In 'The Go-Between' (1953) L P Hartley famously remarked: "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there", and it is certainly true that historians are sternly advised to evaluate the actions and motives of people in the past by the morals, manners, values, concerns, desires and beliefs of the time, and not by our own modern standards. Nevertheless sometimes a quotation or action echoes down the centuries which shows that we and they are really not so different at all.

Such as this ... from Vizzer, in another thread, quoting from 'The Spectator' of 26 January 1867, which was reporting on the lack of news coming from America:

Vizzer wrote:

"The Atlantic Telegraph has been silent since Monday, in con-sequence of a great snow-storm which broke a land cable on the American side, but the Atlantic Cable itself is uninjured. We wish that its silence were less unimportant. People who thirst to know the last price of gold and Five-Twenties are in suspense ; but as regards political news, or what stands for it, the silence has been a change for the better. A see-saw of baseless rumours about the progress of the inquiry into the reasons for impeachment is the less objectionable the longer it is detained. in New York."

It seems that even in an age well before 24-hour television news, the internet and twitter etc, people were experiencing information overload from endless and obsessive reporting from the U.S. and consequently found welcome relief as a result of the interruption.

... indeed how very apt, particularly just now.


But what other actions, quotations, pictures or whatever from history might particularly resonate with us today?

How about this, written by Quintus, the younger brother of Marcus Tullius Cicero, taken from his pamphlet 'Commentariolum Petitionis' (Little handbook on Electioneering) which gives his rather cynical advice on canvassing for election in Rome. I don’t think modern political elections have really changed much at all.

"I must tell you now about the other parts of your campaign in particular how you get the electorate on your side. You have to learn the knack of remembering people's names and an easy manner. You must be seen everywhere, be generous and get a good reputation, and you have to create a sense of hope for the future of the country; Whatever else you do make sure you recognise the voters - or at least make it look like you do. Then, just suppose there's some desirable quality you don't have, pretend you do and make it look natural. Flattery might be a pretty shabby thing in general but when you're standing for election it's essential. And make sure you have a face, an expression and style of conversation that matches the different expectations of the people you meet. People like to have things promised to them, so if you're asked to sign up to something that you do not agree with either extricate yourself politely ... or promise it anyway. The former is the mark of a good man: the latter the mark of a good candidate.

The other thing you have to think about is your reputation and public opinion of you. Make sure you put all your efforts into being a good canvasser. Make sure people talk about you as being a nice guy, that they're always coming to your house, that you look the part, and that the electorate feel they are sharing in your fame. Your campaign has to be glamorous, but you have to dig up the dirt too. If you can, see that some accusations of crime, expenses fiddling or a sex scandal are thrown at your rivals!"



And then there’s this little bit of marginalia scribbled at bottom of the last page of a labouriously hand-written and beautifully illuminated 14th century copy of the gospels:

"Now I’ve written the whole thing - for Christ’s sake give me a drink." … and I think we can all relate to that!


So, any other historic actions, quotations, pictures or whatevers that have particular resonance today, and which show that, for all our advanced technology and modern ideas, we do often think and are driven by exactly the same things as our forebears?

All the "lewd" graffiti from Pompeii and Herculaneum - every scrap of it - could just as easily have been scrawled on a modern toilet wall. Not quite evidence of how lofty wisdom resonates through the ages, but a fair indication that two thousand years of so-called human advancement means diddlysquat when it comes to squatting and diddlying.

One Professor Brian Harvey of Kent State University actually got paid to write all this stuff out. I want his job ....

Each inscription begins with a reference to where it was found (region.insula.door number). The second number is the reference to the publication of the inscription in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Volume 4.

