several years now compared to cities like Bordeaux.

Scarlett

Now we have to spread the word in Buenos Aires ((&amp)

lincasanova

and most of spain

PalenqueBob

<Nothing to do with Turkish toilets>

Michael, of course i defer to your obvious expertise but in my understanding from being with my French family several summers that the two words were used interchangeably by them:

a vespasienne was the same thing as a 'toilet a la Turque' if that's the phrase - anyway they called these whole in the ground Turkish toilets in English. So if i understand your derivation a Vespasienne is not necessarily a Turkish toilet - if not what's the difference.
Or maybe you misunderstood my OP.
Just curious about the two terms. Thanks for taking time.

Michael

The vespasiennes were the stinking urinals found along the boulevards--you could see if a stall was free because the housing did not go all the way to the ground--now replaced by the JDécaux pay toilets. Of that, I am absolutely positive. and I still recall the smell.

BTilke

The city of Angers in the western Loire is almost free of doog poop on the sidewalks. Some years ago, they launched a clean up after your dog campaign and the fines are pretty steep. Free bags for cleaning up your dogs are available all around town.

In Brussels, however, it's a different story, alas. People routinely let their dogs crap on the street. And for, I guess, a good reason...one woman who did clean up after her dog was fined roughly 200 euros because she didn't dispose of the waste in an appropriate doggie doo bin. The catch--there aren't any!!! (A very Brussels approach to things--they plan to install such bins, but opted to put the fines into place long before the bins themselves.) I do clean up after my dog, but I'm rather furtive about disposing of the bagged waste in garbage cans.

Pausanias

Vespasian's son Titus once reproached his father for an "unseemly" tax the emperor had levied on the contents of city urinals. Vespasian held up a coin from the proceeds and replied, "Money doesn't stink."

crefloors

I was in Paris last month and what ever they are doing must be working because I saw plenty of dogs and NO "ejections", and did actually see a lady with a plastic bag pick up after her dog.

PalenqueBob

So if i know have it right a vespasienne is a stand-up slab of stone you urinate on and a Turkish Toilet is the whole at the bottom with two cement pads for feet for Number Two? And not all Vespasiennes would have the Turkish toilets in them.
Is a pissoir the same as a Vespasienne, or urinoir?
Thanks for clarifying these matters of great cultural importance.

MissPrism

We were in Stresa this year.
Those Italians know how to deal with these matters.

see http://tinyurl.com/y8ttyw
I love the speling ;-)

Christina

I think your French relatives sometimes use funny words or you may not understand them correctly.

Here is a photo of a still-existing vespasienne

http://www.atkielski.com/inlink.php?...enneSmall.html

Another of the same one
http://www.atkielski.com/inlink.php?...enneSmall.html

Here's another with a different view from the main library, circa 1959, bd de Belleville in Paris
http://expositions.bnf.fr/paris/images/2/009.jpg

It's not a Turkish toilet (which are not very common at all in Paris in public places, in my experience, I've only seen one or two). I wonder why your relatives would say that, as you would never sit down using a urinal anyway.

PalenqueBob

christina - thanks for the links. you're probably right about my mixing up the terms ther used and they became one and the same in my experience.

recently in a latin quarter restaurant i was shocked only to find a turkish toilet to use. In Austerlitz train station pay toilets a few years ago i paid thefee only to be let down at seeing just a turkish in the stall - super clean but a turkish all the same - station renovations have subsequently yielded modern, though still seatless bowled toilets.

FauxSteMarie

Actually, this clean up of dog "crottes" has been going on all over France for some time. Some years ago in Nancy, there were funny posters all over (actually I have one in the downstairs toilet in my house--ha!) designed to get people's attention. In the main park downtown there was a large sandbox to be used as a "dog toilet" and cleaned up by the municipality.

As with Americans, the French are aware of the need to make their public spaces and streets more user friendly TO PEOPLE.

PalenqueBob

fauxsmarie - yes i've noticed that...but still in paris the smell of human urine often wafts thru my nostrils - why not crack down on this disgusting aspect of fouling the public right of way? this i don't understand.

FauxSteMarie

Good point. We do have a problem with bums doing that on the street in the US, but non bums (or non drunks) in the US normally do not do that.

There are limits as to what the French can do to break this disgusting ingrained habit, if you would. I suppose they could lock up people who do that or give them tickets, but it is a decision as to how much you want to go after this public nuisance.

In any event, things have improved, but they could improve more.

Michael

The children's camp where I worked in France had Turkish toilets, and yet the building was brand new. I asked the director why and he explained that they were much easier to clean. I do not see why the shock at such toilets. After all, I suspect that the majority of the globe's population belongs to cultures where one squats, and one would have to do it out in nature.

PalenqueBob

If one goes camping in France as i've done a lot, the Turkish Toilet is more the rule than not - though there are a few 'handicapped' toilets that many able-bodied folks abuse.
Most tourists would rarely encounter a Turkish but they are very wide spread throughout France in camps, public facilities and even some old cafes. And yes they do have new Turkishes in campgrounds - the largest Paris camp, the TCF one at Joinville has dozens of Turkish toilets - again yes much easier to clean and cheaper to maintain.

PalenqueBob

False Sainte Marie:

would not the solution to clochards relieving themselves on the street to place lots of Vespasienne's in areas they congregate - free urinals. I've seen some in Europe that are plastic and three-sided and not enclosed - see these in places where crowds gather. Put in a corner and then if the winos are too blitzed to use them i'd crack down and threaten to take their bottle away if caught going on the street.