Find a toilet in Westminster by text - next year

Link: Text for your nearest toilet – UK News Headlines.
Texting to find a toilet or restroom is nothing new per se, but it’ll be good to see it launched in London.

A mobile phone texting service that directs users to the nearest public toilet if they are caught short is to be launched, it was announced today.

Anyone needing to spend a penny can text their location to a short number, and then receive a text giving directions to the nearest public convenience, along with opening hours and facilities.

The ingenious concept will become reality in the capital thanks to a competition run by Westminster City Council to come up with ways to make city-life easier.

Now this facility has been operational in Shanghai for quite a while now as per my post in February.

Nice one to Gail Knight, an industrial design student from Wandsworth, who suggested the concept. However, this paragraph incensed me:

Her idea will now be worked on by officers from Westminster and will hopefully be up and running early in 2007.

Absolute rubbish. At LEAST 6 months? Look me in the eye… look me in the eye and tell me you’re joking. Totally ridiculous. Is this what it’s all come down to. it’s gonna take them 6-9 months (“early 2007”) to get a toilet text service live? That’s simply not good enough. Go and engage a small tech agency and they’ll have it spec’ed, tested, built and ready to go to market in 30 days.

You know what, I reckon Steve and his team at ITAGG could have a toilet text service live tomorrow night. All they’d need is a list of public conveniences in an Excel spreadsheet. The rest of it is just mobile plumbing.

It’d be rather wicked if it did a mobile look-up too so the system could try and locate you to give you the nearest convenience. Either that or you just type ‘Wardour Street’ and whack it to the shortcode and the system will pick the nearest location for you.

This is not rocket science and it doesn’t need 6-9 months. As Crusty The Clown from The Simpsons has been known to say, “I could pull a toilet text system out of my… HELLO KIDS!” (paraphrasing)