Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Truth behind old sayings, words and phrases




There is an old pub in Marble Arch, London, which used to have a gallows adjacent to it.

Prisoners were taken to the gallows (after a fair trial of course!) to be hanged.

 The horse-drawn dray, carting the prisoner, was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop the dray outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would like ''ONE LAST DRINK''.

If he said YES, it was referred to as ONE FOR THE ROAD.

If he declined, that Prisoner was ON THE WAGON.

So there you go ...

 

More history....................


They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and t hen once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery.

If you had to do this to survive you were "piss poor".

But worse than that were the really poor folk, who couldn't even afford to buy a pot, they "Didn't have a pot to piss in" and were the lowest of the low..

==

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.............

Here are some facts about England in the 1500s:

Most people got married in June,because they took their yearly bath in May and they still smelled pretty good by June.!!

==

However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour.

Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

==




Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.

The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water,

then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children.

Last of all the babies.

By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.!

Hence the saying,

"Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!"

==

Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw piled high, with no wood underneath.

It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof.

When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."  

==

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.

This posed a real problem in the bedroom,

where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed.

Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection.

That's how canopy beds came into existence.

==

The floor was dirt Only the wealthy had something other than dirt.

Hence the saying, "dirt poor."

The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing.

As the winter wore on they added more thresh until, when you opened the door,it would all start slipping outside.

A piece of wood was placed at the entrance.

Hence: a thresh hold. (Getting quite an education, aren't you?)

==

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special.

When visitors came over they would hang up their bacon, to show off.

It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "Bring home the bacon."

They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around talking and ''chew the fat''.  

==

Those with money had plates made of pewter.

Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death.

This happened most often with tomatoes.

So for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.


==

Bread was divided according to status.

Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf,

The family got the middle, and guests got the top, or ''The Upper Crust''.


==

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky.

The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up.

Hence the custom of ''Holding a Wake''.  

==





England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people, so they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house and reuse the grave.!

When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins was found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realised they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, thread it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus someone could be, ''Saved by the Bell ''or was considered a ''Dead Ringer'' And that's the truth.!!


==


Sunday, February 25, 2018

Twenty 100-year-old Amazing Glass Plate Photographs


These are absolutely phenomenal.

Note how sharp and clear most of the photos are and these are over a 100 years old.

There aren't many old photos as good as this, remember they didn't have film or digital photo cards in those days.

Most probable is that these were glass plate images and taken thru a pinhole type camera and the opening was timed just right to get a dark enough exposure.

Developing was another tedious task during which they had to be careful not to break the glass!

Click any image to enlarge



Woodward Avenue, Detroit , Michigan, in 1917.

2.



Atlantic City, 1910

3.



The main street of Memphis, north of Avenue Gayoso, 1910.

4.



Station "Louisville-Nashville," Florida , in 1910.

5.



Forsyth Street, Jacksonville, Florida, in 1910.Love those cars.

6.



The beach in Atlantic City, 1915.Note the men in coats and ties.

7.



Grant Avenue after an earthquake in San Francisco in 1906.

8.



Carts for transporting dairy Thompson, Washington , 1927.How in the world did the dairy get those horses so evenly lined up. Washington County, Wisconsin

9.



Washington, DC, 1914. Not so "thoughty" having those horses run on a railroad tracks.

(thoughty? must have been a popular word back in the day) (note the people in the windows)

10.



Cadillac Square, Detroit, Michigan, 1916.

11.



Ninth Street, Washington DC, 1915.

13.



Corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, New York 1910.

14.



Broad Street north of Spruce Street, Philadelphia, 1905.

15.



View of Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn in 1909.

16.



Fire at 55th Street, New York, 1915.

17.



Fifth Avenue, New York, 1913.

18.



Wabash Avenue, Chicago, 1907.

19.



The New York Public Library, New York,1915. Didn't realize they had 4-laners in those days.

20.



Wall Street, New York, 1911.The 2 sidewalks together are as wide as the street in this pic.

21.



Fifth Avenue, New York, 1913.Look at those top hats!


Pass this on to someone you think would enjoy seeing these old photos...



Monday, February 5, 2018

Clive Hamilton's Silent Invasion: How China is influencing Australian politics



Hardie Grant Books has acquired world rights to Clive Hamilton's controversial book, Silent Invasion.
 
