Things that are utterly bloody fascinating

Was it Bridey Murphy? Virginia Tighe claimed to have been a 19th century Irish woman in a past life. Her story has been pretty much discredited now.

@Roussette thanks. That looks all very interesting.
@AngelinaFibres several years ago I was fascinated by past lives and read several books. There was one about a English women who remembered she was once an Irish women who died leaving behind several children in the 1930s (?).
It was made into a made for TV movie (although they changed the woman as being American not English).
Any idea what the book or woman was called? I would love to re read.

It's interesting that so many of us are fascinated by women in history. There really is not enough coverage in film and TV on the lives of women - especially on the lives of ordinary women.

I loved The Weaker Vessel by Antonia Fraser, and more recently The Five by Hallie Rubenhold.

Paternoster lifts I've spent hours reading about and watching them after riding on one In Germany

In the 70s I spent seven years going back and forth to the dental hospital in Birmingham and they had Paternoster lifts. One time me and my dad went round the whole loop to see what it was like, which was dark and clanky.

I have been there and it is amazing. I truly believe that Newgrange, Stonehenge, the Great Pyramids in Egypt, and probably those in Central and South America as well, were all calculated and designed by extra terrestrial aliens - even if they did get humans to actually build them. I came to that conclusion about the Egyptian Pyramids when I was a child, long before I knew that other people also thought that that was a possibility.

Most of you will probably think I am "seriously mistaken", but it is the only conclusion that makes complete sense to me. I also think that if the parting of the seas in the Bible did happen, and if Manna from Heaven also happened, that that was due to an alien star ship, and it's crew. None of which negates there being a God, there are still far more questions than there are answers.

I went to this museum just this week! Something I knew nothing about and very interesting.

Re: the little tokens - I got talking to a staff member who told me that these for the most complete record of Georgian fabric in the world because of the number of skirt cuttings left behind.

The life of David Livingstone and his wife, is the most fantastic story, it would make a fantastic film.
He was born in a wee town in Scotland not from a wealthy family, yet was driven to go to Africa ( to spread Christianity) but really he preferred exploring, and used this as a pretext of funding his trips.
He tried again and again to find the source of the river Nile, was attacked by a tiger but his tweed jacket( unbelievable in the African climate) saved him as it’s teeth caught on it, although his arm was damaged.
His wife following on, giving birth to many children at the same time! This woman alone deserves a film.
When he died the African men who explored huge areas of Africa with, carried him hundreds of miles, risking their own lives as carrying dead bodies through villages was not allowed and punishable by death. They returned his body to a ship bound for Britain as a tribute to him allow him to be buried at home. They must have thought highly of him to attempt this feat,
No fancy equipment, no malaria tablets, no comforts of any kind in blistering heat covering hundreds and hundreds of miles on foot! This is a fascinating story as I’ve zero idea how anyone could do all this.

Simon Roper makes fabulous videos!

Hang on. I was thinking of the earlier one by Amanda Vickery called Suffragettes Forever. It was very, very good.

www.imdb.com/title/tt4484616/

Spider webs… I once sat in the garden for 5 hours watching one being made 🕸️🕸️

And, vitally, what did it mean to play pop with the manager?

@ComeTheFckOnBridget 'playing pop' means to shout at someone; give them a hard time. It’s an old Northern expression. It may be related to the current usage of 'have a pop at' somebody, though I’m not 100% about that. It seems likely, though.

I was lucky enough to see the Turin Shroud at the Louvre many, many years ago, when it was there on a limited loan. I had gone to see the Mono Lisa, which left me cold, but then I went to see the Turin Shroud which literally gave me goosebumps.

⁸I heard on the news sometime later that carbon dating meant it couldn't have been the real cloth that Jesus was wrapped in, but they must have made a mistake, because the feelings I got from that piece of Cloth was not imagined.

I've had to force myself to stop reading before I lose the entire day - but anticipating hours of happy googling 😁

I love ancient astronomy.

Newgrange in Ireland is a burial mound older than Stonehenge and the pyramids. It has a tiny, narrow shaft that light can only reach the chamber through at sunrise on the winter solstice.

Unbelievably precise calculations carried out by people equipped with sticks. How the fuck?

There has been a modern TV series about the suffrage movement. I’m sure it was BBC and it was hosted by Lucy Worsley.

However, the thing that fascinates me is when missing children are found years later, having been abducted by people and kept in cellars etc, often in ordinary surburban streets. Neighbours have no idea that there is a captured child next door. These stories horrify and fascinate me.

It was still operational when I worked there in the 2010s. We used to bring visitors to ride it (the only time we ever went into that building, ditto probably 90% of the people going there )

It ceased operation in 2017.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-42339097

Saving this thread to have a proper read (and Google ) later.

Regarding deserted places, Ben Fogle has a series on ‘Lost Worlds’, ie abandoned places, and I think there’s a series on Quest/more 4/ etc on abandoned places.

@Needmorelego

You will love this website www.28dayslater.co.uk/

Urban explorers travel everywhere in the UK taking pictures of disused buildings. From old cinemas, mental asylums, empty hospitals, military sites, power stations etc.
Some empty since the 50s and 60s. These guys are top notch at photography, they sometimes break the law getting in to these sites, but what they show in their photos and dialogue is just beyond fascinating. No one would believe there are so many disused sites in this country.

There was a butterfly or bird migration who would fly around a massive lake rather than cutting out several miles flying over it.
Scientists couldn't figure out why they didn't go over it.
Until they went way back in history and discovered that this lake used to be a mountain and the butterflies/ birds have followed the exact same path despite the mountain turning into a lake over years and years.

I was astonished!

Also I love mushrooms and fungi.
There is evidence that trees communicate using fungul networks of mycelium underground, a tree on one side of a forrest can warm trees the other side of the forrest, 40 miles away and those trees can make their leaves taste bitter or put up other defences before the pest is even close to them.
it's amazing.

Also a tree stump 'grandparent' can be sustained for years (decades) by theor 'grandchildren'. They share nutrients with fallen members. There's a great book about it.
hidden life of trees.

The book Your Inner Fish. Enlightening and fascinating. How we have evolved from fish in easy to understand lay-man terms. Did you know that "the head is made up of vertebrae that fused and grew a vault to hold our brains and sense organs?” And that “bones that are the upper and lower jaws in sharks are used by us to swallow and hear.” Lots of cool revelations of this sort. There is a section that describes how our ear was related to a sense organ, the neuromast, present in the sides of some fish. Really interesting reading.