Dumping poo on train tracks is seriously gross | Zella Compton

When I was a child I was told you definitely weren’t supposed to flush the toilets while at a station, and maybe not even use them at all. It was obviously because your effluence would be deposited by the platform for all to see.

I thought that couldn't possibly still be happening now, it’s so totally grim. I was wrong.

I've discovered in some places it is still dumped on the train tracks.

I’m not that keen on using train loos anyway. It’s the luck of the draw whether they’re decent or not.

I think that’s because everyone waits until they simply have to go or burst, and then dash.

Some people clean up after they dash, others do not. But generally our toilets are better than elsewhere, aren’t they?

It’s one of those things that you smugly bring home when you go away – the difference, the ‘other’ nature of places and how they do things, particularly sanitary things.

There is nothing like dissing a country to your friends and family for the oddity of their toilets. Like the European toilets which were actually foot balancing things with a squat hole 20 years ago, and the Greeks with their ‘no paper in the toilet, pop it in this handy bag’.

We’ve holidayed in India a couple of times and there it’s obvious where the poop goes as the loo on a train is literally a hole in the floor and you can see the tracks rushing past below you as you try to balance yourself and pee in a way that doesn’t catch in the updraft of the wind.

I have some very unhappy memories of using the facilities on sleeper trains in India – long journeys and repeat visits to the bathroo. They were my only downside to a beautiful, vibrant, tremendous country which I would love to visit again.

While it’s always been a bit of a giggle to poke fun at toilets around the world, to find out now, after all this time and our amazing technological achievements, that we’re still dumping our dumps on the track, is so humiliating.

At least we’re seeing a bit more effort from politicians…

Many people are moaning about having yet another general election, supposedly to help break a deadlock.

In reality it is just further muddling the mess of who’s voting for what and in which way.

But I’m rather enjoying the sudden policy changes and am wondering if we’d be better off having an election every month. We’re seeing a whole lot more effort being put into the NHS, which is one of our country’s number one loves and, budda-bing, a hold on fracking which no one wanted in the first place.

If having an election actually causes politicians to listen to people instead of powerful business interests, then bring them every day with bells on.

At last I’ll have guilt-free fancy coffee at my fingertips

I was delighted to read that Lavazza is now making compostable single coffee pods for its machines.

I see these single cup coffee makers from many makers in various places, friends’ houses for instance, and have a huge rush of envy for such delicious coffee on hand.

Seriously, some of it is superb and it sure beats the powdered stuff I buy. But the downside to me has always been adding to unnecessary waste in the form of the coffee plastic pods of which 20 billion are said to enter landfill each year – each takes 500 years to break down.

With the introduction of a compostable pod – via industrial, not garden, compost – finally I’ll be able to enter the grown up world of coffee making.