(Overnight | Music) Toilet Paper | Trivia Tuesday | #1610 Let me bore you to sleep | Jason Newland | 12th May 2026

Hello and welcome to let me bore you to sleep. My name is Jason Newland and please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. And today is it's trivia trivia trivia Tuesday yes it is indeed and the date is Tuesday the 12th of May 2026.

I haven't done a trivia Tuesday for a little while so I thought I'd kick it off with a bit of a different a different taste or different smell I don't know however you want to explain it. So before I move forward just let you know that I have a website called jasonnewland.com where you can stream all my recordings. I am also on YouTube I'm on TikTok X and Instagram where all my recordings are uploaded.

Also I have a Facebook group called Jason Newland's Boring Group. Yes everything isn't it and I also do six versions of each recording. Plus Vinny my little ginger Jack Russell is on the floor chewing on a bone.

But he's fairly happy he's been out just been out and just had some dinner. Now he's chewing on a bone he seems fairly pleased with himself so good. I can't see any reason why he would hassle me like he normally does when I'm making a recording.

It's not to say he won't but I can't really think of a reason because he's had everything he needs other than you know the t-r-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-t-s. So oh yeah I do six versions I do three with music three without music short long and overnight. The short ones if I was doing a hypnosis recording would be maybe 30 minutes depending on how long but with the Let Me Boy To Sleep they're never short.

So I just put it under the category of short but normally like yesterday was two hours long then the long one was five hours and then 10 hours. And after the recording there's like lots of affirmations and relaxation stuff that you listen to and it kind of goes down in volume over time. Yeah so it's quite nice and pleasant.

Again today I have made I've recorded three no two different recordings already today. Yesterday I did the same thing. So yesterday I did yesterday I did the second Breaking Free From Control and Manipulation called Recognizing Emotional Manipulation.

I also did a sleep hypnosis recording called The Corridors Where Thoughts Fall Asleep and then I also did a Monday Sleep in Boring Objects called Rooms just rooms that I've lived. Today I've done number three in the Breaking Free From Control and Manipulation called Gaslighting and Self-Doubt. And I also did a deep sleep whisper hypnosis recording called The Vanishing Mind.

And here I am now writing you a love song. So here I'm now doing this. Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment.

Yes I have to have a tooth removed from my mouth. Obviously my mouth. And yeah not not really.

I mean I also collect my glasses as well beforehand. So I'm collecting my glasses in the morning and then also an hour and a half after I'm due to collect my glasses I'm going to be in the dentist. So it's one of them you know I mean it's one of them one of them situations.

And then I will come home and I will reward myself by watching television. So I'm not sure if I'm going to be making a recording tomorrow. But six recordings in two days is pretty good.

I just realized I haven't posted on Facebook about Q&A Friday have I? I haven't I haven't I haven't. I need to do that now while I'm thinking about it. So where is it? Jason Newland's Boring Group.

247 members. I thought I had 245. I haven't had any new members have I? I don't know that I know of.

I have. Stephanie and Luck or Luke or Luck joined five hours ago. But according to this I also had someone join on Sunday last Wednesday another one last Wednesday.

It hasn't come up on the page. So why has it not come up on the page that new people have joined? That's strange because normally it comes up like welcome to the new people. It has.

It has. It has. It has.

It has. Oh okay fair enough sorry. So Stephanie but it hasn't come up for Luck or Luke.

Luke L-U-C. So welcome Stephanie and welcome Luck or Luke to the group. I was just about to say no one has joined in years and actually two people have joined today.

I wonder why one of them is not coming up. Maybe because I've been posting so much stuff on there that the group's just been busy. I've got a message here from Molly who is the boss of the group.

Thank you Jason not only for your soothing voice humour and kindness but also for your consistency. Things here have been very stressful but it's a safe and comforting feeling tuning into you every night on your matey. Thank you Molly.

I really appreciate that. Yeah consistency. I do.

I try. I do try. I know there are times when I just can't function but I do.

I do try and you know be productive and it helps me as well. So with because I've got you know the the reason I've been doing the I forget the name of them breaking free from control and manipulation. So that's a new podcast and I've done three recordings so far but the reason I started doing that was for personal reasons and I hope when I kind of I've not really released the podcast it's done but I've not posted it to any of the podcast hosts yet which I need to do and I hope that it helps a few people along the way and it's something also close to my heart because I grew up in the environment for a while as a as a very small child so it you know kind of from that perspective I know what it's like to be in a I don't want to get all heavy but you know in an environment that's not right that's not correct.

Now that wasn't the correct wording but you know this is to let me boyd asleep it's not for not for serious stuff but I do the those recordings are I don't mess about in those recordings. It's got to be weird if you want to yeah if you want to hear me being all serious you can listen to those because I am quite serious in them even the hypnosis for sleep the sleep hypnosis ones I'm fairly serious in them ones as well apart from when I go off topic occasionally. So what I'm going to do is if I open this copy and paste so if I can any questions for this week's Q&A Friday which will be the 15th of May.

