To pee, or not to pee, that is the question: That is the question that is tormenting many of us from taxi drivers to policemen and students even the general public also struggle. So, for a tourist I can imagine it’s twice as hard to know where to go. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, but in 2023 there’s also really there’s no such things as a free pee. And it’s becoming a struggle.
Walking around night time in London and you’ll notice around Leicester square and Soho it stinks, and late at night unfortunately it often smells of pee and there’s a reason for this.
For it’s now very hard to find in London anywhere you can pee. Well, you can if you go to a restaurant or sneak into a hotel lobby, but that’s quite difficult if you are a cab driver or a runner or wearing the wrong outfit. Well let’s face it, the restaurant is going to be highly suspect if you come in all sweaty. Runners might be able to pee in the park say behind a tree (but then you risk getting arrested).
The places where its publicly allowed to pee are slowly vanishing and in London parks it’s not like a wildlife walk where you can nip behind a tree because the parks are too crowed and the trees too sparsely spread out that it would be impossible to hide because public urination is still an illegal act, though the law states that police officers can make an exception for expectant mothers.
Hyde Park was kind of enough to put some loos at one side, but you need a credit card to enter, what happens if people don’t have credit cards on them? Even reaching the nearest railway station could be a challenge but Euston and King’s Cross, Victoria, London Bridge and Charing Cross will let you go for free. There are some tube stations that have loos but very few worth checking the tube map.
Unlike Starbucks, Costa, McDonalds or these chains require you to show a receipt before you can get into the loos, pubs are often the safest place to go for a quick wee, without having to buy anything. But it’s a challenge to squeeze past the crowd to the bathroom without anyone noticing that you haven’t bought a drink.
However, even pubs have cracked down they know the level of need of people needing to use their loos. Some have erected signs saying bathrooms for customers only. The editor Jessica said “The eternal hell of London loo life, I remember it well. Notting Hill, go into a pub to use the loo, order a wine so they don’t hate you, then go into another pub to use the loo, order a wine”.
But if you’re a cab driver, you cannot just stop your cab, as there’s double yellow lines everywhere, you need to dash out and pee somewhere easy for convince what to do?
For women there’s even less options – you need a full bathroom and not just stalls which are in shepherds’ market and just off Horseferry Road that have come up as cheap alternatives to full bathrooms. Hotels are getting more and more fussy and won’t let in patrons unless you buy something if you want to pee.
The other option is walking into a swanky hotel as if you’ve just had a meeting but if you’re in sneakers and a t-shirt then the tall standing door men might say Hello madam can I help you?
But there’s always an Instagramable look, the highly artistic sketch toilets. Renowned neon egg-shaped cubicles, the interior design was done by a friend of mine, Guban O’Keefe. In Addition, the museum option why not go and see some Greek sculptures for free at the British museum while using their bathrooms? Or perhaps say hello to Charles the 1st on horse back, otherwise known as Equestrian Portrait of Charles I, by Anthony Van Dyck at the National Gallery?
