The Civic fathers and mothers, led by the Canberra CBD chief executive Jane Easthope, installed the portable urinals in Verity Lane in the Sydney building some time ago, but found they had minimal effect on the rivers of urine flowing down the street late at night. It was not that no one used them: over one two day period 380 litres were gathered by the devices, on New Years Eve last year alone another 340 litres, and, over a further three-day period 90 litres.

But the experiment, evidence-based as it was, was hardly effective in amending behaviour. In all, it cost ACT taxpayers $4.22 every time someone spent a penny in the clochmerles, or, put another way, provision during the Christmas-New Year period cost $12,838. That seems to be about $15.85 per litre collected, which, my maths teaches me, suggests that the average customer left the scene about 266 grams lighter.

I am unable to account for the discrepancy with an earlier experiment, over Easter last year, which recorded an average volume of 303ml from 2162 men. Further studies are needed, perhaps by the urology department of the ANU Medical School.

I have suggested to Henry that he carve out a niche for himself, making weekly records of such things, in a manner similar to a good idea imposed upon me by a former editor of The Canberra Times in 1972, with the weekly publication of road accident fatalities for the whole of Australia. Although the Bureau of Statistics published annual - perhaps twice-yearly figures - and some states occasionally announced, usually around a holiday, the current road toll in their jurisdiction, we were the first to make a regular feature of the figures.

In those days the annual toll would be about 3200; these days it is about half that, though the population has doubled, the number of cars quadrupled and the number of road miles driven increased, probably, by a factor of 40.

One should not hesitate to regard urine volumes as a trifle, a piddling matter compared with more important matters of state. Far from it. It may well be that historians, 400 years from now, might think that the main achievement of the late 19th and 20th century was the improvement of water supplies, and the development of water-based sewerage systems that kept outputs well separated from inputs.

There are countries which had yet to achieve this effect, and, generally, they are talking about it. I have remarked before that a source of the popularity of Gough Whitlam was his achievement in sewering Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Likewise, one of the sources of the great popularity of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is his determination to provide toilets to the poorer half of the Indian population. There are modern Chinese politicians who have been equally driven.

We Westerners are wont to look with some disgust at the sights and smells of some Third World countries, but those who are somewhat older will remember that it was not that long ago that an Australia - or for that matter a Britain, a United States, or France - was much the same. At best sewage and waste water went into storm water drains; as often, it went on to the street.

Even where there were more private public places, such as at a railway station or a department store, there whereabouts were not always obvious. It has been only in recent time that the good old Australian government, for whom no assistance to good living is too much, have created a website "app" which, with a combination of GPS and button pressing will promptly show the nearest legitimate place at which one can spring a leak. It's at toiletmap.gov.au.

Alas, intoxicated men, and, I must say from my observation, the odd intoxicated women are not the first to have such assistance at hand, or, if they do, to take advantage of it. For many, the lurch into the nearest dark space will do the trick. I expect that the propensity of some women to run the risks owes something to interminable queues in the typical women's loo in a Canberra restaurant or nightclub. For some time, the feminine side of me has thought that the notices outside places of public entertainment, announcing how many patrons are permitted inside, should be configured according to the number of pedestals in the women's toilets, not the general space.

I have noted, also, that the more complicated the loo is, the less likely that it will be used, whether or not it is in an obvious place or a dark alley. People of my age look in horror at some of the modern devices, with automatic timers, flushes, springs and noises, fearing that we will be locked in. In recent times, I was in a hotel in Shanghai which had throne warming, airconditioning, fountaining and other devices too scary to mention. The downstairs loo was more accommodating.

Be all of that as it may, Ms Easthope will be interested to know that her problem with the men (and the odd woman) of Canberra is not new, or likely to be solved in a moment.

When I first arrived here, 45 years ago, promiscuous pissing, particularly in alleyways, was the number one social evil, ranking high above murder, wife-beating and failure to attend church on Sundays. At times it seemed to occupy the full time attentions of that half of the police force not focused on entrapping homosexuals, or imagined homosexuals, in public toilets. [Perhaps, indeed, the likelihood that some handsome male detective might make an ambiguous proposition, then arrest one for showing interest, may have been what kept the heterosexual population out of the loos and on the grass, as it were].

There would be cops in dark alleyways, and out on the streets near the more egregious hotels. Street lighting was not so prominent then. Many a chap, and even then the odd chapess would leave an establishment such as the Canberra Rex, and, immediately on getting into the dark, stop to relieve the pressure, as it were. Out would jump a triumphant cop and one would be charged with "indecent exposure" - hardly the appropriate charge, and looking somewhat suspicious on one's criminal record.

The fine was only $10, but the indignity was great. But so was the indignation of the folk who had houses nearby, at the tidal pools swelling around their rose bushes.

Alas for the neighbourhoods, magistrates tired of the processions, and one announced that he would not deal with "such piddling offences" any more. The cops stopped, more or less.

Did this open the floodgates, as it were. Certainly not around the Canberra Rex. A few of the locals built single wire electric fences about 20 centimetres high close to the rose bushes. The effect was something like being tasered.

I note that Ms Easthope drew attention to a $200 "on the spot" fine for the problem. I wonder what spot she has in mind.