Gramsci wondered if this was another reference to the myth of "anonymous marking"- a subject near to the Cow's heart given her recent long weekend of bleeding eyeballs and the stern instruction not to write on the scripts anything mean (however true) in the light of students' access on demand. Which, of course, rendered any "anonymity" in marking uni-directional, and made the Cow fear slashed tyres or worse, given that she'd cheated just a little and notwritten anything mean... but had drawn a couple of hangman's nooses andscrawled a couple of onomatopoeic depictions of exploding eyeballs or braincell suicides in response to the answers she was being required to mark.
He was wrong.
"Gmf!" declared the Cow. "When last were you in the women's oil in Arts? At least, that's what it says on the door. Though most people would recognise them as ablution facilities."
The penny dropped. "Toilets, you mean?" asked Gramsci.
"Quite!" the Cow confirmed. "I understand that men may feel somewhat exposed at those smelly urinal things, particularly in a competitive environment like this, but I thought that that had been adequately addressed by the allocation of an affirmative action urinal in the 4th floor women's toilets in Leslie Social Science decades ago. I really didn't think there was a need to introduce further transparency in the matter!"
Gramsci looked perplexed. "For a discussion on transparency," he muttered, "this is awfully opaque!"
The Cow rolled her eyeballs. "The catches on the toilet doors," she explained patiently, "have been removed. The doors no longer close. It is no longer possible to conduct one's private activities in private."
Gramsci squirmed. "Why would anyone do that?" he asked, genuinely bemused.
The Cow shrugged. "Who can tell? Perhaps they were collecting brass to recast as a brass band? Or perhaps their curiosity just got the better of them."
"Curiosity?" gasped Gramsci. "Surely not!"
The Cow tossed her head. "Remember, these are the toilets whose bins always overflow with used condoms and party debris. Perhaps the door catch thief was hoping to catch a little of the action themself?"
A shudder ran through Gramsci like a Mexican wave. "There's always a catch, somewhere..." he muttered faintly.