In the endlessly strange world of British politics, there are grand policy debates, and then there is Count Binface. For those who have not yet been introduced, Count Binface is a sentient wheelie bin with a glossy, absurdist manifesto and an extraordinary talent for turning the most mundane of public nuisances into a national talking point. His latest cause célèbre has been the hand dryer. Not just any hand dryer, but a particular species of hand dryer mounted far too close to a urinal, creating an experience that no man ever asked for and no man who has experienced it can quite forget. This week, it emerged that one of the Count’s long-running campaigns has actually ended in victory. The men’s toilets at the Great Himalayas restaurant in Southport, a kebab house on the Lancashire coast, contained one such badly placed dryer. After years of campaigning, and after Binface made it a formal election pledge during the Clacton by-election this summer, the restaurant has finally moved the device to a more sensible location. The Count was, in his own words, “over your moon” — a typically Binface spin on a familiar phrase. He described the change as a victory not only for himself and for the human men of Southport, who would no longer have to suffer what he memorably called “air-fried genitals,” but also for the 9,455 voters in Clacton who backed his manifesto in the by-election against Nigel Farage. It is, by any normal standard, a ridiculous victory. But in the world of Count Binface, it is a landslide.
To understand why any of this matters, you have to trace the hand dryer saga back to 2019, when Count Binface first stood for Parliament in the Uxbridge constituency against the-then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. It was there, in the Crown and Treaty pub, that he discovered a hand dryer mounted directly above a urinal, positioned so precisely that using the facilities felt less like a quick stop and more like a poorly thought-out experiment in uncomfortable drying. He promised, if elected, to move the dryer to a more practical position. He did not win, of course — Boris Johnson held the seat with a comfortable majority — but the promise entered the strange folklore of British elections. Years later, while standing in the Clacton by-election against Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, Binface found a second badly located dryer, this time at the Great Himalayas restaurant in Southport, and pledged to tackle it too. The fact that he did not win in Clacton either did not stop the campaign from having consequences. The restaurant’s hand dryer has now been moved, and the Count has seized the moment to take a playful swipe at his political rival. If he can achieve such a seismic impact before being elected, he argued, then Nigel Farage is clearly a total slacker. He also called on the Crown and Treaty pub in Uxbridge to follow suit and move its dryer, giving Londoners the same relief and proving that democracy is not yet finished. The Crown and Treaty, however, has politely declined, and in doing so has turned itself into something far more interesting than a local pub.
At the Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge, the hand dryer remains exactly where it has always been, hovering over a urinal in a way that still makes visitors wince. The pub’s owners, brothers Guna and Anu Sachdeva, took over the business in October, and they inherited more than just the pumps, the glasses and the accumulated dust of a traditional London boozer. They inherited a strangely famous toilet fixture. According to Anu, people still come from as far afield as Somerset just to take a look at the dryer, and the pub has no intention of removing it. In a wonderfully stubborn piece of small-business logic, Anu explained that they do not want to disappoint long-travelling guests by taking that joy away from the public. It is a rare case of a pub actively embracing its own absurdity, choosing to keep a hand dryer in an awkward position because it has, against all odds, become part of the story. The brothers did not initially understand why the dryer had become such a talking point. They had noticed the occasional social media comment and prank call, but it was only when Metro came to visit and explained the Count Binface connection that the pieces began to fall into place. Guna recalled that visitors once told them the story and then asked if they could put the pub’s ice bucket on their head and take a picture with it, a request so surreal that it could only have been inspired by a sentient wheelie bin.
Since then, the Crown and Treaty has become something of a pilgrimage site for fans of the bin-faced candidate, and the evidence of its new fame has started to pile up in the most unexpected ways. The pub has received a flood of Google reviews in the last couple of days, so many and so singular in focus that Google has reportedly assigned it an AI-generated tag that simply reads “hand dryer,” in the same way other venues might be tagged “family-friendly” or “walk-ins only.” It is the sort of detail that could only exist in the internet age, a machine learning algorithm looking at a pub in Uxbridge and deciding, with perfect seriousness, that its defining characteristic is a toilet appliance. One of the reviews, written by someone who admitted they had never been to England, let alone the pub, politely requested that the owners relocate the men’s toilet hand dryer to a more sensible position, because they were, as they put it, a responsible human being. The mix of earnest concern and utter silliness is exactly the kind of reaction Count Binface seems to inspire. It is hard to imagine any other political campaign producing a situation where strangers from overseas are writing heartfelt Google reviews about a hand dryer, but here we are, living in a world where the Crown and Treaty’s toilet room has become an international landmark.
There is something deeply human about the whole affair, and perhaps that is why it has captured so much attention. Count Binface is not a serious politician in the traditional sense, but his absurdist platform taps into a very real frustration with the way politics so often ignores the texture of everyday life. It is easy to make grand promises about the economy, immigration or foreign policy, but how often does a candidate promise to fix the fact that you cannot use a urinal without being blasted by a wall-mounted hot air machine? The hand dryer is a small thing, but it is also a universal thing, and the fact that Count Binface managed to achieve at least one of his goals before even being elected is, in its own weird way, a tribute to the power of persistence. The Count himself framed the Great Himalayas development as proof that democracy is not finished, and while that may be stretching the meaning of the word somewhat, it is hard not to smile at the idea that a wheelie bin with a manifesto can have a real, measurable impact on the world. The fact that the Crown and Treaty has responded by keeping its dryer in place, turning it into a tourist attraction for people who want to see a hand dryer in its natural, inconvenient habitat, only adds to the charm. There is something almost poetic about a pub refusing to change, not out of laziness, but out of respect for the people who have made the journey to see its quirks.
Ultimately, the story of Count Binface and the hand dryers is a reminder that British politics, for all its chaos and anger, can still be playful. The Great Himalayas restaurant in Southport has made a small change that will mean the men of Southport can go about their business without fear of an impromptu blast of hot air. The Crown and Treaty, meanwhile, has decided to keep its dryer exactly where it is, not out of stubbornness or inconvenience, but because the owners understand that their pub has become part of something bigger, a little piece of political history that people want to see for themselves. The brothers have taken the strange attention in good humour, posing for pictures with visitors and tolerating the endless hand dryer jokes with a patience that deserves admiration. Count Binface, for his part, has already turned his attention back to Uxbridge, calling on the Crown and Treaty to complete the set and move its dryer as well. Whether they will ever do so remains to be seen, but perhaps the best outcome is that they do not. Some things are better left gloriously, absurdly unchanged, especially when they make people smile. In an era of politics that can feel increasingly bitter and divisive, the saga of a hand dryer and a sentient wheelie bin is a welcome relief. It reminds us that sometimes the most meaningful change is also the silliest, and that a good joke can go a lot further than a thousand serious speeches.