Last week I didn't get any at all so I didn't make a Q&A Friday on Friday but on Saturday I posted another post saying I didn't get any questions yesterday but if you want me to do a Q&A Friday posting questions here and I got about four which is that's all I need I need like at least three or four to make it worthwhile although I mentioned actually yeah I think I possibly mentioned this one of the questions I could have talked for about six hours on and that was my pet peeves I had no

idea I had so many pet peeves seriously unlimited it's like I think I was born a grumpy old man and none of it's I don't I don't get like super angry just things that just tick me off a little bit so if you're drinking this water like that that's I know it's going to sound strange but that's the kind of thing that I'm gonna feel very nostalgic about if I'm listening to this in 20 years time you know I remember when Vinny do you remember when he's running around drinking his water begging begging for my

attention chomping on his bone whining I have that with Andre as well I look back and some of the old videos and listen to some of the podcasts you know and it's just like you could hear in the background making some very strange sounds it's it's quite weird personality wise they're very similar they're not not interested in they'll show affection when they want to and they're not needy Vinny or Andre neither neither of them are needy at all they just they demand what they want when they want it and if he wants to cuddle me

he'll come up and cuddle me if I go to cuddle him he'll pull away Vinny will Andre he didn't have so much of a chance because he was so tiny so he was kind of forced to cuddle me but he still used to cuddle me he used to like from his own um from you know he'd choose to do it himself as well um when I first got him constantly picking him up even though he did not like me one bit for the first couple of weeks absolutely detested me and I'd pick him up and

he'd try and bite me we succeeded quite a few times razor sharp teeth and I kept picking him up I kept kissing him and hugging him kissing him and hugging him and in the end he gave up love overcame I think I think I don't know maybe he felt it he felt he was loved and he was and I felt loved by him as well and it's really strange because I was talking to a couple of people dog walkers and we were just talking about we were just talking about a situation that's happened and I

was talking about Andre because I just don't assume that anyone knows who he is and the amount of people that know to remember Andre he was lovely he was so cute Andre they'd know his name um some people that I see regularly on walks with Vinny a couple of people have actually said to me when I've mentioned Andre well that was you was it you're the one with the ferret I said yeah I said oh because once Andre left I didn't go out I wasn't going into the park or into the fields anymore for about

a year and a half I didn't really hardly went out and um I suppose a lot of people didn't even know know you know that he was gone in fact there was a ferret that was found a few weeks ago it was on a Facebook group and my neighbors saw it and someone actually wrote down on there is it Andre it's like they remember after all these years I mean he's been gone since 2021 literally wow yeah so and it's amazing that they still remember even though they have not seen him for what's that five

years crazy he had an impact I mean admittedly I was the only person not the only person I mean my friend downstairs had a ferret as well and we'd walk together but I was out every single day generally even in the winter one of the the differences between having a ferret and having a dog is I didn't need to take him out he didn't need it he just liked it and I liked it really has to go out you know to go to a toilet and stuff and for the exercise because Andre he spent probably

a good 18 hours a day sleeping a bit like me so he spent a lot of time sleeping and when he was awake he was awake he was proper awake running around causing mayhem knocking stuff off the table he hated if he could get onto a flat surface he had to clear the flat surface of everything honestly he had to push everything off with his nose he'd push everything off the flat surface if he could get on there and the weird thing about it is once he jumped onto something once he made that journey attempted

that that jump if he was successful that was it he could do it every time after that it was a bit tentative to start with if he's never done the jump and sometimes he'd attempt jumps and fail but once he was successful with the jump he never failed again and he'd get onto my table I used to have to move furniture away from each other so he couldn't get onto the table and knock my stuff off although sometimes he managed it and the only things he couldn't move was the computers because they were too heavy

the laptops were too heavy for him but he'd move plates he'd knock water bottles off knock the phone on the floor um yeah he'd just do it because it had to be done he just had to it had to be done it was his instinct to knock stuff off the floor onto the floor from the from the table it was so funny it was hard to get angry because it was funny to watch because he's so cute and he'd be knocking things off that were like six times bigger than him trying to push them off

the table and we used to play hide and seek when it's his turn he'd hide and he'd go behind the cooker or behind the fridge so I couldn't get to him couldn't even get to him couldn't find him and then I'd like yeah and I'd kind of put my arm down and he'd run off screaming and he'd wait for me to hide and I'd go and hide and I'd hide behind a door or hide in the like in the bathroom and I'd hide in the kitchen and I'd hide in the kitchen but pull the curtain

shower across stuff like that and then I'd jump out at him he'd find me he'll always find me probably smell isn't it because I was so smelly but yeah we used to play hide and seek he was more he was more playful than Vinny is Vinny has his playful moments he prefers to play when he's outside you know he'll play with a ball he'll do stuff like that but because I don't have an outside for him to play in it's in the park and I have to keep him on lead but when he's around his

mum's because she's got a garden he can run around and play with a ball and I can play chase and catch and all kinds of stuff he loves it he loves going around there because he was he's known us since he was a baby and he knows their son as well since since he was a baby so he's got that they're etched in him in his brain in his memory forever and I'm technically the newcomer although it's been three and a half years not really a newcomer anymore in my three and a half years blimey