I.2.20 (Bar/Brothel of Innulus and Papilio); 3932: Weep, you girls. My penis has given you up. Now it penetrates men’s behinds. Goodbye, wondrous femininity!
I.2.23 (peristyle of the Tavern of Verecundus); 3951: Restitutus says: “Restituta, take off your tunic, please, and show us your hairy privates”.
I.4.5 (House of the Citharist; below a drawing of a man with a large nose); 2375: Amplicatus, I know that Icarus is buggering you. Salvius wrote this.
I.7.1 (in the vestibule of the House of Cuspius Pansa); 8075: The finances officer of the emperor Nero says this food is poison
I.7.8 (bar; left of the door); 8162: We two dear men, friends forever, were here. If you want to know our names, they are Gaius and Aulus.
I.10.2-3 (Bar of Prima); 8258, 8259: The story of Successus, Severus and Iris is played out on the walls of a bar: [Severus]: “Successus, a weaver, loves the innkeeper’s slave girl named Iris. She, however, does not love him. Still, he begs her to have pity on him. His rival wrote this. Goodbye.”. [Answer by Successus]: “Envious one, why do you get in the way. Submit to a handsomer man and one who is being treated very wrongly and good looking.” [Answer by Severus]: “I have spoken. I have written all there is to say. You love Iris, but she does not love you.”
I.10.4 (near the rear entrance vestibule of the House of Menander); 8356: At Nuceria, look for Novellia Primigenia near the Roman gate in the prostitute’s district.
I.10.4 (exterior of the House of Menander); 8304: Satura was here on September 3rd
I.10.7 (House and Office of Volusius Iuvencus; left of the door); 8364: Secundus says hello to his Prima, wherever she is. I ask, my mistress, that you love me.
II.2.1 (Bar of Astylus and Pardalus); 8408: Lovers are like bees in that they live a honeyed life
II.2.3 (Bar of Athictus; right of the door); 8442: I screwed the barmaid
II.3.10 (Pottery Shop or Bar of Nicanor; right of the door); 10070: Lesbianus, you defecate and you write, ‘Hello, everyone!’
II.4.1 (bar; left of the door, near a picture of Mercury); 8475: Palmyra, the thirst-quencher
II.7 (gladiator barracks); 8767: Floronius, privileged soldier of the 7th legion, was here. The women did not know of his presence. Only six women came to know, too few for such a stallion.
II.7 (gladiator barracks); 8792: On April 19th, I made bread
II.7 (gladiator barracks); 8792b: Antiochus hung out here with his girlfriend Cithera.
III.4.2 (House of the Moralist); 7698a: Let water wash your feet clean and a slave wipe them dry; let a cloth cover the couch; take care of our linens.
III.4.2 (House of the Moralist); 7698b: Remove lustful expressions and flirtatious tender eyes from another man’s wife; may there be modesty in your expression.
III.4.2 (House of the Moralist); 7698c: […]postpone your tiresome quarrels if you can, or leave and take them home with you.
III.5.1 (House of Pascius Hermes; left of the door); 7716: To the one defecating here. Beware of the curse. If you look down on this curse, may you have an angry Jupiter for an enemy.
III.5.3 (on the wall in the street); 8898: Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog
III.5.4 (exterior of a small house); 8903: Gaius Sabinus says a fond hello to Statius. Traveler, you eat bread in Pompeii but you go to Nuceria to drink. At Nuceria, the drinking is better.
V.1.18 (House of Valerius Flaccus and Valerius Rufinus; right of the door); 4066: Daphnus was here with his Felicla.
V.1.26 (House of Caecilius Iucundus); 4091: Whoever loves, let him flourish. Let him perish who knows not love. Let him perish twice over whoever forbids love.
V.1.26 (peristyle of the House of Caecilius Iucundus); 4087: Staphylus was here with Quieta.
V.3.9 (House of Cosmus and Epidia; right of the door); 6702: Aufidius was here. Goodbye
V.5 (just outside the Vesuvius gate); 6641: Defecator, may everything turn out okay so that you can leave this place
V.5 (near the Vesuvius Gate); 7086: Marcus loves Spendusa
V.5.3 (barracks of the Julian-Claudian gladiators; column in the peristyle); 4289: Celadus the Thracian gladiator is the delight of all the girls
VI (on the Street of Mercury); 1321: Publius Comicius Restitutus stood right here with his brother
VI.6.1 (House of the Olii; on the Via Consolare); 139: The city block of the Arrii Pollii in the possession of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius is available to rent from July 1st. There are shops on the first floor, upper stories, high-class rooms and a house. A person interested in renting this property should contact Primus, the slave of Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius.
VI.11 (on the Vico del Labirinto); 1393: On April 20th, I gave a cloak to be washed. On May 7th, a headband. On May 8th, two tunics
VI.13.19 (House of Sextus Pompeius Axiochus and Julia Helena; left of the door); 4485: Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you
VI.14 (vico degli Scienziati); 3042: Cruel Lalagus, why do you not love me?
VI.14.20 (House of Orpheus); 4523: I have buggered men
VI.14.36 (Bar of Salvius); 3494: In one bar, a picture depicts two men playing dice. One shouts, “Six!” while his opponent holds up two fingers and says, “No, that’s not a ‘three’; it’s a ‘two’”. By the door of the bar, another picture shows a short man driving a group of men out. Above his head are the words, “Go on, get out of here! You have been fighting!”
VI.14.36 (Bar of Salvius; over a picture of a woman carrying a pitcher of wine and a drinking goblet); 3494: Whoever wants to serve themselves can go on an drink from the sea.
VI.14.37 (Wood-Working Shop of Potitus): 3498: What a lot of tricks you use to deceive, innkeeper. You sell water but drink unmixed wine
VI.14.43 (atrium of a House of the Large Brothel); 1520: Blondie has taught me to hate dark-haired girls. I shall hat them, if I can, but I wouldn’t mind loving them. Pompeian Venus Fisica wrote this.
VI.15.6 (House of Caesius Valens and Herennius Nardus); 4637: Rufus loves Cornelia Hele
VI.16.15 (atrium of the House of Pinarius); 6842: If anyone does not believe in Venus, they should gaze at my girl friend
VII (House of the Tetrastyle Atrium); 2060: Romula hung out here with Staphylus.
VII.1.40 (House of Caesius Blandus; in the peristyle of the House of Mars and Venus on the Street of the Augustales); 1714: It took 640 paces to walk back and forth between here and there ten times
VII.6.35 (Brothel of Venus; on the Vico dei Soprastanti opposite the Vicolo del Gallo); 1645: May Love burn in some lonely mountains whoever wants to rape my girl friend!
VII.2.18 (vicolo del Panattiere, House of the Vibii, Merchants); 3117: Atimetus got me pregnant
VII.2.18 (vicolo del Panattiere, House of the Vibii, Merchants); 3131: Figulus loves Idaia
VII.2.44 (Bar of Hedone (or Colepius) on the Street of the Augustales; on the corner toward the lupinare); 1679: Hedone says, “You can get a drink here for only one coin. You can drink better wine for two coins. You can drink Falernian for four coins.”
