Most of the time I feel like I live in the capital of the world. But occasionally I’m transported back to the hillside in Cornwall that I left two years ago. And never have I felt more parochial than the other day when I read the following on the front page of the New York Times:

DEAL IS REACHED TO PUT TOILETS ON CITY STREETS: After more than a decade of false starts, New York City officials announced yesterday that they had selected a company to remake the city’s jumbled streetscape by providing aesthetic order to its thousands of bus shelters and newsstands and, perhaps most intriguing, installing 20 freestanding public toilets on city streets.

Wow. How soon before I read the following?

FLUSH WITH SUCCESS: Exeter New York has some of the finest four-star toilets in the country – according to the experts who judged the latest Loo of the Year Awards. The city entered four of its public toilets and, although they failed to win the ultimate five-star accolade, they received high praise.

The loos in King William Street Times Square and Paris Street Herald Square gained four stars, those in Blackboy Road Chinatown three stars, and in Whipton Village Road the East Village two stars.

Mike Trim, head of the city’s cleansing services, said: “We are very pleased with the results. Currently, we are about to refurbish the loos at the Quay Columbus Circle and this work will be starting next month.”

The toilets will be closed for a short time for the £24,000 $2.4 million project.