DAY SIX-AND-TWENTY: WANT TO BE A VICTORIAN? THE TOP TEN CREEPIEST THINGS ABOUT BEING ONE

10. VIGNETTES -
creepy relayives dressing up to amuse other relatives. Nan as a nymph: not something my psyche wants to see. Ever.

9. POORHOUSES -
Poorhouses were government-run facilities where the poor, infirm, or mentally ill could live. They were usually filthy and full to the brim of societies unwanted people...

8. PEA-SOUPERS -
fogs so thick you could barely see through them. The pea-soupers were caused by a combination of fogs from the River Thames and smoke from the coal fires that were an essential part of Victorian life.


7. FOOD -
The Victorians loved offal and ate virtually every part of an animal. This is not entirely creepy if you are o.k. with the weird and the wonderful, but for the average person, the idea of supping on a bowl of brains and heart is not appealing. Another famous dish from the Victorian era was turtle soup. The turtle was prized above all for its green jello-like fat which was used to flavor the soup made from the long-boiled stringy flesh of the animal

6. SURGERY - In a time when one in four surgery patients died after surgery, you were very lucky in Victorian times to have a good doctor with a clean theatre. There was no anesthesia, no painkillers for after, and no electric equipment to reduce the duration of an operation.

5. GOTHIC NOVEL -
The red room in Jany Eyre. Yes please. No thanks.

4. JACK THE RIPPER -
How could you not know?

3. FREAK SHOWS -
Including Hysteria.. Enter Diane Arbus.

2. MEMENTO MORI -
Enough said.

1. QUEEN VICTORIA -
When her husband Albert died in 1861, she went into mourning – donning black frocks until her own death many years later – and expected her nation to do so too. She avoided public appearances and rarely set foot in London in the following years. Her seclusion earned her the name “Widow of Windsor.”

AN HOMAGE TO SOMEONE WHO DID IT BEFORE ME