VII.2.48 (House of Caprasius Primus); 3061: I don’t want to sell my husband, not for all the gold in the world
VII.7.5 (House of the Calpurnii); 4783: Crescens is sweet and charming
VII.9 (Eumachia Building, via della Abbondanza); 2048: Secundus likes to screw boys.
VII.12.18-20 (the Lupinare); 2175: I screwed a lot of girls here.
VII.12.18-20 (the Lupinare); 2185: On June 15th, Hermeros screwed here with Phileterus and Caphisus.
VII.12.18-20 (the Lupinare); 2192: Sollemnes, you screw well!
VII.12.35 (Vico d’ Eumachia, small room of a possible brothel); 2145: Gaius Valerius Venustus, soldier of the 1st praetorian cohort, in the century of Rufus, screwer of women
VII.12.35 (Vico d’ Eumachia, small room of a possible brothel); 2146: Vibius Restitutus slept here alone and missed his darling Urbana
VII.12.35 (Vico d’ Eumachia, small room of a possible brothel); 2163: The warmest hello to Saenecio Fortunaus, wherever he may go.
VII.15.11-12 (House of Verus; between the two doors of the house); 4838: Secundus says hello to his friends.
VIII (corridor in the theater); 2457: Methe, slave of Cominia, from Atella, loves Chrestus. May Pompeian Venus be dear to both of them and may they always live in harmony.
VIII (Street of the Theaters); 64: A copper pot went missing from my shop. Anyone who returns it to me will be given 65 bronze coins (sestertii). 20 more will be given for information leading to the capture of the thief.
VIII.1 (above a bench outside the Marine Gate); 1751: If anyone sits here, let him read this first of all: if anyone wants a screw, he should look for Attice; she costs 4 sestertii.
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1797: No young buck is complete until he has fallen in love
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1808: Auge loves Allotenus
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1811: A small problem gets larger if you ignore it.
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1812: Caesius faithfully loves M[…name lost]
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1816: Epaphra, you are bald!
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1820: Chie, I hope your hemorrhoids rub together so much that they hurt worse than when they every have before!
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1824: Let everyone one in love come and see. I want to break Venus’ ribs with clubs and cripple the goddess’ loins. If she can strike through my soft chest, then why can’t I smash her head with a club?
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1826: Phileros is a eunuch!
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1837: If you are able, but not willing, why do you put off our joy and kindle hope and tell me always to come back tomorrow. So, force me to die since you force me to live without you. Your gift will be to stop torturing me. Certainly, hope returns to the lover what it has once snatched away.
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1842: Gaius Pumidius Dipilus was here on October 3rd 78 BC.
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1852: Pyrrhus to his colleague Chius: I grieve because I hear you have died; and so farewell.
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1863: Take hold of your servant girl whenever you want to; it’s your right
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1864: Samius to Cornelius: go hang yourself!
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1880: Lucius Istacidius, I regard as a stranger anyone who doesn’t invite me to dinner.
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1880: The man I am having dinner with is a barbarian.
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1881: Virgula to her friend Tertius: you are disgusting!
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1882: The one who buggers a fire burns his penis
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1904: O walls, you have held up so much tedious graffiti that I am amazed that you have not already collapsed in ruin.
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1926: Epaphra is not good at ball games.
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1928: Love dictates to me as I write and Cupid shows me the way, but may I die if god should wish me to go on without you
VIII.2 (in the basilica); 1951: Sarra, you are not being very nice, leaving me all alone like this
VIII.7.6 (Inn of the Muledrivers; left of the door); 4957: We have wet the bed, host. I confess we have done wrong. If you want to know why, there was no chamber pot
IX.1.26 (atrium of the House of the Jews); 2409a: Stronius Stronnius knows nothing!
IX.2.18 (House of Curvius Marcellus and Fabia; in the tablinum); 4993: Ampliatus Pedania is a thief!
IX.5.11 (House of Poppaeus Sabinus; peristyle); 5092: If you felt the fires of love, mule-driver, you would make more haste to see Venus. I love a charming boy; I ask you, goad the mules; let’s go. Take me to Pompeii, where love is sweet. You are mine…
IX.5.18 (House of Hercules and Nessus; beside the door of house); 5112: Learn this: while I am alive, you, hateful death, are coming.
IX.8.3 (House of the Centenary; in the atrium); 5213: My lusty son, with how many women have you had sexual relations?
IX.8.3 (House of the Centenary; in the latrine near the front door); 5243: “Secundus defecated here” three time on one wall.
IX.8.3 (House of the Centenary; interior of the house); 5279: Once you are dead, you are nothing
IX.8.11 (triclinium of a house); 5251: Restitutus has deceived many girls.
Nuceria Necropolis (on a tomb); 10231: Serena hates Isidorus
Nuceria Necropolis (on a tomb); 10241: Greetings to Primigenia of Nuceria. I would wish to become a signet ring for no more than an hour, so that I might give you kisses dispatched with your signature.
Herculaneum (bar/inn joined to the maritime baths); 10674: [a bar tab] …Some nuts …? coins; drinks: 14 coins; lard: 2 coins; bread: 3 coins; three meat cutlets: 12 coins; four sausages: 8 coins. Total: 51 coins
Herculaneum (bar/inn joined to the maritime baths); 10675: Two friends were here. While they were, they had bad service in every way from a guy named Epaphroditus. They threw him out and spent 105 and half sestertii most agreeably on whores.
Herculaneum (bar/inn joined to the maritime baths); 10677: Apelles the chamberlain with Dexter, a slave of Caesar, ate here most agreeably and had a screw at the same time.
Herculaneum (bar/inn joined to the maritime baths); 10678: Apelles Mus and his brother Dexter each pleasurably had sex with two girls twice.
Herculaneum (on a water distribution tower); 10488: Anyone who wants to defecate in this place is advised to move along. If you act contrary to this warning, you will have to pay a penalty. Children must pay [number missing] silver coins. Slaves will be beaten on their behinds.
Herculaneum (on the exterior wall of a house); 10619: Apollinaris, the doctor of the emperor Titus, defecated well here

