A history lesson

I got sent this today. I've seen it before, but it's a curious set of facts, so I thought I'd share them with everyone.

*LIFE IN THE 1500'S*

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 the1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so bride 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 elder 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) liv! ed 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 entranceway. Hence the saying a ...thresh hold.

(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

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 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 locals 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.

And that's the truth...Now , whoever said History was boring ! ! !

Four long weeks

This may amuse some of you (knowing my student days, though I stress that I did "work" during my PhD), but the last four weeks have been the busiest four weeks of my life. Even before then, I was quite busy. I've had 60 business days to get back to the journal regarding the requested changes to my paper, and I've barely even looked at it in the last two months, let alone do the work. I've still got supervisees to see, I have seminars to take, essays to hand out (and collect in and mark), and I've 200 statistics scripts to mark before Tuesday. But, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Right now, I've found time for a cup of tea - though I have no memory of removing the teabag that now isn't there - so things are looking up.

Jase's Blog has commented on my egg-dropping task. A few people have in fact. My workshop yesterday was great fun, with thirty students in six groups. Four eggs out of six landed intact with some cracking ideas. They were all given carrier bags with: cardboard, some string, two 3x5 cards, four rolled-up newspaper pages, a very small piece of jiffy paper, a rubber, sellotape, scissors and an envelope. [And as Jase pointed out in his Blog, they could use the carrier bag]. Some great ideas. One team spooled their package out of the window with oodles of sellotape, lowering it gently to the ground. My personal favourite - who says girls don't have engineering minds? - was a team of female students who suspended their egg with string, wrapped up inside and suspended from a small cardboard trapezium, wrapping *that* inside all the packaging. The most elegant by far. They were even naming their eggs - though Egwina came to a sticky end...

Now, I'm off to do it again this morning with a different set of students. :)

Time for a quick Blog

Ironic really, as I don't actually have all that much time. :)

But a quick word to prove I'm still alive. Plenty on, including a series of "Problem Solving" workshops that I'm giving to the first year. Their task, with a carrier bag of string, bits of newspaper and card - and the mighty sellotape - is to drop an egg out of a second story window, using their stuff to see if they can stop it breaking. Ought to be a laugh.

Well, I hope it will be!

Back to the Grindstone

Well then,

Fresh from a weekend with Sally, it's back to work and blogging. In my absence, North Korea have detonated a nuclear bomb, England sucked badly against Macedonia on Saturday, and there's something in the paper about the Royal Mail getting even worse than I thought possible. There's honestly a story about how in the early 1900s, there were 12 London deliveries a day and you could post a letter form work saying "I'll be home for tea" that would get there before you did. How the mighty have fallen. :)

Elsewhere, Sally's friend Leanne found this. Suffice to say, I can believe it. Still, there are mitigating excuses. Hull Local Education Authority is perhaps the worst in the county. Two years ago, there was a four page story in the local paper saying how wonderful it was that they were now fourth from bottom. Since then, they've slipped a bit...

Ho hum.

Big Day

Also, it's a big day today.

Curtains up as it's my first ever lecture. Well, not my first, I've given several "proper" ones and hundreds of large (100+) workshops, but it is my first lecture as module manager dictating what needs to be taught. So, I'm in charge as it were - ie. I'm responsible. So, from now, regularly, I can turn up to the lecture theatre at 3.15pm and talk to (at?) 190 undergraduate students about what the hell I like. ;-)

The rest of the time, I have to follow other people's instructions. Boo!

Cry for help (Battlestar related)

Hi guys,

A lonh time between blogs and I'm planning for two to come along at once... :-) But this first one is likely to be the most important of the two. Alas, I've had to cancel my Sky subscription as I've moved to a second floor flat. Outside the flat, between me and the Astra satellite are some gigantic trees that will block the signal unless I put a dish on my roof. Alas, it's not *my* roof so I'm not allowed. I'm currently investigating other options but with the added complicated of a Kingston Communication phone line - not a BT one - it's terrestrial TV for me at the moment. Now, I'm distraught at the prospect of not being able to see Battlestar Galactica Series 3. There is hope in that I can get someone else to record it - both Sally and my parents spring to mind - but I have no idea when it starts. Can someone tell me when Galactica Season Three is trasmitted on Sky so I can do something about it? I know that sneaky types can download episodes and watch them, but with my hearing, I need the subtitles - which can be recorded if watched through a Sky digibox. If anyone out there can offer assistance in allowing me to watch Galactica (w/subtitles) in any way whatsoever, I will be very, very grateful - and far less tense. ;-)

I'll make it worth your while!!