DAY 2: Zen and the Art of Plastic Bag Defecation
I awoke desperate for a shit.
I considered breaking camp and backtracking into Malton to search for public facilities. However, none were likely to be open at 5am, and there could well be an early gauntlet of incestuous ignorami and their percussive symphony of glottal stops to navigate. Plus the return would necessitate reclimbing the long hill I'd endured the previous evening. Heading onward into the rolling farmland of the Howardian Hills was also unlikely to produce a result, so I decided to have a first go with my experimental toilet instead. This was nothing fancy: merely a biodegradable plastic bag and wet wipes, but start as you mean to go on, as they say. I folded over the lip of the bag to create enough stiffness to stay open (an old builders' trick), removed my pants, planted my feet wide and squatted like a sumo wrestler.
After a comfortably expeditious evacuation and wipe, I wrung the excess air from the bag, tied a knot in the neck, and buried it nearby using my folding trowel. Remarkably, cleanup had taken but two sheets of pre-moistened toilet tissue (actually one; the second was more of a polish), thanks, I'm sure, to the unfettered delivery posture. There's a lot to be said for this practical but ungainly approach, because 'civilized' toilet seats, by comparison, smush buttocks together like uncooked hams in a freezer bag. Mine were beautifully butterflied out of harm's way: the bogroll budget immediately plummeted and bolstered my beer allotment by a happy fraction. I could get used to this.
Over subsequent days I tried out several stance variations, my favourite being similar to The Sumo but with one knee inclined. I tentatively nicknamed this inherently more stable approach The Sniper due to its increased accuracy and similarity to the shooting position. One does not simply plonk down a knee, however: experience introduced a lunge-like lean to fine tune the bombing run and prevent splashback, splatter, or dribbling, which can make a terrible mess of the groundsheet.
In remote areas one could always shit outside the tent, of course, but Sod's Law dictates once one is fully committed, as it were, the local Women's Institute dutifully ambles past on their annual picnic. Or a sudden gust of wind casts one in an elaborately feculent caper with the dancing commode. Or even both, if one's karma decides to catch up.
There really is something quite freeing about shitting in a bag in a tent. Most people attach the concept of freedom to owning guns, or the right to roam, or the inalienable expression of an opinion. The problem is these people, more often than not, shit in toilets. The shackles of their subjugation persist. We are no longer in thrall to the plow, or the cotton gin, or the manor house; we're chained to a shithole in the floor. That's the reality, no matter how theatrically it's furnished. Remove this umbilical dependence and the world opens up like a bruised stripper's life story on a weekday afternoon.
Getting over the behavioural hurdle of the first dump is the trick. You'll exploit any excuse and, indeed, go miles out of your way to use more Baroque apparatus, but when you finally resolve to shit into a bag it's like being handed the keys to Elysium. The nonsenses of agrarian civilization; property, ownership, acquisition, jealousy; shudder into sharp relief, then recede from your priorities. You become naturally happier. Food tastes better. The sun shines more warmly, the sky seems more blue. Birdsong cascades with fresh whimsy. You start to see the finer qualities in people, a perception apparently long buried by the childhood rituals of potty training. You cognitively shift to a more streamlined state.
This was extremely surprising to me. I never considered such a small change in mundanity would spark a pronounced shift in consciousness. Who would? Severing that reliance on plumbing immediately fractured a host of anxieties. I suppose it's the same reason people drink alcohol or take other such drugs.
Once you're down with bag shitting, you're never so beholden to towns and villages again. Maslow's widely heralded Hierarchy of Needs poignantly discludes the activity from its level descriptors, which, I reckon, serves to show the invasive effectiveness of Big Porcelain's propaganda juggernaut.
Jeremy Clarkson famously referred to caravan camping as shitting in a bucket in a shed, but he's really inventing disparity where there is none. After all, when you step back and examine toilets objectively, even the most ornately filigreed crapper in the grandest palace is nothing more than a flushing shit bucket. Socially we attach stigma to any plumbing more rudimentary than we're used to, apparently for no other reason than to create a simple snobbery. We actually consider ourselves to be of a higher social rank if our shithole has a u-bend. Shouldn't status symbols be a little more dignified? Buy a fucking yacht if you want to impress people. Jesus.
