Retrocession

Apparently the current recession is sending us all a bit doo-lally.

Not only are we now growing our own veg (please don’t ask what happened to my tomatoes – it wasn’t pretty!) and wearing shoulder pads and staying at home for our hols - now, in some rose-tinted haze of nostalgia, we are apparently turning to old lifestyle books for advice.

And when I say old I’m talking from the Victorian era.

Now I know this has to be true as I just read all about it in the Daily Mirror.

I have also seen various re-published tomes springing up on Amazon with titles as eye-watering as Aunt Epp’s Guide for Life: From Chastity to Copper Kettles - now there’s an interesting combination!

I have actually been a fan of such books ever since browsing round an antique fair and spotting a copy of The Best Way Book - A Practical Guide for the Housewife. Crammed with useful recipes and ‘capital’ darning hints, it also begins with this jolly little ditty that I now recite every morning before springing out of bed:

If you want to have a happy home where peace and plenty dwell,

Then housewife you must know your work,

And how to do it well!

Great isn’t it? But really, we haven’t all become so credit crunched that we are actually taking these things seriously. Are we?

Admitedly some of the tips that get lost in translation are hilarious – whilst quickly flicking through my Best Way Book I actually came across the heading ‘How to Keep a Pristine Muff’ , but are people really taking the advice they offer to heart?

How about this gem from Aunty Epp:

‘Always keep an open mind and open bowels. Close the one and you become a bore: close both and you become a dead bore. and nobody will be listening to you anymore.’

Could she really be suggesting that we go through life with permanently open bowels? Admittedly life wouldn’t be boring, but it might be a tad unpleasant.

Or what about this genius tip if you don’t want to have sex with your man.

‘Place a stale fish beneath his side of the bed. The bad smell will keep his mind off intercourse.’

Two things: firstly, did they not get headaches back in those days? And second, wouldn’t the smell of rotting kipper be a tad distracting for the woman trying to sleep?

So I am going to throw down the gautlet. Blogees, surely you have some lifestyle tips to beat the Victorians….