Look, I made fire!
I could handle some of the clothes - to plagiarise Robert Louis Stevenson, mine is a case for stays - and provided I arrived at a comfortable socio-economic placement I would muddle through with the aid of an ample household staff. With laudanum on tap and arsenic papers to hand I would be ready for any eventuality.
The only sticking point is the medical treatments. The second rate anaesthetics, the teeth pulling, the dubious hygiene and a lower standard of vision correction... the list goes on. The suffering did not just arise from the ailment either; invalid food was a special and horrific art reaching its zenith in England at the time. By the time I had brewed up a good, recurring case of gout I would be praying for a return to my mundane 21st century life.
Mrs Beeton, Testify:
INGREDIENTS - A slice of bread, 1 quart of boiling water.
Mode.—Cut a slice from a stale loaf (a piece of hard crust is better than anything else for the purpose), toast it of a nice brown on every side, but do not allow it to burn or blacken. Put it into a jug, pour the boiling water over it, cover it closely, and let it remain until cold. When strained, it will be ready for use. Toast-and-water should always be made a short time before it is required, to enable it to get cold: if drunk in a tepid or lukewarm state, it is an exceedingly disagreeable beverage. If, as is sometimes the case, this drink is wanted in a hurry, put the toasted bread into a jug, and only just cover it with the boiling water; when this is cool, cold water may be added in the proportion required,—the toast-and-water strained; it will then be ready for use, and is more expeditiously prepared than by the above method.
The same chapter also provides instruction for toast sandwiches if anyone out there wants to carb load.
2 comments:
time travel always puts me in mind of that crappy movie that melded h.g wells' time machine with jack the ripper and wrapped it up neatly in a malcolm macdowell package.
As I recall that movie - time after time - was shown as some kind of sick joke on day light savings. We all had to set our clocks back, and coupled with that film, it became the longest 35 minutes of my life.
I never want to think about H G Wells' liberated views ever again, especially when tightly encased in a Malcolm MacDowell package.
Incidentally, I think that the only man in Hollywood with a filthier name than MMacD would have to be Peter O'Toole.
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