Samuel Pepys

[Floyd]

Yeah. It's now a fun/spooky party game that kids do at sleep overs where 4 of you try to lift a person using only two fingers. We do it sitting down now but it was originally done with a person lying down and pretending to be a dead body. (We still don't know how it works but it's probably a mixture of expectation and self-fulfilling prophecy). A friend of Pepys saw quite a small person being lifted so he called for his rather large and heavy cook to be lifted. And they (allegedly) lifted him.

I remember doing that at school. Some incantation had to be said as well iirc.

 

[Bad Bungle]

I'd searched through the first 86 pages of buckles on the BM Portable Antiquity Scheme (PAS) before I found one matching my find from a club dig at my village last year. The dating period given on PAS was 1660-1720, which marked the beginning of a fashion after the Restoration for purely decorative buckles on the shoe (ie didn't tighten a strap) or knee (replacing ribbons).
The reasoning behind the earlier date was given by Pepys diary entry for Sunday 22nd January 1660

"This day I began to put on buckles to my shoes, which I have bought yesterday of Mr. Wotton".

(a shoemaker on the north side of Fleet Street).

 

[Floyd]

This is the book I have that I recommend;

 

[Herr Cloaca]

I read a great quote of his today:

Going down to my cellar... I put my foot in a great heap of turds, by which I find that Mr Turners house of office is full and comes into my cellar, which doth trouble me, but I will have it helped.

20th October, 1660

 

[catseye]

I read a great quote of his today:

20th October, 1660

We've all been there Sam, we've all been there.