Substitute the name in this and it's spot on:

Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? quem ad finem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?


And among the numerous bits of runic grafitti in Maeshowe is the timeless:

Þorný f**k, Helgi carved

Complaint about maggot ridden food being served at HMS Sultan,

Bad Food

This complaint is from 2016, not 1796.



or 1905:

On 27 June 1905, Potemkin was at gunnery practice near Tendra Island off the Ukrainian coast when many enlisted men refused to eat the borscht made from rotten meat partially infested with maggots. The uprising was triggered when Ippolit Giliarovsky, the ship's second in command, allegedly threatened to shoot crew members for their refusal.

Given the supposed idleness of today's yoof - self-obsessed by social media and selfies yet apparently unable to communicate with anyone more than ten years their senior - I thought I'd remembered a great comment ascribed (via Plato) to Socrates:

"Children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

…. Unfortunately when I came to look up the correct wording (above) I found that it is probably not original and the idea that it could be ascribed to Socrates, or indeed any other ancient philosopher, seems to come from some rather fanciful 'alternative truths' written at beginning of the 20th century. (And in fact it actually reads a bit like the sort of behaviour that Socrates was accused of encouraging in the youth of his day).

It certainly sounds like something grumpy old Cato the Elder might have said, but again I can't find a real quote. Nevertheless these sort of comments I'm sure have been made repeatedly - nearly every generation in fact - over the centures.

Disparaging comments about the loutish behaviour of gangs of English lads abroad is nothing new ...

In 1511 Henry VIII sent a small force to join Ferdinand of Aragon in a campaign against the Moors of Barbary. As soon as they reached Cadiz the campaign was called off, but before returning home they had a few days kicking their heels in southern Spain, where according to the chronicler Edward Hall (The union of the two noble and illustre families of Lancastre and Yorke, 1542), they; 

"... fell to drinking of hot wines and were scarce masters of themselves. Some ran to the stews, some brake hedges, and spoiled orchards and vineyards and oranges before they were ripe and did many other outrageous deeds."

In spite of this débâcle Henry sent a similar force the following year to join Ferdinand's troops in an invasion of Guienne. Once again Hall records that it was the combination of strong wine, foreign food and hot weather that was their undoing:

"The Englishmen did eat of the garlick with all meats, and drank hot wines in the hot weather, and did eat all the hot fruits that they could get, which caused they blood so to boil in their bellies that there fell sick three thousand  ... "

Sounds like a typical stag night in Magaluf!

