Funny, Strange, Random Pics

j00t said:

that rustles me something fierce... i live in lake havasu, which is currently where the london bridge is (i think it's hilariously the most American thing to do, take another country's famous landmark and put a bunch of American flags all over it). The bridge is sort of the focal point of down town so i drive on or near it pretty much everytime i drive. That thing is barely a 2 lane road so the thought of having houses on BOTH sides while still being able to walk in between them is mind bottling. like, were people gnomes back then?

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They used to have a "lovely" little display at the old London bridge. The outer entrance where they had the Southernmost gate served as a macabre scene and warning to the enemies/traitors of the kingdom. A full set of heads on spikes were on permanent display. A german traveller reported seeing over thirty heads when he passed through during his visit. They also had a guy hired to take care of and guard the heads , his job position was called " Keeper of the heads".

The job of maintaining this gallery of horrors fell to the “Keeper of the Heads.” Said individual was responsible for boiling, bathing them in hot tar to stave off rot, and staking them atop the gate. Following 2-3 weeks of sufficient spectacle the Keeper removed weathered skulls from view. Unless an industrious family member paid a hefty bribe to retrieve their loved one’s cranium it was discarded into the Thames. There are surviving ghost tales of an infamous lute-playing Keeper who took his job a little too seriously and refuses to leave his post.

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When King Henry VIII demanded Catholicism no longer be the favorite religion of the land, Sir Thomas More refused to follow his liege. As a result he was beheaded. His body was placed in a coffin and his head put on a pike above London Bridge. After the allowable time frame wherein the Keeper of the Heads knew gulls had feasted and nothing should remain but putrid flesh and hollow eye sockets, Sir Thomas' daughter beseeched the Keeper not to throw her father's head in the river. Instead, she requested he give her the head so she may join it with the body, and they be interred together.

The Keeper agreed, but was amazed when he removed the head, for it remained pink and whole as if only sleeping and still alive...

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j00t said:

that rustles me something fierce... i live in lake havasu, which is currently where the london bridge is (i think it's hilariously the most American thing to do, take another country's famous landmark and put a bunch of American flags all over it). The bridge is sort of the focal point of down town so i drive on or near it pretty much everytime i drive. That thing is barely a 2 lane road so the thought of having houses on BOTH sides while still being able to walk in between them is mind bottling. like, were people gnomes back then?

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From: Highs and lows of an Englishman’s average height over 2000 years | University of Oxford.

"Average heights of men started to go up again after the Norman Conquest of 1066, says the paper. By the end of the early medieval period, heights had increased to 172 cm, increasing to 173 cm in the 1100s, edging closer to heights achieved at the start of the 20th century. The paper suggests that a warmer climate may have contributed to good general health among the population, noting that records for 901 until 1100s show that England ‘saw the warmest weather of the millennium’. Over this period of 200 years, average heights increased by more than 5 cm, says the working paper.

After 1200, heights started to decline, and archaeological evidence shows that at this time, the rural populations were decreasing, farmland had become degraded and there were shortages of crop seeds. It also notes that other research has suggested temperatures turned colder over the century, with weather becoming far more changeable until the early 1300s. The early 1300s started with the Great Famine (1315-1317) which may have exaggerated the decline in average heights, but the paper says men had started getting shorter several decades before. After the Black Death of 1348-1350, however, average heights grew, with the paper noting that this coincided with a boost in agricultural production. From 1400 to the early 1650, mean height reached 173-174 cm"

j00t said:

that rustles me something fierce... i live in lake havasu, which is currently where the london bridge is (i think it's hilariously the most American thing to do, take another country's famous landmark and put a bunch of American flags all over it). The bridge is sort of the focal point of down town so i drive on or near it pretty much everytime i drive. That thing is barely a 2 lane road so the thought of having houses on BOTH sides while still being able to walk in between them is mind bottling. like, were people gnomes back then?

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Oh man. Tell me you guys have hazed the new guy.

Bloody allergies.

lurkingdirk said:

Oh man. Tell me you guys have hazed the new guy.

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Several years ago I worked at a restaurant. Anytime we'd train a new person we'd get them a 5 gallon bucket and tell them "you gotta empty the hot water out of the coffee maker into this bucket and dump the hot water down the drain to clean out the iron deposits". Now the coffee maker was plumped into the system, so it let out some scalding hot water. Not only was difficult to hold due to the heat, but the weight would get to you as this took a solid 20-25 minutes.

I've worked construction the last several years, so many good stories. One of the guys I worked with was too nervous around customers so whenever we'd start a construction job the foreman would introduce him as "Garry" (not his name). On one job the customer asked "Garry" to move the work truck so she could head out and run errands.

"Garry"

"..Garry"

"GARRY!"

*garry turns around and is thinking, who the fuck is this garry guy*

This was always made even more hilarious because the guy was hard of hearing.