Mirror mirror on the wall, it is my willy after all

Last night a few friends, my family and I went to a leisure centre in Hemel Hempstead. We were there to celebrate the birthday of the son of a very good friend of mine. The young lad decided that a couple of bowling games were in order and the grown ups were in total agreement with him.

As is often the way with these things one beer led to another and those eventually led to the need to visit the boy’s room. It was a pretty typical facility, a little smelly, no hot running water, but it was passable and I had certainly been in worse.

Or so I thought.

To throw a little light on this let me ask you a question. How, dear readers, can one be the only person in a toilet and yet not be alone?

Take a moment.

Yes, that’s right. Surveillance.

On one wall of the toilets was a mirror, nearly as tall as the wall itself and about 24 inches wide. On this mirror was a sticker that read something like this:

Now, no doubt this disgraceful invasion of privacy is there as an attempt to persuade people that drug taking and other anti-social activities are not to be tolerated in the facilities but I couldn’t help feeling a little outraged by the initiative.

Because the leisure centre is a private place of business I totally accept the existence of this invasion. I do not like it and I do not like the fact that it is not stated up front that the toilet facilities on this premises are under CCTV surveillance because I was not able to make an informed decision about using the centre, but I accept it and their flawed business practices. It is their lookout. But what I can do is to state that I will not be using their facilities again, I will not be spending any more money there and I will also supply all the information necessary to allow my friends and colleagues to make an informed choice of leisure venue.

So, to be a little more precise. The leisure centre in question (for you search engines I believe it is called Leisure World in Hemel Hempstead) is the one with the bowling facilities. It is situated opposite a Mcdonalds restaurant. To the left of the frontage of the place is a Pizza Hut and on the inside it contains quite a number of amusement machines a bar and some pool tables. I can’t really be any more precise at this moment and my search engine skills seem to be failing me right now. There may be other facilities in the area that fit this description so it might be wise to enquire yourselves of the venue before making a final decision.

If I could find the email address of the company that runs the centre I would also email them my disapproval.

Smile, Leisure World Hemel Hempstead, you are on the blogosphere.

Paul, from voice of the future mails in that the leisure centre in question is called Leisure World. He hasn't noticed the CCTV warning stickers in the toilets but will keep an eye out for them.

I have updated the post to reflect the name clarification.