I recommend the book "Route 66 AD" (otherwise known as "Pagan Holiday: On The Trail Of Ancient Roman Tourists") by Tony Perrotet. Around 2001 he retraced a 1st century "grand tour" from Rome to Egypt via Greece and his book is a mixture of his own experiences en route and those of his ancient predecessors as deduced from old texts. His own rather limited budget, and his consequent dependency on what might be called the "less salubrious" options available, echoed closely the recorded accounts of travellers with similarly modest expenses two thousand years ago, and the uncanny resemblance between his experiences (not always good ones either) and those of the ancient equivalent really drives home how little human nature has changed, and indeed often how little some of the actual places themselves en route have changed over two millennia.

He writes it in a Bill Bryson style too, which doesn't hurt.

Not really a case of any great eternal wisdom echoing down the centuries, more a surprising case, to me at least, of something going full circle in just a century of so ...

I was reading a recent Guardian article about whether Britain's butchers could survive changing fashions and the rise of meat-free lifetsyles, and one of the main points was that to counter the low prices of the big chain supermarkets, butcher's shops were adopting a variety of tactics. Some shops were specialising in game and rare breeds, others were becoming more like specialist delicatessans smoking their own bacon and sausages, and making their own special pies, terrines etc, or even having bistros attached to their main butchery business. One new, and apparently successful trend that did surprise me however, was butchers who were not only supplying the Sunday joint, but then cooking it. Customers could select their joint, which would then be cooked, along with everyone else's, in the large ovens usually used for baking pies etc, to be collected by the customer on the way home from a morning's shopping.

The idea of having the Sunday dinner cooked centrally to be collected later, after church, was very common when many people lived in cramped rented tenements or terraced housing, in which there were often few facilities for cooking and usually none to roast/bake. Then it was typically bakers rather than butchers who had the oven big enough to take everyone's dinners and because of the number of people wanting their meals cooked was economically worth firing it up with wood. Such a state of affairs continued in crowded industrial cities certainly into the 20th century, until finally small gas- and later electrically-heated domestic ovens became available and at a price ordinary people could afford. As inner city slums were cleared, as well as getting their own indoor privvies, families also finally got the luxury of being able to cook their Sunday roast in the comfort of their own home.

But now, with microwave ovens and ready-meals (and Sunday trading), it is no longer necessary to cook from scratch, and increasingly it seems kitchens in small modern city appartments do not even include a traditional big oven. Hence people are back to queuing up to collect their dinner that's been cooked, along with other people's dinners, by a local tradesman in their big oven.

There again the modern trend, much decried by many dieticians, pf a reliance on high street take-away food shops, is perhaps actually the long term norm, at least for city dwellers. The risks of fire, the lack of domestic cooking facilities, fuel or plumbing, and the sheer effort involved, meant that most urban populations had always been reliant on taverns, cookshops, pieshops, street-sellers etc. and so the possibility of cooking for oneself at home became a common reality only about 150 years ago.

Meles meles,

what is "was butchers who were not only supplying the Sunday joint" Sunday joint?

"There again the modern trend, much decried by many dieticians, pf a reliance on high street take-away food shops, is perhaps actually the long term norm, at least for city dwellers. The risks of fire, the lack of domestic cooking facilities, fuel or plumbing, and the sheer effort involved, meant that most urban populations had always been reliant on taverns, cookshops, pieshops, street-sellers etc. and so the possibility of cooking for oneself at home became a common reality only about 150 years ago."


Have to say that one period in my life and even lately some weeks ago  I could live easely on a diet of "belegde broodjes" with some black coffee from the automat...and I think it was even "healthy" and good for my weight (minus 1.5 kilo in one week!)

   

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Meles meles,

what is "was butchers who were not only supplying the Sunday joint" Sunday joint?

The 'Sunday joint' or 'Sunday roast' was (still is) the 'traditional' nice piece of meat for the main meal on Sunday - a 'joint' here meaning a butchered animal joint, such as the shoulder, leg, fore-leg, half-leg etc, or generally by extension any butcher's 'cut' of meat, but in one piece, such as the neck, brisket, silverside, surloin, topside, breast, etc). It was what working class-families aspired to ... along with indoor plumbing, a connection to the gas supply, their own yard with their own private (maybe shared but not communal) privvy, and eventually the nirvana of their own inside toilet and a proper cooking 'range', plus maybe even a hired maid/skivvy to clean and operate it all ... if they had hopes of ever being considered middle class (I am of course being slightly satirical).

