Page 17 | Things that are utterly bloody fascinating

ElizabethBest · 2023-03-06T14:24:28+00:00

Let's hear it please - I love a good wikipedia rabbit hole. I'll start - [[https://www.willardsuitcases.com/ 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.

quirkychick · 08/03/2023 18:47

@KrasiTime 😁

JohnPrescottsPyjamas · 08/03/2023 18:51

I hope it’s not too morbid, but I’m fascinated by The Staircase. I always think I’m quite good at reading people and my gut instincts have rarely let me down, but Michael Peterson is an exception. I’ve watched and read so much about this case and I’d hate to have been on the jury as there are so many contradictory facts, both for and against his wife’s death being murder.

www.netflix.com/gb/title/80233441

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Staircase

airey · 08/03/2023 18:53

Tabitha1960 · 06/03/2023 18:28

The suffragettes. It's a much longer, bigger, more complicated and exciting story than most people seem to think. I cannot get enough of the subject: lectures, newsreels, photographs, books, websites, individual biographies. If I have a spare hour to fill I sometimes just log on to the newspaper archives and read contemporary news stories about their activities.

A side benefit to this is that, when recently a Mastermind contender chose the suffragettes as her specialist subject, she scored 9 out of the 11 questions asked of her, whilst I got all 11 correct.

I am at a complete loss to understand why a TV series has not been made depicting the whole story. All they've ever been given is one six-part, low-budget series made in 1974 and all but forgotten.

These women deserve better than that!

I’d love to watch that!!!

would anyone else want to contribute to crowdfund it? Show of hands please?

JimnJoyce · 08/03/2023 18:53

there used to be Paternoster lifts at Birmingham College of Food and Domestic Arts. No idea if theyre still in use

JeannieAlogy · 08/03/2023 18:54

Timeslips - I would love and hate to experience one in equal parts.
Absorbed memories/recordings in buildings; by which I mean what some might call 'ghosts' - I have had a few strange encounters that I can't rationally explain but I can't honestly say that they were ghostly encounters. My current thinking is that we don't understand quite how to examine the relevant phenomena, and that there are many factors that may bring about hallucinations both visual and auditory, but that doesn't mean that there are other explanations.
Inherited memories - where children have recounted things from past lives that they can't possibly have known about, and things people remember that actually happened to others (parents or grandparents)
And finally - ecosystems and how they work. It's such a delicate balance, and it seems, without humans, the planet would function perfectly well, if we didn't keep imposing 'pattern' and stasis.

BTMadmummy · 08/03/2023 18:55

louise5754 · 06/03/2023 15:23

I love looking at videos / photos of abandoned homes. I especially like the really old ones or weirdly the 90s where they look lived in. It bakes you wonder why they just left home and never returned.

I'm going to click that link.
Interesting post.

Me too. You should follow www.facebook.com/AbandonedNi

DailyMaui · 08/03/2023 19:03

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.

I'd love to find out more about life for ordinary folk after WW2. My grandad couldn't get work where he lived so him and a mate ended up in Africa working on the railways - no colonial overlords, they were working alongside black africans and being paid the same. I wanted to do a deep delve into this to see if it was common/how they even know about it but came up with nothing. Of course I should have done this when he was alive... I did find correspondence from one company to another with someone asking if their wages could be subbed ahead as both my grandad and his friend were "financially embarrassed" and too poor to travel to their next job.

My grandad loved it and was very reluctant to come home. I think he caught the travel bug from being in the Royal Marines in the war and going to North Africa and Italy. He said that was the positive he took from it, and watching Vesuvius erupt in 1944! Maybe the "no jobs" thing was just an excuse for more adventures and an escape from what would have been a pretty grey - if safe - life.

I wish the internet had been as common and easy to access when he was alive - I reckon we'd have had hours of fun looking for evidence of his early life.

Almahart · 08/03/2023 19:10

@DailyMaui that's incredible. Not as interesting but another general chaos story, my great aunt lost her fiance in Singapore and there is some story about how she set off to look for him after the war and came back married to someone else.

I also really want to know more about post war London, where people lived and how it all got rebuilt, London in the fifties fascinates me too.

CountryMouse22 · 08/03/2023 19:18

I wonder what Invisible Talc was!

