Toilets

I'm not going to go into the terminology and euphemisms inside of euphemisms on both sides of the Atlantic at this time. Whether you call it the loo, the toilet, the bathroom or whatever, there are fundamental differences between the performance of American toilets versus British toilets.

American toilets are a vast pool of water into which your poop falls with a plop, and it sits there on display until you flush. Now, I don't mind the display part. If your poop looks weird it can be a sign of illness, so I don't mind being able to see my own poop. The part of American toilets that annoys me is the lack of power and the slowness. When you flush, the contents of the toilet swirl around lazily and then may or may not actually go down. They clog easily and need several flushes to handle a large order.

British toilets, on the other hand, are powerhouses. On the down side, once you've pooped, it disappears down a magical hole and you never see it in the small pool of water in the bottom. But when you flush, it makes a might "whoosh" and everything goes down. I've never managed to clog a British toilet, no matter how much curry or kebabs I consume.

On the whole, I think that the British have the upper hand when it comes to flushing. When I recently returned to the US, I was disappointed by the reminder of how ineffective American toilets are. It's sad really.

This only applies to home toilets. When you expand to public toilets, the ground is a little more level. But since I do most of my pooping at home, I'd prefer a British toilet to poop in. Points to the British on this one.