However for most working-class Victorian families, 'aspiring' though they might be, the best they could usually afford would be a lesser cut of meat than a proper joint (perhaps the neck or breast of mutton, or some rolled beef flank) and then for further economy - after having it cheaply cooked by the neighbourhood baker - it would be expected to last several days. Victorian home-help books were full of suggestions for achieving this optimistic ideal, although sheer economic constraints did probably mean that many families, and by no means the poorest, routinely had to economise in this way. Mrs Beeton amongst others, suggests a weekly menu that might be something like: roast meat on Sunday; cold cuts on Monday; re-heated chunks on Tuesday; minced with a potato topping on Wednesday; in a stew on Thursday; blessedly absent on fish-day Friday; as the basis for a soup on Saturday; and so back to another roast on Sunday. As an ideal weekly plan this appears to be wildly over-optimistic, especially considering what one typically started with, but until about the 1870s when British living standards really started to rise, this was nevertheless the usual sort of fare for most families of skilled manual workers or tradesmen. But then the poorest families, where the wage-earners were just unskilled labourers, subsisted mostly on porridge, bread and dripping, and with just the occasional hot potato, cheap non-descript pie, or maybe some grilled sausage of dubiuos provenance, ... but readily available, for just a few pennies, from a street-seller or corner cookshop.

Your "belegde broodjes" don't look bad at all ... but when the nutritionalists in the UK are railing against street food and take-aways, they are referring to the abundance of cheap burger, kebab and chicken places, where everything is deep-fried, often only ever comes with chips, and typically contains far too much added salt and sugar. The real problem of course is not the shops themselves but that many people are now reliant on them as their principal source of cheap calories ... just like in Victorian Britain. Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose.

Meles meles,

thank you so much for explaining my question in such a depth. It caused a chain reaction for me to search what the equivalents were in the 19th century Belgian kitchen and thanks to you I learned a lot. I already knew it, but it was confirmed by my quick research, mostly a thesis of students for master at the uni...the potato was the basic food for the working class, but there was a difference between the rural population which had a more varied and healthier food supply. And I saw in the Netherlands it was also the potato. But in Belgium, which was in the South nearly as industrialized as Britain in that time, there was a richer "proletariat" than in the North, which was more remained rural and even more based on the potato.
I mentioned already in the time in the BBC? that the potato blight crisis started in Flanders and I found now:
https://www.hetvirtueleland.be/exhibits/show/aardappel/keerzijde/hongersnood
"Afkomstig van het Amerikaanse continent werd de schimmel einde juni 1845 voor het eerst in België waargenomen in de regio Kortrijk. Op nauwelijks enkele maanden tijd kende hij een verspreiding doorheen België, en ook heel West-Europa, met overal dezelfde gevolgen."
From the American continent...potato blight...end of 1845 first in the region of Courtrai...in some months spread over Belgium and over the whole of Western Europe with the same consequences...
And also:
https://www.rug.nl/staff/r.f.j.paping/potatohelsinki2006powerpoint.pdf
In the studies, one speaks of a consumption of average 1 Kg pro day overhere, but in Ireland about 4-5 kg for men...
I read, but don't find it back that in the years after 1848 the population of Bruges was reduced to 50% of its former number...
Also 40,000 à 50,000 deaths in the North of Belgium
But back to the diet of the Belgian worker of the 19th century, it changed rapidly for better after 1880 (as I presumed in Britain too). I didn't find anything like your scheme, but also a piece of meat on Sunday and the rest of the week a kind of potato meals with addings...also fish was available...

Even further, but that's another thema...about Blaue Montag, Blauwe maandag, Blue Monday in the 17th and 18th century...even only a 270 working days a year or was it 240?...that is a subject we have to discuss next time ...

Kind regards from Paul.

One works canteen I used when I was "temping" (doing temporary work via an employment agency) used to sell a similar shaped style of sandwich to the one Paul showed and called it a "torpedo". I guess that style of sandwich is very roughly in the shape of a torpedo. I couldn't think of the name for a while and thought of "submarine sandwich" and while in the case I mentioned "submarine" is not the name used it seems that the "submarine sandwich" does exist and is not a dissimilar shape to the "torpedo" - I suppose it depends on the size of the roll being used as the outer layer of the sandwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_sandwich  There is a chain of sandwich shops in the UK called "Subway" - I wonder if that chain gets its name from "submarine".

If I've mentioned this before I apologise but someone I knew from Stoke-on-Trent said that they were going to have "lobby" for their evening meal.  There used to be a TV show called "Central Lobby" but I didn't know what "lobby" as a meal meant.  It turned out it was the Stoke name for "scouse" (Liverpudlian name for it) or "lobscouse" (what they called it in my mother's part of Wales) which was/is a sort of meaty stew.  There might have been a fishy variant of it also but don't quote me on that.

Lady,

"I suppose it depends on the size of the roll being used as the outer layer of the sandwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_sandwich  There is a chain of sandwich shops in the UK called "Subway" - I wonder if that chain gets its name from "submarine"."

"Subway" I always thought it came from the American word for "underground", "metro": "subway"
https://multimedia-english.com/grammar/underground-subway-metro-tube-59

But no, you seems to be right with your supposition...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subway_(restaurant)
"Subway is an American privately held fast food restaurant franchise that primarily sells submarine sandwiches (subs) and salads"
And for torpedo sandwich I found:
http://www.memidex.com/torpedo+sandwich
Again a mistery solved...
BTW it is the first time in my life that I hear about submarine sandwiches...