And how is it nobody spreads the word about this most efficient way of shitting? Surely some people know -- the military, for example, has extensive experience in crapping in the woods, but they curiously remain quiet about the benefits. Perhaps they maintain secrecy to foster the idea shitting in such a manner is a hardship worthy of ticket discounts and the occasional free pint? Wikileaks, I have your next exposé.
I would say harden the fuck up, shit into a bag, and see for yourself. But shitting in a bag is quite the pleasure, so rather than perpetuate the hardman illusion our camouflaged contingent so carefully maintain, I fully intend to blow the lid off, as it were.
Really quite impressed with my philosophical discovery, I packed up and hit the road. The first gentle hills provided little in the way of physical challenge, but the scenery improved as elevations increased. Several ruined abbeys and priories decorated the route, glorious bastions of endeavour raised to repopulate the region after William the Conqueror's devastating Harrowing of the North decimated it, but the roadside highlight of the day had to be the Turf Maze of Troy.
I'd never even heard of this thing, and would have been unlikely to stop if not for the elaborate furnishings. There was fencing and a seating area around this room-sized circle of churned turf. Large information signs discouraged the notion it was a quaint practical joke. I dismounted and looked at it for a long while, decided it was a genuine thing (which looked topically like a coiled turd), and buggered off.
It turns out these curious turf arrangements are quite rare, and nobody really knows what they're for. This is one of only eight in the country, and of many more across Europe, especially around the Baltic. This particular one is thought to mirror the ancient maze entrance to the city of Troy, though a popular theory is seafarers would use them to trap any evil spirits following them before leaving on a voyage. This maze's twenty mile distance from the coast rather upends that notion, however. Still, an interesting curiosity nonetheless, and seeing such curios is what this trip is all about.
I was famished by the time I rolled into the Hambleton Inn at the top of Sutton Bank, palpably looking forward to a good feed, as the food here is borderline legendary. Unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays, despite protestations from Google. Strangling several oaths, I wrangled permission from the landlady to pitch my tent, and made do with a sandwich and another bowl of tomato soup. There's nothing quite so disheartening as being denied something you've been looking forward to all day. And I could've murdered a pint on bogroll credit. Oh well.
I considered breaking camp and backtracking into Malton to search for public facilities. However, none were likely to be open at 5am, and there could well be an early gauntlet of incestuous ignorami and their percussive symphony of glottal stops to navigate. Plus the return would necessitate reclimbing the long hill I'd endured the previous evening. Heading onward into the rolling farmland of the Howardian Hills was also unlikely to produce a result, so I decided to have a first go with my experimental toilet instead. This was nothing fancy: merely a biodegradable plastic bag and wet wipes, but start as you mean to go on, as they say. I folded over the lip of the bag to create enough stiffness to stay open (an old builders' trick), removed my pants, planted my feet wide and squatted like a sumo wrestler.
After a comfortably expeditious evacuation and wipe, I wrung the excess air from the bag, tied a knot in the neck, and buried it nearby using my folding trowel. Remarkably, cleanup had taken but two sheets of pre-moistened toilet tissue (actually one; the second was more of a polish), thanks, I'm sure, to the unfettered delivery posture. There's a lot to be said for this practical but ungainly approach, because 'civilized' toilet seats, by comparison, smush buttocks together like uncooked hams in a freezer bag. Mine were beautifully butterflied out of harm's way: the bogroll budget immediately plummeted and bolstered my beer allotment by a happy fraction. I could get used to this.
Over subsequent days I tried out several stance variations, my favourite being similar to The Sumo but with one knee inclined. I tentatively nicknamed this inherently more stable approach The Sniper due to its increased accuracy and similarity to the shooting position. One does not simply plonk down a knee, however: experience introduced a lunge-like lean to fine tune the bombing run and prevent splashback, splatter, or dribbling, which can make a terrible mess of the groundsheet.
In remote areas one could always shit outside the tent, of course, but Sod's Law dictates once one is fully committed, as it were, the local Women's Institute dutifully ambles past on their annual picnic. Or a sudden gust of wind casts one in an elaborately feculent caper with the dancing commode. Or even both, if one's karma decides to catch up.
