So I Have A Ghost Army
by Gordon • • History, Life • 9 Comments
Miu Miu went medieval for the fall season. Plague Doctors are in.
The benefit of being ManFlu’s latest victim?
I get to watch hours of BBC iPlayer on my laptop in bed.
Here’s a fun fact I learnt from a program called The Story of England (overview here): On the other side of the lane to my office there are ten thousand bodies buried in a mass grave.
It’s a plague pit that was once just outside the city walls. And now it’s a children’s playground!
And if you’re stalking me or have been in the area for some other reason (yeah right) you’ll know that it’s a small playground too. That pit must be hella deep. You can see why the council didn’t install a sand pit and a digger.
I wish I could stress just how near I’m talking. My view is a mass grave. Though that’s still less creepy than telling people your view is a children’s playground.
London is weird. (And awesome.)
Oh, and I think I might have just put my finger on why my corner of town feels so “ghosty” (as opposed to “haunted”. It’s a different thing. Don’t look at me like that.)
What I find interesting is that you can pick up individual animal spirits -something I vaguely recall Austin Osman Spare mentioning about his childhood- at the nearby Smithfield Market (as well as a couple of witches and heretics who were burned there) but -so far at least- no plague victims. Still, they didn’t exactly die there. They were dumped there.
It's not all all shocking that Poirot chose an apartment with a mass grave aspect
Although, statistically, at least one out of that ten thousand was bound to have been thrown in whilst still alive. Yuk.
All this time I thought my offices were interesting because -as you can see on the left- they are next to Hercule Poirot’s apartment. Which they are.
I don’t watch the show because he is so boring he gives me nightmares. As does Tintin. Must be something about the Belgians. But I am assured that those are the very digs.
In honour of this grisly revelation, if I go to a Halloween thing this year, Plague Doctor will be my costume of choice. And seeing as it’s unlikely we’ll be at the same event, feel free to steal the idea. It looks awesome.
The lesson in this discovery?
You can complain about ManFlu up to a certain point. And then you have to stop.
Because it could be worse.
Much worse.
Post Script
Speaking of ghosts, bask in this awesomeness. And it’s about an hour’s walk from my house! Hello Saturday plans.
Huh. What a random and awesome discovery.
that’s pretty cool. now for some necromancy fun and you might be able to pull off your own version of “THRILLER” by Halloween…..
well, of course there’s a difference between ghostly & haunted.
I never cease to be amazed by how close to history you Brits seem to be. I mean, I don’t doubt there are probably some Native Americans buried under my house, but if there were, I’d never know about it. For being the city that started the Gold Rush, you’d think the Ministry of Truth was in charge of our records.
Anyway – that’s a great idea for a costume. Pics or it didn’t happen!
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@VVF I remember seeing an article in The Onion a few years back: “Entire British Population Installed In The British Museum.”
They’re a big fan of their history. It’s what I love about them. That and they know how to queue properly.
RO insists we need campgrounds for his Wild Hunt. But you have GHOST ARMY PLAYGROUND with presumably b&bs/hotels/whatever locally with indoor plumbing. I say you host the first Wild Hunt Blogosphere Meetup.
Although . . .all of us . . .bombed . . .late night at a playground . . .hmm.
There’s a brilliant hotel on the other side of the square called Malmaison – literally ‘bad house’.
High(ish) class hookers prowl the restaurant.
I’d totes recommend it.
Also we’d have to break into the playground because -like so many green spaces in London- it’s private and requires a key.
We could try tunnelling in but that may have… Consequences.
I grew up across the street from a pioneer cemetery in Thornhill, Ontario.
The bodies were moved to make room for a playground, which covered a decent sized area, surrounded by trees.
We’d play tag amongst the tombstones, and summon the dead as a matter of course. It seemed natural, we knew nothing else.
In fact, it wasn’t until I moved away during high school that I came to realize séances and improvised Ouija boards weren’t a usual practice among seven and eight year olds (which is about when we started).
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