City envy: we want posh public loos like Beijing

Newsflash, London: we've been doing public toilets all wrong. Apparently we're missing a trick by considering them mere places to empty our bladders while admiring graffiti willies, or scrubbed-up, trendy new hangouts to drink negronis in. Over in Beijing, grand plans for the city's crappers have recently been unveiled. The sparkling new WCs will be kitted out with tons of tech-based luxuries, including blood pressure and heartrate monitors, free wifi and even ATMs (wash your hands after going near those). The city's sanitation body also announced - presumably straight-faced - a desire for loos to become the 'fifth space' in Beijingers' lives after work space, family space, leisure space and cyberspace. Either way, it sounds like they're setting a new (bog) standard.

We also want a gingerbread village like New York.