Things that are utterly bloody fascinating

@ComeTheFckOnBridget to play pop with someone means to give someone a good telling off - Northerner here

Have you read The Facemaker by Lindsey Fitzharris.

It was published last year and is a wonderful book-the cover alone is worth the money! It is all about Harold Gillies who was the man who led this pioneering surgery for soldiers in WW1-what a man!

She gave an online talk at The National Archives last year and it was interesting about this topic-full of humanity and history.

The podcasts made by Karina Longworth about early Hollywood are fascinating - You Must Remember This. She’s moved on to much more recent movie history but you can still find the ones about things like the Fatty Arbuckle scandal.

Not obsessed, but love to watch the stunts that Buster Keaton did. The storm scene in 'Steamboat Bill Jr' is incredible, especially when you think it was filmed in 1928 when technology was so basic. The part where the front of the building falls down, but lands around him because he ends up in the window is amazing.

@JaffaCake70

If you are into silent films you may know this already but the death of Thelma Todd has always fascinated me.

She was a beautiful Hollywood actress who was found dead aged 29 in 1935 wearing a mauve and silver gown, mink wrap and expensive jewelry in her chocolate-colored 1934 Lincoln Phaeton convertible inside the garage the ex-wife of her lover. The ex-wife was called Jewel Carmen which is quite the name.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_Todd

Oh, I hope not!
I really hope he was just that lad from Stratford.

The first idea that springs to mind for that technique is that someone in the distant past dropped a red hot piece of pottery into the batter by accident and then thought 'Sod it' and did whatever stage in the process comes next. Maybe they thought it would just burn off and not result in the raku effect. It may well be that many things were invented by accident.

Oh - thank you!

I was really upset on their behalf, and I know that asylums didn't have the best of reputations. Appreciate you letting us (well, me) know.

Oooo!

I'm obsessed with early, silent era, Hollywood.

One of the most fascinating stories of the time is the scandal attached to Fatty Arbuckle, he was accused of murder!

For anyone interested I wrote a blogpost about it: taintedhollywood.blogspot.com/ It's the only one I ever wrote, I have never found the time since 😂

Sorry, I suspected that was going to happen.

It's supported by Corning Glass, the largest producer of glass products in the US. They invented Pyrex, along with many other products. And I think you have CorningWear baking dishes in the UK. They're made at the main plant in Corning, New York.

Sorry about that. It's in New York. Tourists come up from NYC by the busload to see it. It's also close to the Baseball Hall of Fame, so you get a twofer.

What a sad sight those cases and their contents are. Did they take the cases with them and then no be allowed to have the contents? It’s like they were maybe packed for them by family and close ones but once in the asylum they never saw the items again. So very sad.

I was just getting excited about going to the Corning Museum of Glass...only to discover it's in the States...

Foods that ought to be inedible - things like tapioca which are poisonous in their raw state but if you smash them up and run water through for several days you end up with an edible foodstuff. Who worked this out and how many people kept eating the plant in various stages of its raw state to find out it is eventually edible? I can understand things that get more palatable over time, but some of these things are just poisonous.

Someone mentioned about where ideas come from to invent something.

So I'm a potter and I get how someone would have been dabbled with a bit of mud, realised it's mouldable, that it hardened off and became stronger if it was left near a fire. I can see how over time that could happen. However there's a technique called Obvara that simply blows my mine. It involves removing your pot from a red hot kiln (think raku for those of you who watch the Great Pottery Throwdown) and rather than just leaving it to cool, you plunge the pot into a bucket of what is basically batter mix - that's water, flour, sugar and yeast. The results are amazing as the flour is burnt on to the pot so it looks like a glaze. Who came up with that idea and probably more importantly why and how did they ?

Loving this thread - have taken lots of suggestions for podcasts and books. Thanks to everyone whose contributed !

better go and do some work now........

@ifIwerenotanandroid - fascinating and shocking at the same time. I listened to Olga Lengyel and i read her book after, she was born and lived in my birth country, I've never heard of her until I found this collection. I think i started listening in 2020 and, with few breaks, I'm still listening now and then.

@Fluffymule Thank you so much for the link, so interesting.

*wooden dentures AS false teeth I meant to say.

I'm quite fascinated by teeth. And how those before us centuries ago coped. They had wooden dentures and false teeth.
My dentist who is in his early 40s, is a seventh generation dentist, his dentist ancestors go back to the 1800s. Quite incredible. If he ever has time, (rarely) we do chat a bit, and he fills me in whilst giving me a filling! . The first dentist in his family in the 1800s was a barber and a dentist in the same shop!

Wow those pictures.

I'm no legal expert but the old Bailey records suggest that if a woman gave birth alone and the baby died then she was presumed to have killed it and sentenced to hang. Is this right, and if so is it the only time the onus is on the accused to prove their innocence rather than the other way around? Does anyone know?

I don't know about the women giving birth alone aspect. However if you are sued for libel or slander you have to prove your innocence, rather than the plaintiff prove your guilt. And there's only one defence - that what you said or wrote was actually provably true.

A really interesting book about the pre-war period in Germany is Erik Larsen's "Into the Garden of Beasts". Fascinating.

There's 3 series of a reality show on Netflix called Blown Away. One of the judges is from Corning. Some weird and wacky creations! I learned a lot about glass blowing from watching it and what an interesting mix of science and art it is.

We had 2 in the garden. We called them Russell & Sheryl.😂