DailyMaui · 08/03/2023 19:19

Almahart · 08/03/2023 19:10

@DailyMaui that's incredible. Not as interesting but another general chaos story, my great aunt lost her fiance in Singapore and there is some story about how she set off to look for him after the war and came back married to someone else.

I also really want to know more about post war London, where people lived and how it all got rebuilt, London in the fifties fascinates me too.

Did you enjoy 'Life After Life" and "A God In Ruins" by Kate Atkinson? Maybe not after the war so much but I felt those books really nailed the relentless drudgery/misery/fear/despondency of life during WW2 in London and surrounds with snatched moments of joy and loosened morals.

Thank you to the posters who gave other book recommendations on this thread. I have downloaded a few and I'm now engrossed in the book about corvids. My daughter works part time on a retail park in Stevenage and there's a big gang of crows that lord it about the place, ripping up McDonald's rubbish and strutting about like little black gods. I love them.

Emotionalsupportviper · 08/03/2023 19:19

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

I've got this book, too - it's really engrossing.

TheGoodTheBadAndTheIrritated · 08/03/2023 19:20

FriedEggChocolate · 06/03/2023 15:59

Foundling Hospital in London, where mothers left half a swatch of fabric with their baby and kept the other half so they could show it to reclaim their baby. Most didn't so there are pages and pages of these coloured fabric swatches. This is an old link but it gives you an idea.

Trigger warning: some of the linked image reference babies and young children who died at the hospital.

FriedEggChocolate, that’s the saddest thing I’ve read in a long time. Wow!

Zone2NorthLondon · 08/03/2023 19:21

@ElizabethBest thank you so much for sharing that fascinating link
my colleague lives in a converted old asylum apparently quite the place when open

Pliudev · 08/03/2023 19:24

Once, after spending the night in a B&B, the garage doors were open and we saw that the inside was full of used suitcases. Had we seen it the night before, we might have made an excuse and found somewhere else to stay but it turned out the owner bought them at auction after they had been left behind at the airport. He took a gamble on what the contents might be.

Pliudev · 08/03/2023 19:24

Once, after spending the night in a B&B, the garage doors were open and we saw that the inside was full of used suitcases. Had we seen it the night before, we might have made an excuse and found somewhere else to stay but it turned out the owner bought them at auction after they had been left behind at the airport. He took a gamble on what the contents might be.

GarlicGrace · 08/03/2023 19:24

Another plea for this to go in Classics, MNHQ ⭐ It'll take years to go down all these rabbit holes, I need the reference to stay available!

Zone2NorthLondon · 08/03/2023 19:26

GarlicGrace · 08/03/2023 19:24

Another plea for this to go in Classics, MNHQ ⭐ It'll take years to go down all these rabbit holes, I need the reference to stay available!

Yes! Great suggestion

BibiBlocksberg · 08/03/2023 19:26

‘Same with our ego/consciousness; an invisible entity stored inside a meat puppet’

Too true, TheVanguardSix & wonderful phrasing, thank you! :) 😂

Britinme · 08/03/2023 19:27

GarlicGrace · 08/03/2023 19:24

Another plea for this to go in Classics, MNHQ ⭐ It'll take years to go down all these rabbit holes, I need the reference to stay available!

Thirded (or fourthed).

Chocbuttonsandredwine · 08/03/2023 19:27

Place marking for the weekend

Biilie82 · 08/03/2023 19:27

kateandme · 07/03/2023 02:32

oh and then hidden in the attack so the many "death" "record of life" "disappearances" coulsnt be found.

Show quote history

My mum worked in mental health and cared for an older man who was detained as a 9 year old for stealing a bottle of milk. He never got out of mental health institutions. Barbaric

Powertoyou · 08/03/2023 19:28

The Bill Bryson is brilliant, so interesting. That man can make a pint of milk come alive. Enjoy every page.

Emotionalsupportviper · 08/03/2023 19:28

awaynboilyurheid · 07/03/2023 08:21

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.

Excellent book about her. "Looking fr Mrs Livingstone". What a harsh life she had, and what a supportive wife she was, It was very touching.

Biilie82 · 08/03/2023 19:29

EekGoesTheBaby · 07/03/2023 21:32

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

Have you tried to learn how to do it? I had some success in my younger years, it’s amazing

Newstartonwards · 08/03/2023 19:31

On page 13 place marking as I need to go and sort the kids - fascinating