The art of the toilet in Japan

Smart young women at Panasonic show off the latest wares
Duncan Bartlett
(BBC)

No country takes toilets quite so seriously as Japan.
Machines with heated seats, built-in bidets and a dynamic range of flushing options are almost ubiquitous in homes and public buildings.
A poem recently published by a stressed-out salary man captured their comforting appeal with haiku-like brevity. "The only warmth in my life is the toilet seat," he mourned.
But lavatories here can do much more than keep you warm. One even sends a tiny electrical charge through the user's buttocks to check their body-fat ratio.
The master of the modern convenience is the Panasonic Corporation.
Booming market
At its Tokyo showroom, located in a skyscraper near the BBC's office, a group of smart young women, dressed in uniforms resembling flight attendants, showed me the company's latest wares.
The lids lifted up when I approached. If I stood in front of one, it took a guess at my gender and lifted up the seat as well.
There was a loo that glowed in the dark and another that had built-in loudspeakers.
With manicured fingernails, the demonstrator pushed the control panel beside the seat and gentle light classical music began to play.
Pleasant enough, I thought, although I preferred a pastoral sound effect that provided the impression one was seated upon a white plastic throne surrounded by songbirds in a springtime meadow.

Advertisements for toilets are screened on public transport
It is of course often immigrants who take on such jobs in rich countries. But foreign-born workers are rare here as only about 1.5% of the population are made up of non-native Japanese.
However, the low immigration level is only part of the explanation. Japanese people do not see cleaning as a demeaning or shameful job.
School children are trained from a young age to sweep their classrooms and scour the playground for litter.
Lorry drivers wash their trucks at the end of every day. No restaurant ever serves a meal without first offering the customer a cleansing towel.
Recently, I visited a small technology company in Osaka. The president, Mr Sugimoto, is trying to inspire his staff to work harder as recession takes hold.
The Japanese - like the British - do not seem to mind too much when comedians sink into vulgarity and joke about scatological matters
He is noted for his drive and enthusiasm and that came across in a punchy presentation which he showed me on his laptop.
It included photographs of his staff on their knees scrubbing the urinals.
His point was that in preparation for a new project, the whole team had mucked in to clean up the workplace and this was clearly a source of pride to be included in the company's publicity.
Source of comfort
But toilets can raise a smile, too. Television comedies sometimes include scenes of pranksters luring people into loos whose walls then collapse, and the embarrassment this causes the victim is a source of great hilarity.
The toilet then appeared to give a welcoming robotic smile and its seat began to glow an inviting orange colour as it heated up, ready for action
The Japanese - like the British - do not seem to mind too much when comedians sink into vulgarity and joke about scatological matters.
But there is also a dark underground trade in DVDs filmed in ladies' toilets by hidden cameras, and only last week a man was arrested for placing "spycams" in the lavatories of a girls' school.
Most of the time, though, the Japanese are happy to think of a toilet as their comfort and their friend.
The other day, while catching a commuter train to work, I found myself transfixed by an advertisement which was being screened on a TV inside the carriage.
A young girl slowly walked towards a loo, which automatically raised its lid to greet her.
The toilet then appeared to give a welcoming robotic smile and its seat began to glow an inviting orange colour as it heated up, ready for action.
Fortunately, the advertisement ended there. But not before a broad and appreciative smile broke out across the face of the girl.

An artist has spent three years scouring the globe for individual rocks which resemble body parts - to make a remarkable 2.5-tonne sculpture of the human form.

Duncan Elliott, 43, hauled stones ranging from the size of marbles up to 90kg from fields and mountains across Europe.

Each rock he used was precisely the right form - and proportionally the right size - for the body part it represents and has not been chipped or shaped.

Quarry man: Fallen Angel, built from 300 individual pieces of stone which the sculptor hauled from across Europe
Enlarge the image

The biggest is a 90kg piece of Mendip limestone, for the belly. The smallest are pieces of limestone from Crete weighing less than a gramme each, for the fingernails.

Elliott attached the 300 rocks using a hidden steel cable skeleton to produce the 20ft-high Fallen Angel, which represents Satan being thrown out of heaven.

It has now been unveiled as the centrepiece of the Crown Plaza Hotel in Liverpool.

Elliott said: "The stones have flowing lines where they've been weathered by the elements over the years that give each one a uniquely natural shape.

"Putting it together is not easy. It's a labour of love, rolling boulders across mountain sides, but it puts you closer to the materials you are using.

"Some people think you're mad when you start looking at pebbles and telling them they'd make the perfect fingernail, but that's what's so exciting.

"You never know where you are going to find your next body part."

Elliott, from Bristol, studied at Bath Academy of Art, Leeds Polytechnic and then Goldsmiths College, London, and now has a studio at a farm on the Mendip Hills in Somerset where he pieced the sculpture together.

He has made around 60 sculptures over the last seven years and began after he was inspired by traditional Greek statues while living in Crete.

The majority of the rocks for Fallen Angel were found on the Mendips but others came from scouting missions across Europe, including return trips to Crete. All were lugged back by hand in a backpack or a sack trolley.

It took six-day weeks and 17-hour days to complete over three years, costing Elliott around £30,000 in labour and materials.

Piecing it together: Duncan Elliott at work in his studio, where he now hopes to produce even larger sculptures using his strictly chisel-free technique

Fallen Angel is the largest piece he has created so far - his last was only 2ft tall - but now he hopes to take on even bigger challenges.

He added: "Classical sculpture has always imposed the sculptor's will on the stone, hammering and grinding it. My work uses the natural form of the stones, untouched.

"The relationship is less dominating, more responsive - a new movement in stone."

Examples of where the rocks came from: