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Original poster

Things that are utterly bloody fascinating

770 replies

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.

OP posts:
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15
NeedWineNow · 08/03/2023 13:48

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

I've got that on my Kindle ready for my holiday. Glad to hear it's worth reading. I've always quite fancied doing one of the Ripper walks. Has anyone done one?

Madness101 · 08/03/2023 14:24

I love this thread, have saved it so I have something to delve into 🙂

My own one is a book called The Finest Road in The World, all about the roads in the Highlands from coffin roads, through General Wade and onto modern day. Every chapter is like a different rabbit hole.

I also love imagining how houses use to look when they were built. What each room’s purpose was and how it was to live in it. I’ve just got a new book by Bill Bryson about this

SlayB · 08/03/2023 14:31

TortolaParadise · 07/03/2023 08:43

There are videos posted on Youtube of a man who goes down storm drains and explores tunnels, underground train lines...even saw a river with boat and people underground. Can't remember the name of the poster but real fascinating stuff.

Do you know the name of one of his videos. Would it be in your library on YouTube I did
look but, I can’t find a man that does all those videos ? Anyone else help if you can’t remember ?

Riverlee · 08/03/2023 15:17

One thing that fascinates me how every decision made changes your life. For example, when I was seven, my dad’s job relocated so we moved towns. I sometimes wonder how my life would have panned out if I grew up in my original town, with friends I knew from babyhood, different schools, hobbies, opportunities etc, rather than having to integrate into a new school, friendship group etc.

skeletonbones · 08/03/2023 15:24

AmandaJonah · 07/03/2023 01:48

How little is known about even fairly recent history of ordinary people. For example in Britain ordinary working class unmarried women used to let period blood run down their legs and this was seen as important to attract a husband.
liberationcollective.wordpress.com/author/lesleysmit/

On of the 'call the midwife' books talks about this. Theres an account of sister Monica Joan talking about men being attacted to the smell of menstruation and that peverted men like to throw money on the ground outside the mills when the women leave to watch the women scrabble on the ground/fight for the money as they dont wear underclothes and that some are menstruating.

YouTarzan · 08/03/2023 16:16

peverted men like to throw money on the ground outside the mills when the women leave to watch the women scrabble on the ground/fight for the money as they dont wear underclothes

That doesn't make sense though. You'd have to be doing a handstand to show your nethers in one of those long skirts!

MrsMorton · 08/03/2023 17:11

Roussette · 07/03/2023 16:19

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!

We had a paternoster in the dental school (attached to the back of the dental hospital) in Birmingham. This nicely links your post with others!

I got stuck once because my instrument cabinet was too heavy. I graduated just over 16 years ago so fairly recent!

quirkychick · 08/03/2023 17:40

@KrasiTime the paternoster lift at Leeds University was out of action by the time I was there in 1989. An incident with a bike, I believe.

Marshmallowkisses · 08/03/2023 17:54

If you like fungus....you must watch 'The last of us.'

Papergirl1968 · 08/03/2023 17:56

I took some exams at Sheffield Hallam uni in around 1990 so was there for just a couple of days. Our group were allocated students to haul us in and out of the paternoster lifts, and we were warned we MUST get out at the bottom or top floor or they'd flip over. We were terrified! 😂

Tricyrtis2022 · 08/03/2023 17:59

they'd flip over

I've tested that 😀

KrasiTime · 08/03/2023 18:02

quirkychick · 08/03/2023 17:40

@KrasiTime the paternoster lift at Leeds University was out of action by the time I was there in 1989. An incident with a bike, I believe.

We just missed each other as I left in 1988.

dcthatsme · 08/03/2023 18:03

That is so poignant @ElizabethBest . I'm going to look at it in depth. Thanks for such an interesting and refreshing post.

Papergirl1968 · 08/03/2023 18:06

Tricyrtis2022 · 08/03/2023 17:59

they'd flip over

I've tested that 😀

We were never quite sure if it was true or if they were teasing us? We weren't brave enough to try!

Halsall · 08/03/2023 18:09

@Roussette I’ve got a book by a slightly mad American dentist and it’s just called ‘Teeth, Teeth, Teeth’. I couldn’t resist it with that title. One of the few reviews on Amazon just goes, and I quote:

‘teeth teeth teeth teeth Teeth TEETH TEETH TEETH’

Says it all, really 😂

Chuffaluffa · 08/03/2023 18:12

The impact of barbed wire on life as we know it today is completely fascinating and generally under appreciated. ideas.ted.com/why-barbed-wire-yes-barbed-wire-was-as-transformative-as-the-telephone/

Tricyrtis2022 · 08/03/2023 18:13

Papergirl1968 · 08/03/2023 18:06

We were never quite sure if it was true or if they were teasing us? We weren't brave enough to try!

Show quote history

You get a few moments of darkness and clanking noises and then it's light again, which was slightly disappointing to my younger self!

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 08/03/2023 18:28

Chuffaluffa · 08/03/2023 18:12

The impact of barbed wire on life as we know it today is completely fascinating and generally under appreciated. ideas.ted.com/why-barbed-wire-yes-barbed-wire-was-as-transformative-as-the-telephone/

It slightly blew my mind when I realised that the barbed wire on the Western Front in WW1 wasn't like a fence to keep livestock in but miles and miles of it. A historian called Peter Barton presents a programme about the Somme from the perspective of both sides, and in one clip he has a piece of German barbed wire - as lethally sharp as it was 100 years ago.

Ritasdaughter1969 · 08/03/2023 18:32

Kate0902900908 · 07/03/2023 00:02

I found out 2 years ago I am a human fusion chimera. I absorbed the cells of my non identical twin in early pregnancy and have twos sets of DNA. I have two completely separate sets of reproductive organs including 4 ovaries. 2 mine 2 my female twin. Twins are the only ones working.

I keep loosing babies because I have a rare blood type and she wouldn’t have had so my body has aborted 4 babies in a row as technically they are completely foreign bodies. Heart just stops.

I have various other signs autoimmune conditions and organs in different places and a heart shaped pancreas.

All a bit strange.

**@Kate09@Kate0902900908

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 08/03/2023 18:32

NeedWineNow · 08/03/2023 13:48

I've got that on my Kindle ready for my holiday. Glad to hear it's worth reading. I've always quite fancied doing one of the Ripper walks. Has anyone done one?

Show quote history

Highly recommend that. It will not only change your viewpoint but make you rather angry. I reviewed it for a blog

enoughofthistomfoolery.wordpress.com/2022/05/13/book-review-the-five-the-untold-lives-of-the-women-killed-by-jack-the-ripper-halle-rubenhold/

Papergirl1968 · 08/03/2023 18:33

Tricyrtis2022 · 08/03/2023 18:13

You get a few moments of darkness and clanking noises and then it's light again, which was slightly disappointing to my younger self!

Show quote history

We were young and gullible!

Ritasdaughter1969 · 08/03/2023 18:33

Ritasdaughter1969 · 08/03/2023 18:32

**@Kate09@Kate0902900908

Show quote history

@Ka@Kate0902900908@Kate0902900908

Almahart · 08/03/2023 18:36

@chuffaluffa that is fascinating. Brilliant thread.

I'm always fascinated by the period just after WW2, that Europe was in ruins, people had been through the most awful traumas and they just had to carry on.

Meshuggah by Isaac Bashevis Singer is a really interesting novel about Holocaust survivors in New York. I also like The War After by Anne Karpf, her family try to adjust to taking back the servant they had had in Berlin in London but everyone is too traumatised.

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 08/03/2023 18:42

Papergirl1968 · 08/03/2023 17:56

I took some exams at Sheffield Hallam uni in around 1990 so was there for just a couple of days. Our group were allocated students to haul us in and out of the paternoster lifts, and we were warned we MUST get out at the bottom or top floor or they'd flip over. We were terrified! 😂

My mate used to freak out the freshers by doing a handstand coming down. We all went “over the top” all it did was stop the lift ( and you’d get a telling off)
I like fractals.