HOLY CRAP! THAT'S ONE EXPENSIVE POOPER!
If you find yourself in Boston and in dire need of backing out the brown Volvo, try and delay the inevitable while you find the Christopher Columbus Park toilet. And as you drop your coins into the slot and log into the bowl, bear in mind that the facilities you are using cost a cool $300,000. And change, I suspect.

Because of a series of "complications," Boston's Director of Street Furniture, Peter O'Sullivan revealed that it took about two years to build the lavatory.

"This was the perfect storm," O'Sullivan said. "There were more complications on this one than on any toilet we've worked on." No shit, Sherlock! Well, not for two years at least.

What is also telling it that apparently, the $300,000 tag turns out to have been only $50,000 over budget. This means the regular price for a privy is $250,000 - which sounds worse if you say "a quarter of a million!" Unless the seats are gold plated and rather than piped music you get a Boston Symphony Orchestra live while you're cleaning the tuba, this seems like a stunningly high price to pay.

The good news is that the pricey plumbing is not coming out of tax payers' pockets but the private sector. According to Michael Galvin, chief of public property and construction management, the money comes from a company that has exclusive advertising rights in the loo.

That's a hell of a lot of shit to be passed before they get a return on investment.