Page 15 | Things that are utterly bloody fascinating

JaffaCake70 · 07/03/2023 19:51

Halsall · 07/03/2023 18:10

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.

Yes, I've listened to a lot of You Must Remember This. I lost interest when she moved on to more modern themes, but the older podcasts were very interesting and informative.

WigsNGowns · 07/03/2023 20:00

@JaffaCake70

Did you see the musical of Grey Gardens at Southwark Playhouse? I was going to say a few years ago but googled and see it was 2016.

Jenna Russell & Shelia Hancock were in it and were amazing. Jenna Russell particularly was so like the real life character in the film. It was acting but also weirdly an impression without being an impression

playbill.com/article/staunch-see-the-first-pics-of-sheila-hancock-and-jenna-russell-in-the-uk-premiere-of-grey-gardens-com-377873

Misunderestimated · 07/03/2023 20:11

ivykaty44 · 07/03/2023 08:37

I worked in an archive and we had an album of photographs of criminals from the 1880s. It fascinated me looking through the album as to what they thought of having their photograph taken, the faces they pulled and their circumstances.

We also had asylum records, the asylum was a central location and patients were sent from around the country, Liverpool and Lambeth for example. There were people from all walks of life, doctors to housewives and chimney sweeps. The place made a constant supply of birthday cakes for the inpatients, they had a farm and grew vegetables, patients working in the laundry and kitchens

You might enjoy The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester.

Misunderestimated · 07/03/2023 20:29

Peckhaminn · 07/03/2023 15:05

Also ancient history - how on earth did the Egyptians build those bloody pyramids with nothing but wooden cranes and man power. Mind blown

More than 30 years ago, I remember a mathematician pointing out that ramps for the stone blocks would work, but that the common image of dozens of people pulling the stones would be too heavy.
He suggested that 'D-shaped' pieces of wood could be packed around the block to make something resembling a cotton reel. Ropes wound around the bobbin would enable the workers to stay at ground level while a smaller number with A-frames guided the blocks to their destination.

EekGoesTheBaby · 07/03/2023 21:32

Lucid dreaming, though it's hard for me o find info about it that isn't too 'woo'.

8stone13 · 07/03/2023 21:32

Another thing that fascinates me is the way in which some people have original songwriting/musical talent that they don't have to develop & which almost seems to come from no-where.

I remember years ago seeing Paul McCartney interviewed & he said one morning he woke up with Yesterday going round in his head. The tune was already there, he just sat at the piano & played it & wrote the notes down when he got up in the morning.

As someone with less then zero talent in this area, I find that amazing.

Daftasabroom · 07/03/2023 22:16

EekGoesTheBaby · 07/03/2023 21:32

Lucid dreaming, though it's hard for me o find info about it that isn't too 'woo'.

I've had this all my life. Until a couple of years ago I thought it was normal.

Last night I spent most of the night LD, I kind of napped/REM all night. I didn't actually "sleep" at all. It can be very out of body. I also have a lot of really scary nightmares I can't pull out of - out loud shouting and panic.

I get 100% phosphenes, non light dependent, and can control them to some extent. Blues, greens and yellows.

DailyMaui · 07/03/2023 22:24

The Spitalfields Life website is my black hole - I can spend hours and hours on there. I used to live near there and it is my favourite part of London - the layers and layers of history are fascinating. I've been on one of the Gentle Author's walking tours and it was really good. The books sold on the website are also a wonderful source of information about that area.

spitalfieldslife.com/

I'm also quite obsessed with Charles Booth's poverty maps of old London and wish they would do more series of "The Secret History of Our Streets"

WingingItSince1973 · 07/03/2023 22:27

ArseMenagerie · 06/03/2023 18:39

There’s a fantastic geography game that I love where you get dropped on the earth in google earth and have to guess where you are from the landscape/ buildings.
its called Geoguessr

Brilliant. Have downloaded and now addicted 😂

Weallhaveavoice · 07/03/2023 22:30

Misunderestimated · 07/03/2023 20:11

You might enjoy The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester.

Show quote history

thankyou
Theres another book for my list.
I am really enjoying this thread, so many interesting facts and loads of advice / books to read etc.

Mother87 · 07/03/2023 22:44

ElizabethBest · 06/03/2023 14:24

Let's hear it please - I love a good wikipedia rabbit hole. I'll start - The Willard Suitcases. Over 400 suitcases of possessions were found in an attic at the Willard Insane Asylum belong to patients who had died whilst inpatients so never left. The New York State Museum started a project to document the cases and their contents, and you can learn all about it and see the cases on their website.

I read a novel recently, based upon this premise - can't remember the name anything these days but the story began with a rediscovered suitcase from an ex-patient in an asylum... It was very poignant/sad/a good read I thought

anythinginapinch · 07/03/2023 22:47

Fabulous thread.

