.... a State Police Officer sees a car puttering along at 22 MPH. 

Submitted by Dave, Bolder, Co. 
 

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• The pub on the Edgware Road at Marble Arch called 'The Tyburn' was once adjacent to the famous gallows. Prisoners on the road to the gallows, (after a fair trial of course), were transported by horse-drawn wagon and were accompanied by an armed guard. The wagon would be halted outside the pub and the prisoner asked if he would like one last drink. If he did, it was referred to as "One For The Road". If he declined, the prisoner was "On The Wagon"
• Urine was used to tan animal skins and in the treatment of wool, so families would pass their urine into a pot and, each day it was taken & sold to the local tannery or fullers. If part of a family's
• income depended upon this, they were "Piss Poor". But in worse economic circumstances were the really poor folk, who couldn't even afford a pot for the purpose; they "Didn't Have A Pot To Piss In", and they were the poorest of the poor.
• Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw piled high, with no ceilings beneath. They were good places for animals to keep warm, so cats, mice and bugs took refuge in the roof. When it rained heavily and became slippery, animals would sometimes lose their footing and fall into the room. Hence the expression, "It's Raining Cats and Dogs." There was no ceiling to prevent creepy-crawlies in the thatch from falling into the house. This posed a problem as bugs and droppings would fall onto beds. Hence, beds had four corner posts with a cloth stretched over the top to afford some protection. That's why four-poster beds came into existence.
• The floor was dirt. Only the well-off could afford something other than dirt. Hence the expression, "Dirt Poor." Those who could afford it had slate or stone floors which would become slippery when wet, so thresh, (straw), was strewn on floors to provide a drier, non-slip surface. As the winter wore on and more rain came in, more and more thresh was added. To keep the thresh inside the house a piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: A Thresh Hold.
• In the olden days, they cooked in a large pot which always hung over the fire. Every day the fire was re-lit and more things added to the pot. They ate mainly vegetables and seldom had meat.  After eating, leftovers would stay in the pot to get cold overnight and then were added to the next day. Sometimes stew had vegetables in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the nursery rhyme: "Peas Pottage Hot, Peas Pottage Cold, Peas Pottage In The Pot Nine Days Old". Occasionally, a pig was killed. Bacon would be hung from the rafters to show the family's prosperity to visitors.
• It was a sign they were doing well when a man could, "Bring Home The Bacon." The smoke in the room would dry and preserve it, imparting it with a distinctive flavour. A little at a time would be cut off to share with guests, who would sit with their hosts, talking and "Chewing the fat".
• Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing the symptoms of lead poisoning & sometimes death. That lead is poisonous was unknown then. This effect seemed to happen most often with tomatoes and, for around 400 years, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
• Bread was divided according to status. Servants received the burnt base of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "The Upper Crust".
• It wasn't always known for certain whether a sick person was unconscious - or dead. In these circumstances, they could sometimes be taken for dead and prepared for burial. Laid out on the table, the family would gather round and eat and drink, waiting to see if the corpse would wake up. Hence the custom of "Holding A Wake".
• It was a shame to be buried in unconsecrated ground, and a crisis was reached when England's graveyards became over-crowded. Coffins would be disinterred, the bones removed, taken to a bone-house,
• and the graves reused. When reopening these coffins, about 4% were found to contain contorted skeletons, a disturbing sign the body had been buried alive. In order to prevent the accidental burying of the still living, a string would be tied around the wrist of the corpse, leading through the coffin lid and up to the surface where it would be attached to a bell. A a burial, a watch would be kept in the graveyard all night, (the graveyard shift), to listen for the sound of a bell; thus, someone could be, "Saved by the Bell", or was considered to be either a ghost resembling the departed, or "Dead Ringer."

Now, whoever said History was boring?

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• Every year, parks in London alone are doused in one million gallons of dog urine.
• The germs present in human faeces can pass through up to ten layers of toilet paper.
• Contrary to popular belief, if you swallow chewing gum it does not stay in the gut. Usually it will pass through the system and is excreted without incident. However, several cases have been reported where the gum has stuck in the rectum, causing the unfortunate sufferer to excrete long sticky trails of gum, like a pink spider's web.
• It is physically possible to cough your guts up.
• If your body's natural defences failed, the bacteria in your gut would consume you within 48 hours, literally eating you inside out.
• Parasites count for 0.01% of your body weight.
• It is believed that the longest recorded tapeworm found in the human body was33 *metres* in length.
• A woman who had recently visited South America, where she had been on safari in local rainforest, began to experience severe pains in her left ear, accompanied by headaches, dizziness and constant rustling sounds, at first put down to tinnitus. It became so serious that exploratory surgery was required, which revealed that a spider which had become trapped in her ear. Eventually it had eaten through her eardrum and was living within the aural cavity. The rustling sounds were from the spider crawling around inside her skull. An egg sac was also removed.
• A man in Australia was concerned about a growing lump on his nose, was examining it in the mirror and saw a red back spider crawl out.
• Doctors found an entire red back nest inside his nose.
• An obese woman was admitted to a Queensland hospital with stomach pains, it turned out that her T.V. remote control was stuck in between rolls of fat and had eventually become an abscess.
• Another woman in Queensland who had lost a lot of weight went to the doctor with a big, hard, horn-like object protruding from her abdomen. Closer examination determined that it was years of compacted belly-button fluff.

Submitted by Kenneth, Shropshire, England
 

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Oct 13th Humor Page