Publishing immediately in Australia on Friday 2nd March 2018, Silent Invasion detail evidence showing how various Chinese Communist Party agencies have sought to extend Beijing's influence in Australia for strategic and political gains. Thoroughly researched and powerfully argued, the book is a sobering examination of the mounting threats to democratic freedoms Australians have for too long taken for granted. Yes, China is important to our economic prosperity, Hamilton says; but, he encourages readers to ask, how much is our sovereignty as a nation worth?

A professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Hamilton received an Order of Australia for his contribution to public debate.  He has previously published seven books with Allen & Unwin, who were originally scheduled to publish Silent Invasion in early 2018.
 
Allen & Unwin abandoned publication plans late last year with Robert Gorman, Allen & Unwin chief executive officer, stating in an email to Clive "potential threats to the book and the company from possible action by Beijing" as the reason for the decision to delay the publication at least a year. Unwilling to wait, Hamilton requested the rights for the book to be returned, and looked for another publisher, only to be turned down by other publishers citing the same fear.
 
In order to minimise the legal risk, Hamilton rewrote the book. "I can't stop an authoritarian foreign power using vexatious litigation by its proxies to suppress a book criticising it," Hamilton said. "Thank God there is one publisher in Australia willing to stand up for free speech."
 
The abandonment of Hamilton's book and the reluctance of other Australian publishers to take it up brings into focus urgent questions about academic freedom and free speech in Australia.
 
"I'm not aware of any other instance in Australian history where a foreign power has stopped publication of a book that criticises it," Hamilton said. "The reason three publishers refused to publish this book is the very reason the book needs to be published."
 
Hardie Grant chief executive officer, Sandy Grant is no stranger to this situation, having successfully fought the British government's attempt to ban the publication of the 1987 book Spycatcher.
 
Grant said, "Hardie Grant was clear Silent Invasion needed to be published. This is substantive research bringing to light a concerted effort by the Chinese Communist Party to gain influence in a covert manner. Having gone through Spycatcher, it's my experience that governments will try to prevent things from getting into the public domain that may damage their perceived interests.  We value freedom of speech ahead of those interests."
 

Early Praise for Silent Invasion:

"Anyone keen to understand how China draws other countries into its sphere of influence should start with Silent Invasion. This is an important book for the future of Australia. But tug on the threads of China's influence networks in Australia and its global network of influence operations starts to unravel."
Professor John Fitzgerald, author of Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia
 
 
Title: Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia
Author: Clive Hamilton
Formats: paperback, ebook
Publication Date: 2 March 2018
RRP: AU$34.99/ NZ $39.99

Thursday, February 1, 2018

THE LEBS: A confronting new novel from SWEATSHOP director Michael Mohammed Ahmad




Michael Mohammed Ahmad is an Arab-Australian writer, editor, teacher and community arts worker and the founder and director of Sweatshop, a literacy movement in Western Sydney devoted to empowering culturally and linguistically diverse artists through creative writing.

This March, Hachette Australia is thrilled to be releasing a new fictional work from him, titled THE LEBS.

A novel that is in turns confronting, heartbreaking and illuminating, THE LEBS is in the vein of Maxine Beneba Clarke's FOREIGN SOIL and Peter Polites' DOWN THE HUME, voices from diverse backgrounds, telling the untold stories of their generation.

THE LEBS is based on Mohammed's own experiences as a young Arab-Australian Muslim from Western Sydney who attended the notorious Punchbowl Boys High School, the primary setting of the novel.  THE LEBS takes us inside the mind of Bani, a young man coming to terms with his place in a world of hostility and hopelessness – with the dream of having so much more.

This is the latest installment in a wave of powerful new novels and literary voices from minority Australian writers, Michael Mohammed Ahmad offers new and unique insights into a largely misunderstood and poorly represented new Australian community.

Mohammed's essays and short stories have appeared in the Sydney Review of Books, The Guardian, Heat, Seizure, The Lifted Brow, The Australian and Coming of Age: Australian Muslim Stories. His debut novel, THE TRIBE, received a 2015 Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists of the Year Award. Mohammed also adapted THE TRIBE for the stage with Urban Theatre Projects in 2015, which received the 2016 FBi Smac Award for Best On-Stage Production. Mohammed received his Doctorate of Creative Arts at Western Sydney University in 2017.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...