I too am gripped by English language and it's changes - i offer this amazing video

Also, women's history of almost any type. Like this amazing diary of an American 17th C midwife Martha Ballard.

Also, The diaries of Victor Klemperer are amazing. A Jewish man who survived WW2 - and who kept a diary all his life; his Observations on the emerging language and use of language of the third reich is fascinating.

Also,

Peckhaminn · 07/03/2023 22:52

Crime junkies podcast I've listen med to for some time and the missing cases are overwhelming. How people - even in todays society's - just go missing without a trace. Considering the amount of CCTV etc.
There was a lady close to my home town who went missing in the middle of the twin centre during daylight and 4 years later theres absolutely no evidence or explanation to what happened to her. Her mum is still trying to solve it.

JoonT · 07/03/2023 22:58

I just found out that Charles Dickens visited my home town in 1862. He gave a reading in a local pub during a snowstorm and was then driven in a cart to catch a train back to London. Almost exactly 100 years earlier, Boswell and Dr Johnson stayed in the same pub on their way to Harwich, where Boswell boarded a ship for Holland.

I think the single most fascinating thing I know (thanks to Stephen Fry and QI) is that everything is made of atoms, yet atoms are mostly empty space. Also, the atoms that make our body change. It isn't just the cells (which also change). When you die, you are made out of different atoms from the ones that made you when you were at Primary School! So we're mostly empty space, and yet even that changes!!

dropthevipers · 07/03/2023 23:52

JoonT · 07/03/2023 22:58

I just found out that Charles Dickens visited my home town in 1862. He gave a reading in a local pub during a snowstorm and was then driven in a cart to catch a train back to London. Almost exactly 100 years earlier, Boswell and Dr Johnson stayed in the same pub on their way to Harwich, where Boswell boarded a ship for Holland.

I think the single most fascinating thing I know (thanks to Stephen Fry and QI) is that everything is made of atoms, yet atoms are mostly empty space. Also, the atoms that make our body change. It isn't just the cells (which also change). When you die, you are made out of different atoms from the ones that made you when you were at Primary School! So we're mostly empty space, and yet even that changes!!

remember someone saying on an edition of "Horizon" (science type TV programme) that if you took everything living on earth and removed all the empty space contained within atoms, then the amount of actual solid stuff would occupy the space of a single sugar cube. Had to go for a lie down after that.

pleaseletmesleeptonight · 08/03/2023 00:20

Placemarking, so I can explore tomorrow, great thread.

OldFan · 08/03/2023 00:36

This is a bit more mainstream as I've heard there's Catfish on Netflix or something, but I got into it on Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/@CatfishedOnline/videos about romance scammers. People can pretty much know the person is fake but they'll still carry on sending them money and messaging them etc.

If I ever got a scammer/wierdo on FB I would chat to them for a bit before posting what they came out with on a FB feminist group I was in.

sashh · 08/03/2023 04:23

Deanandthellhounds · 07/03/2023 07:59

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.

Show quote history

When Germany was two countries there was obviously a border with electric fences and guard towers.

These were taken down decades ago. But deer still act as if there is a barrier, they can see deer on the other side but don't cross.

So it is like they have a superstition.

swedex · 08/03/2023 05:48

This thread is fabulous I'd love to spend time exploring all of it!
I love looking at old maps and comparing how places have changed

At the other end of the spectrum I follow whores of yore on insta and there's some fascinating stories about sexual activity in the past!

KrasiTime · 08/03/2023 08:05

Great thread.

We had a paternoster lift at Leeds University. I Was there in the 80’s no idea if it’s still in use.

k1233 · 08/03/2023 08:07

Glass octupuses

Things that are utterly bloody fascinating

BabyTa · 08/03/2023 11:49

the five by hallie rubenhold about naming and giving a voice to the victims of Jack The Ripper, especially the fact very vulnerable women were branded prostitutes even though they weren't

Original poster

ElizabethBest · 08/03/2023 11:57

@BabyTa I've read that, it was brilliant! I've read quite a bit of "ripperology" over the years, and never really got to know the real stories of the women themselves.

OP posts:

SinnerBoy · 08/03/2023 12:14

k1233 · Today 08:07

Glass octupuses

They are pretty amazing, aren't they?

GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin · 08/03/2023 12:29

DailyMaui · 07/03/2023 22:24

The Spitalfields Life website is my black hole - I can spend hours and hours on there. I used to live near there and it is my favourite part of London - the layers and layers of history are fascinating. I've been on one of the Gentle Author's walking tours and it was really good. The books sold on the website are also a wonderful source of information about that area.

spitalfieldslife.com/

I'm also quite obsessed with Charles Booth's poverty maps of old London and wish they would do more series of "The Secret History of Our Streets"

Have you read Lucy Inglis’ “Into the Streets”? It started out as a blog, IIRC, but was then published as a book. It’s excellent!