The Good Loo Guide

Funny the ways you can learn about a book. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones alerted me to one recently, 43 years after his death. I was at Somerset House for the exhibition of photos marking the band’s half-century, and one shot saw them leaving Heathrow Airport in 1966, bound for America. Brian, in a blazer whose stripes were quite shockingly vibrant (ten years later it would have felt perfectly at home on Ronnie Barker as he read the news), was carrying a book. A small, slim volume, its title was hidden away in a tiny font, but the photo had been blown up so large you could just make out that title: The Good Loo Guide.

Of course rock stars and loos are far from strangers to each other, but I couldn’t imagine a Rolling Stone needing a published guide to the myriad delights offered by the khazis of the day.