"There used to be a TV show called "Central Lobby" but I didn't know what "lobby" as a meal meant.  It turned out it was the Stoke name for "scouse" (Liverpudlian name for it) or "lobscouse" (what they called it in my mother's part of Wales) which was/is a sort of meaty stew."

In my paperback Collins I found: "Scouse" Brit: informal: 1) a person from Liverpool 2) the Liverpool dialect...

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

"Subway" I always thought it came from the American word for "underground", "metro": "subway"
https://multimedia-english.com/grammar/underground-subway-metro-tube-59

Paul, that webpage linked to, as short as it is, manages to be full of inaccuracy both in terms of historical information given and also regarding the use of the English language. Although it does mention the Glasgow Subway it fails to mention that it predates the New York Subway. Glasgow has the world's third oldest underground railway network after London and Budapest. It also claims that the New York Subway (dating from 1904) was America’s ‘first metro’. This is incorrect. The first metro railway in America was the Chicago L (elevated railway) opened in 1892.

With regard to the London Underground, then it also makes the mistake of assuming that the terms ‘the Underground’ and ‘the Tube’ are interchangeable. They are not. All Tube stations are Underground stations but not all Underground stations are Tube stations. A ‘tube line’ refers to a specific design of an underground tunnel such as to be found on the Piccadilly Line, the Victoria Line and the Jubilee Line. By contrast, the District Line, the Central Line and the Circular Line are not tube lines. Furthermore, not all stations on the Underground are underground. I hope that helps clarify matters.  

P.S. Just as the word ‘subway’ was borrowed by New York from Glasgow, similarly the currency unit ‘dollar’ used in America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand etc was also taken from Scotland (via the Netherlands) being the name of an old Scottish coin which in turn is the Scots language equivalent of the Netherlandish daalder, the German thaler, the Czech tolar and the Danish daler etc.

Vizzer wrote:

PaulRyckier wrote:

"Subway" I always thought it came from the American word for "underground", "metro": "subway"
https://multimedia-english.com/grammar/underground-subway-metro-tube-59

Paul, that webpage linked to, as short as it is, manages to be full of inaccuracy both in terms of historical information given and also regarding the use of the English language. Although it does mention the Glasgow Subway it fails to mention that it predates the New York Subway. Glasgow has the world's third oldest underground railway network after London and Budapest. It also claims that the New York Subway (dating from 1904) was America’s ‘first metro’. This is incorrect. The first metro railway in America was the Chicago L (elevated railway) opened in 1892.

With regard to the London Underground, then it also makes the mistake of assuming that the terms ‘the Underground’ and ‘the Tube’ are interchangeable. They are not. All Tube stations are Underground stations but not all Underground stations are Tube stations. A ‘tube line’ refers to a specific design of an underground tunnel such as to be found on the Piccadilly Line, the Victoria Line and the Jubilee Line. The District Line, the Central Line and the Circular Line, by contrast, are not tube lines.  Furthermore, not all stations on the Underground are underground. I hope that helps clarify matters.  

P.S. Just as the word ‘subway’ was borrowed by New York from Glasgow, similarly the currency unit ‘dollar’ used in America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand etc was also taken from Scotland (via the Netherlands) being the name of an old Scottish coin which in turn is the Scots language equivalent of the Netherlandish daalder, the German thaler, the Czech tolar and the Danish daler etc.

Vizzer,

"Paul, that webpage linked to, as short as it is, manages to be full of inaccuracy both in terms of historical information given and also regarding the use of the English language. Although it does mention the Glasgow Subway it fails to mention that it predates the New York Subway. Glasgow has the world's third oldest underground railway network after London and Budapest. It also claims that the New York Subway (dating from 1904) was America’s ‘first metro’. This is incorrect. The first metro railway in America was the Chicago L (elevated railway) opened in 1892.

With regard to the London Underground, then it also makes the mistake of assuming that the terms ‘the Underground’ and ‘the Tube’ are interchangeable. They are not. All Tube stations are Underground stations but not all Underground stations are Tube stations. A ‘tube line’ refers to a specific design of an underground tunnel such as to be found on the Piccadilly Line, the Victoria Line and the Jubilee Line. The District Line, the Central Line and the Circular Line, by contrast, are not tube lines.  Furthermore, not all stations on the Underground are underground. I hope that helps clarify matters.   "

That will learn me to take every site's utterings at face value . Normally I always look to the "about us" to see what "kind of meat I have in the tub" (wat voor vlees ik in de kuip heb) (https://context.reverso.net/vertaling/nederlands-engels/welk+vlees+hij+in+de+kuip+heeft)
But as the subject seemed "neutral" ....

