Interesting Facts?

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snooky
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They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & Sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot......they "didn't have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low.
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.
Here are some facts about the 1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . ...... . Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting Married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof... Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive... So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer
Regards snooky

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WARNING.!!... The above post may contain an opinion
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oldherbaceous
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Interesting indeed, Snooky...how things have changed over the years!!
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

There's no fool like an old fool.
Stephen
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hmmm...
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Geoff
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I like things like this - I wrote some science questions for a lockdown Zoom quiz that included;

11. From the 17th to the 19th century a London waste product was shipped to Yorkshire as an important part of the dyeing industry, what was it?

A : Urine

Alum was extracted from quarried shales through a large scale and complicated process which took months to complete. The process involved extracting then burning huge piles of shale for 9 months, before transferring it to leaching pits to extract an aluminium sulphate liquor. This was sent along channels to the alum works where human urine was added.

At the peak of alum production the industry required 200 tonnes of urine every year, equivalent to the produce of 1,000 people. The demand was such that it was imported from London and Newcastle, buckets were left on street corners for collection and reportedly public toilets were built in Hull in order to supply the alum works. This unsavoury liquor was left until the alum crystals settled out, ready to be removed.

This and the use in the tanning industry led to the wonderful phrases “piss poor” so poor you have to sell it, even worse off “can’t afford a pot to piss in” so can’t collect it to sell it.


Here's a later one for you to ponder:

14. In 1885 two brothers running a grocery business in Bolton teamed up with local chemist William Hough Watson and bought a small factory in Warrington. Using glycerine and palm oil they founded what became Britain’s largest business, what were they making?
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Chantal
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Would that be soap?
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Shallot Man
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I also thought of soap. :wink:
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Chantal
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Now I'm awake, I'm also thinking Lever Brothers and Port Sunlight. I saw a TV programme a couple of years ago and it all fits with what you're saying...

I love quiz questions :D
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Geoff
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You are all too clever.

Sunlight Soap, they were the Lever Brothers. Production reached 450 tons per week by 1888. By 1930, the company was employing 250,000 people and in terms of market value, was the largest company in Britain.

A last one:

20. What follows 53, 45, 39, 37, 24, 12, 5 ?
Diarmuid
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Hi everyone,
My father (a plumber) told me that in the early 1900's, he went to work in Venezualan oil fields. He had to travel by boat up a river through the jungle for days to reach the Oil Fields and as they went round a bend, still in the jungle and miles from anywhere, there was an advertising hoarding advertising "Sunlight Soap". He couldn't believe it.
Don't wait until it's gone, before you appreciate what you have.
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Chantal
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What a lovely story and how amazing!

I very much enjoy learning about inventors and especially the industrial revolution. One of my favourite TV series is Seven Wonders of the Industrial World. When you see what they were up against, it makes it even more remarkable.
Chantal

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Primrose
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I,m intrigued by the advice to pee on a compost heap, and for some reason male urine is supposed to be more beneficial than its female counterpart, although not sure why.

Think we,ve had a previous discussion on this but can,t recall why. I would have thought these days, with the amount of medication both sexes are often taking, there a debate about how ethically pure your compost would be.....or perhaps it was to try and deter rats or foxes ?
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If anyone of you get the chance to visit port sunlight jump at it ,the village is amazing
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JohnN
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A couple of interesting "facts" - can't guarantee their validity.

Just near Stony Stratford , on the road to Banbury, is a village with two pubs. One is the Cock, which was used as a coach horse change point, the other the Bull. One night there was a fire at the Cock, with many guests making desperate escapes down sheets and ropes. They were put up at the Cock, where at breakfast the next morning they related how they escaped from the Bull. They became known as Cock & Bull stories.
The coach to Banbury from the Cock took a road through the estates owned by the Fienne family, where passengers on the coach would see the daughters of the family riding their horses. Hence the rhyme "Take a Cock horse to Banbury Cross, and see a Fynne lady on a white horse"
Stephen
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I read in a play (I think) that before the expression "the best thing since sliced bread" - dreadful phrase, is pre-sliced bread a good thing?) there was "The best thing since sunlight soap". I think I may adopt this.
Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
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Geoff
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If anyone is interested in my little question "What follows 53, 45, 39, 37, 24, 12, 5 ?" - the answer is zero, also known as "Pointless".

Pointless.JPG
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