Waiting for the loo

Today I stood in a really long queue and broke a record.

A Guinness world record. Which is a first for me, although breaking things in general, is not.

It's the World's longest toilet queue day and it's time to end world water poverty. 900 million people around the world do not have access to safe, clean water. One third of the world's popluation don't have what the UN call a 'safe place' to go to the loo. What they mean by this is somewhere that is a) private (and I think on the whole, we ALL prefer to go somewhere that's secluded, given the choice... And b) where there is a safe way of removing the poo from human contact. Both of which are pretty basic things.

Across 70 different countries, hundreds of thousands of people will join the queue to ask our governmnent to keep taps and toilets at the top of their agenda.

Nearly 5000 children die each day from lack of clean water.

And they don't need to.



Back in 2000, a whole heap of countries signed up to the Millennium Development Goals (nicely shortened to MDGs). Ambitious but necessary targets to halt the spread of HIV/Aids, reduce world poverty, and halve the number of people living without access to clean and safe drinking water and basic sanitation. It's 2010, and the 189 nations that signed up to the MDGs are a long way from meeting their targets. So, we really need to remind our leaders to keep these issues on the political agenda, and make sure they make progress.




It's not too late to join the queue or even better, take action by writing to your MP (she or he will love to hear from you...)

Were you queuing? Have a look and see if you can find yourself here.


And another thing... if it's your mum's birthday, forget the flowers. What she really wants is for her downstairs loo to be twinned with a nice long drop in Burundi. Yes, it's entirely possible. Get the whole family to chip in, and your ma will be well chuffed. Visit Cord's throne room here and get yourself a nice treasure of toilet twinning joy.