There really is something quite freeing about shitting in a bag in a tent. Most people attach the concept of freedom to owning guns, or the right to roam, or the inalienable expression of an opinion. The problem is these people, more often than not, shit in toilets. The shackles of their subjugation persist. We are no longer in thrall to the plow, or the cotton gin, or the manor house; we're chained to a shithole in the floor. That's the reality, no matter how theatrically it's furnished. Remove this umbilical dependence and the world opens up like a bruised stripper's life story on a weekday afternoon.
Getting over the behavioural hurdle of the first dump is the trick. You'll exploit any excuse and, indeed, go miles out of your way to use more Baroque apparatus, but when you finally resolve to shit into a bag it's like being handed the keys to Elysium. The nonsenses of agrarian civilization; property, ownership, acquisition, jealousy; shudder into sharp relief, then recede from your priorities. You become naturally happier. Food tastes better. The sun shines more warmly, the sky seems more blue. Birdsong cascades with fresh whimsy. You start to see the finer qualities in people, a perception apparently long buried by the childhood rituals of potty training. You cognitively shift to a more streamlined state.
This was extremely surprising to me. I never considered such a small change in mundanity would spark a pronounced shift in consciousness. Who would? Severing that reliance on plumbing immediately fractured a host of anxieties. I suppose it's the same reason people drink alcohol or take other such drugs.
Once you're down with bag shitting, you're never so beholden to towns and villages again. Maslow's widely heralded Hierarchy of Needs poignantly discludes the activity from its level descriptors, which, I reckon, serves to show the invasive effectiveness of Big Porcelain's propaganda juggernaut.
Jeremy Clarkson famously referred to caravan camping as shitting in a bucket in a shed, but he's really inventing disparity where there is none. After all, when you step back and examine toilets objectively, even the most ornately filigreed crapper in the grandest palace is nothing more than a flushing shit bucket. Socially we attach stigma to any plumbing more rudimentary than we're used to, apparently for no other reason than to create a simple snobbery. We actually consider ourselves to be of a higher social rank if our shithole has a u-bend. Shouldn't status symbols be a little more dignified? Buy a fucking yacht if you want to impress people. Jesus.
And how is it nobody spreads the word about this most efficient way of shitting? Surely some people know -- the military, for example, has extensive experience in crapping in the woods, but they curiously remain quiet about the benefits. Perhaps they maintain secrecy to foster the idea shitting in such a manner is a hardship worthy of ticket discounts and the occasional free pint? Wikileaks, I have your next exposé.
I would say harden the fuck up, shit into a bag, and see for yourself. But shitting in a bag is quite the pleasure, so rather than perpetuate the hardman illusion our camouflaged contingent so carefully maintain, I fully intend to blow the lid off, as it were.
Really quite impressed with my philosophical discovery, I packed up and hit the road. The first gentle hills provided little in the way of physical challenge, but the scenery improved as elevations increased. Several ruined abbeys and priories decorated the route, glorious bastions of endeavour raised to repopulate the region after William the Conqueror's devastating Harrowing of the North decimated it, but the roadside highlight of the day had to be the Turf Maze of Troy.
I'd never even heard of this thing, and would have been unlikely to stop if not for the elaborate furnishings. There was fencing and a seating area around this room-sized circle of churned turf. Large information signs discouraged the notion it was a quaint practical joke. I dismounted and looked at it for a long while, decided it was a genuine thing (which looked topically like a coiled turd), and buggered off.
It turns out these curious turf arrangements are quite rare, and nobody really knows what they're for. This is one of only eight in the country, and of many more across Europe, especially around the Baltic. This particular one is thought to mirror the ancient maze entrance to the city of Troy, though a popular theory is seafarers would use them to trap any evil spirits following them before leaving on a voyage. This maze's twenty mile distance from the coast rather upends that notion, however. Still, an interesting curiosity nonetheless, and seeing such curios is what this trip is all about.
I was famished by the time I rolled into the Hambleton Inn at the top of Sutton Bank, palpably looking forward to a good feed, as the food here is borderline legendary. Unfortunately, it is closed on Mondays, despite protestations from Google. Strangling several oaths, I wrangled permission from the landlady to pitch my tent, and made do with a sandwich and another bowl of tomato soup. There's nothing quite so disheartening as being denied something you've been looking forward to all day. And I could've murdered a pint on bogroll credit. Oh well.
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