Confirms all my suspicions about That London

11th Jul, 2016 at 3:11 PM

Although my family are from London, I myself have spent most of my life in the West. Therefore, I, like my adopted people of the West, look upon London with doubtful and suspicious eyes. I have to admit though, this description of it in 1192 does make it sound almost fun. More braggarts than in the whole of France, indeed!

(via Dr Caitlin Green on Twitter, but so excellent I wanted to put it here so I can find it again)

Comments

( 16 comments — Leave a comment )

heartofoshun

11th Jul, 2016 14:15 (UTC)

OMG! That's terrific.

I have to admit though, this description of it in 1192 does make it sound almost fun.

You made my day! I am bookmarking this one.

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bunn

12th Jul, 2016 13:27 (UTC)

It is THE BEST description of London.

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alitheapipkin

11th Jul, 2016 14:26 (UTC)

Oh! I read a book about Richard I by Appleby when I was doing my A level History special study, that brings back fond memories - his book was my favourite of those I read, he had a very amusing turn of phrase and seemed fond of picking out the absurdities of the times :)

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bunn

12th Jul, 2016 13:23 (UTC)

I shall have to look out for him if this sample is typical!

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ladyofastolat

11th Jul, 2016 16:39 (UTC)

Excellent! I bet warnings such as these have been made pretty much verbatim about That London for many centuries. My mental image of medieval London has now been considerably improved with the addition of magicians (with pointy hats, naturally) and mime artists. I also like the infinite parasites - presumably those same ticks that feed on the poor trouserless people of Yore whom I was posting about yesterday. :-)

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bunn

12th Jul, 2016 13:26 (UTC)

I bet they wear trousers in That London :-D. Except the belly-dancers, possibly.

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ladyofastolat

12th Jul, 2016 14:08 (UTC)

I note, though, that in 1192, there is no mention of that chief characteristic of That London: drinks taken with lots of ice. Perhaps when ice houses were introduced to Britain (1660s, according to Wikipedia), Londoners found a new way to define themselves, and gave up all the buffoonery, magic and miming?

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huinare

11th Jul, 2016 20:44 (UTC)

This exhorts the reader to "not associate with the crowd of pimps". I wonder if it is acceptable to associate with individual pimps when they are disarticulated from their Crowd...

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bunn

12th Jul, 2016 13:21 (UTC)

I think there would be a significant risk that even an individual pimp might turn out to be a smooth-skinned lad, a night-walker, mime or buffoon. Probably safest to avoid the entire conundrum. :-D

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oonaseckar

11th Jul, 2016 21:34 (UTC)

The old girl hasn't changed a bit, then.

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bunn

12th Jul, 2016 13:29 (UTC)

I particularly like the firm statement that 'all this sort of people fill up all the houses'.

ALL the houses! Full of sorceresses and smooth-skinned lads!

(I wonder what was so suspect about smooth skin. Is our writer a believer in honesty expressed through the medium of pimples...?)

Edited at 2016-07-12 13:30 (UTC)

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