In early Victorian London, like most cites of the time, ones shit was directed into a cesspool. These were regularly emptied by 'nightsoil' men who took the waste away as fertiliser. (The drains in the streets were only for rainwater).
What caused the Great Stink was, paradoxically, the invention of the water closet (the flushing bog to you and me) which massively increased the volume of liquid waste, which was then discharged into the Thames and caused the famous Great Stink.
I can assure you, our Victorian ancestors were not animals that regularly shat in the streets.
On the other hand in the great stink era the waterwheels on London Bridge were industriously injecting into the drinking water supply the same effluent that had just been ejected.
One would have been grateful to be on The New River company's list of clients.
There's an excellent book also called "The Great Stink" on the problem and on Bazalgette's solution of them.
> we were able to smuggle old, old artillery shells potato mashers (no wooden handle), and other types of grenades in our checked luggage (plane belly)
If you travel on the Eurostar train from Paris to London...... before boarding at Gare du Nord station you will pass a French bloke by the escalators employed to hold a placard with a sign in English saying not to take unexploded ordnance on the train.
This is because a few years back, some fuckwit did just that, shutting down the channel tunnel for several hours.
Nah, I checked with the local fire department before buying. They’ll apply directed force and fracture the ring to remove it in an emergency. A friend is an electrical lineman, so digit safety is top of mind.
At this risk of offending American (?) sensibilities.....
In Blighty, sarcasm and piss taking are part of entry level conversation. I kindly suggest this is something you clearly missed when 'arguing with British people'.
(The American habit of writing "/s" to signal sarcasm looks distinctly odd to a Brit, as of course it is sarcasm, otherwise they would not have written something so obvious.)
They probably misunderstood scale to mean something like “in the ways,” not more literally “by the numbers.” I’ve seen people suggest that we’re more savage and brutal towards animals these days on other websites, and I think that’s an absurd conclusion to draw because I don’t think we have sufficient evidence for it. It seems unquestionable that we’re doing it to more animals, though. There are more people eating far more animals these days. I suppose some might argue they aren’t suffering or something? That’s crazy, to me.