"With regard to the London Underground, then it also makes the mistake of assuming that the terms ‘the Underground’ and ‘the Tube’ are interchangeable. They are not. All Tube stations are Underground stations but not all Underground stations are Tube stations. A ‘tube line’ refers to a specific design of an underground tunnel such as to be found on the Piccadilly Line, the Victoria Line and the Jubilee Line. The District Line, the Central Line and the Circular Line, by contrast, are not tube lines.  Furthermore, not all stations on the Underground are underground. I hope that helps clarify matters.   "
Yes now I understand.

"P.S. Just as the word ‘subway’ was borrowed by New York from Glasgow, similarly the currency unit ‘dollar’ used in America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand etc was also taken from Scotland (via the Netherlands) being the name of an old Scottish coin which in turn is the Scots language equivalent of the Netherlandish daalder, the German thaler, the Czech tolar and the Danish daler etc."
That of the "dollar","daalder","thaler" I knew, but about the Glasgow connection that is new to me...

Perhaps is it interesting to know where the "thaler" comes from...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaler
And while we are on the coins...why not
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinar


Kind regards from Paul.

Rant deleted

What an interesting thread - should not end in a deleted rant.  (Wonder what the rant was? I'm all agog...)

"Celebrity" chefs too have always been around. I'm sure I read somewhere that the Duke of Norfolk (16th century one) pinched someone's chef - thought it a huge joke when a fellow Lord, one of Norfolk's guests at dinner, complimented his host on the excellence of the food being served. Norfolk simply replied:"Not surprising - it's your cook!"

Looks like the 'dickey' has been reborn on Amazon as the 'mock camisole'.   I think they used to be called modesty panels sometimes.  One sewing pattern I bought even had a pattern piece for a modesty panel (though that was more a rectangular piece with a long top and bottom edge and shorter sides which could be used to build the neckline up if desired).  £16.99 is awfully expensive for what this is though there are cheaper ones.  I think I'd be reaching for the needle and thread to improvise one.

Hope the link isn't too long.  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Metyou-Camisole-Insert-Overlay-Modesty/dp/B0719CSSKY/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=mock+camisole&qid=1680517849&sr=8-5

I've never been intimately acquainted with the intricacies of ladies' under-, nor indeed their over-garments, but it looks to me that the 'mock camisole' that you mention is perhaps a descendant of the old 'stomacher'; that is the decorated triangular and usually rather stiff panel that filled in the front opening of a woman's gown or bodice. These were a standard part of formal dress from the 16th to 18th centuries and, depending on the fashion of the times, either forced the boobs flat and demurely hidden away, or pushed them up, rather more immodestly, to display them in full view.

       

You might be on to something about a link between the stomacher and the mock camisole, MM.  The 'dickey' could be a male item of dress also.  I seem to remember nordmann endorsing Two Nerdy History Girls.  I'm not sure if their blog is still 'live' but it's still online and a few years ago the blog featured an article about a gentleman who found the idea of a false shirt front absolutely abhorrent.  https://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-dickey-or-abominable-false-front.html

Does the term 'dickey' come from the (Cockney???) rhyming slang "dickey dirt" for "shirt"?

Yes a dicky, or dickey, does often mean a shirt (presumably as you say from Cockney rhyming slang) but it can also mean a dicky-bow, ie a bow tie, which is actually how I most often understand the word 'dicky'.

When I was in my later teens I played trumpet in the local amateur operatic society's orchestra. The conductor/musical director in his pep talk at the end of the final rehearsal always reminded the lady orchestra members to wear full length black dresses (and always making the same crass joke; "especially the cellists", ha, ha) while we gentlemen were instructed to wear "plain black jackets, plain white shirts, please no fancy frills, and simple black dickies", whilsthe could never resistyet another crap joke: "you're not going for a night out at the opera", ha, ha ha!

Actually after my first time with the orchestra I always had two dickies. On that first occasion as soon as the intermission arrived, the entire brass section took off our (elastic) bow ties, undid the shirt top button and legged it for the bar, as you do. However as a callow youth of nearly 17 years of age, I was then most impressed by the cool 20-something french-horn player who I noticed had his (real) bow-tie now nonchalantly untied and hanging loosely around his neck like a ribbon. But how, I shyly asked, did he ever manage to get it re-tied so quickly after the interval? And then he showed me the second one in his pocket, exactly like mine but permanently tied and attached to a loop of elastic. I was only 16 and was much impressed, so promptly went and got a proper (non-elastic-attached) bow tie just so I too could wear it casually and loosely hanging during intervals. That said I did eventually learn how to tie a proper bow tie.

Well done on learning the art of tying a proper bow tie knot, MM. I had enough fun and games tying my tie for school uniform - at least in the summer we didn't have to faff around with them. There's a knitting/crochet YouTube channel I sometimes visit. The lady running the channel has been teaching people how to knit a 'seafarer's dickie'. I went to one of her older videos and nabbed a pattern for a dishcloth. Well, it's not necessarily for a dishcloth but it's what I'm going to use the patten for.