so how did I get talking about this I don't know oh yeah got my tooth out oh getting my glasses I'm looking forward to collecting my glasses tomorrow because why did I stress the word tomorrow as opposed to Friday well I'm looking forward to collecting my glasses I'm interested to see how my sight improves with the glasses with the new ones someone did say to me another dog walker said oh why don't you get all three in one I said I got that now I got three lenses in these glasses and does not suit me

at all because the reading bit is a tiny little bit at the bottom I want to read I want to go back to reading books and being able to just have the whole of the lens to read with not just kind of tip in my head and also the anti-glare for computer work it should means I get I get less eye strain so that should be clearer as well the writing on the computer because it isn't at the moment and then when the distant ones they shouldn't be able to see better I know that's what

glasses are for but my eyesight is it's just changed a fair bit in the last four years and because now I've got cataracts and got that lazy eye that's probably always been there had a lazy eye when I was 15 so but I didn't understand I thought a lazy eye was when you look in a different direction genuinely that's what I thought so I thought when they said that I had a lazy eye that the optician when I was 15 I had to do these exercises I had a patch over my right eye and I

had to follow a pen or pencil with my left eye and do them every day and in fact I used to have to walk around just with one eye being used for a while and it was pink it's not a very good patch you feel like you have something like silk or something you know not a decent patch this was just almost it just wasn't a groovy patch you know I mean so and what would have been better if I'd had like because I had to wear glasses just have one glass which was like my

right eye instead of wearing a patch I could have just had it black so I couldn't see through it you know I mean and it wouldn't I mean it would have looked weird but it wouldn't have looked as weird as having a patch because unfortunately if you wear a patch you have to get yourself a parrot those are the rules so according to the opticians mind you he was laughing when he said it so maybe he didn't mean it but I took him I used to take things serious when I was that age oh yeah

so join Jason Newland's bowling group because that'd be good I'd like to get it up because oh dear I'd like to get the numbers up because it has stayed quite stagnant for quite a while not the group just the numbers it stayed at 245 for absolutely ages but then I found out that there's loads more people visiting the group that aren't actually they're members but they're not actually official members and I don't know how that works so there may actually be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that I don't even know who are on

there but at the moment I've officially got 247 members and I haven't invited anyone for a very very very very very very long time so because I can press the invite plus invite and then invite Facebook followers oh invite Facebook followers ah okay people are followers of the page but these people already on the page like it's got Cara Cara's already a member exit Cara's already a member so why is it saying I can invite Cara when Cara's already one of the main members anyway yeah joined three years ago so why is it saying I

invite Cara why am I going to invite someone who's already in the group that doesn't make sense it's almost like the group you know Facebook doesn't know what it's doing I'm sure it does mind you Cara is wonderful so I could invite you twice you're welcome to join twice if you like right I'm just having a quick look so SPC the subject for today because I thought you know I like to try and keep things serious in that weird things people used before toilet paper so that's the trivia Tuesday subject for today so I've I'm

using chat gpt to get this information didn't really have time to do massive research to be honest um so according to this toilet paper use is recorded in China for about the 6th century AD with mass production recorded by the 14th century while modern commercial toilet paper became common much later especially from the 19th century onwards before that people mainly use whatever was local cheap washable washable or disposable wow so I'm one of these I already know about because I saw it in a TV show I watched Spartacus so the Roman sponge sticks Roman sponge

sticks ancient Romans are famously associated with the tersorium a sponge attached to a stick often rinsed in vinegar or salt water um um I mean um that's what you put on your fish and chips isn't it in public latrines there may have been they may have these may have been shared which sounds less civilized to modern ears than Roman plumbing usually does so yeah I mean salt water salt water is that like a antibacterial thing and vinegar I don't know I mean both sound like they'd be quite stingy especially vinegar stingy if you know I

mean I don't know if I'd want to know I mean I've had like a little paper cut on my finger and spilled vinegar on there and gone oh ow ow there's vinegar in my little paper cut and it has brought tears to my eyes maybe no because I'm a real man I don't cry anything but you know I mean it was like oh now I'm just thinking of a sensitive area that's all but anyway that's that first one but I did see that in Spartacus the TV show and I mean the Romans like the the

Roman people at the top of the of the I don't know Roman not just the emperors but you know the sergeants and white stuff they used to use baths didn't they so because there was a time when people didn't bathe outside of maybe getting into a river so people that lived in the cities possibly never really bathed and there was a time when perfume the reason perfume was invented was to cover up the smell and people thought that if they put perfume spray perfume on their skin they were cleaning their skin because their skin stopped

sweating stopped smelling or that part of the body stopped smelling so they they thought that it was actually cleaning them which kind of makes sense doesn't it because that's the thing you know people sort of say oh if I had a time machine I'd go back to the 1720s I don't know why but I go back to when Beethoven was around and before the French Revolution and just whenever that was and the thing is like oh did if you went there I think the first thing you'd notice is how smelly everyone was like really stinky

because they didn't know any different and they didn't they you know everyone was I guess nose blind they call it and they I think I was like that with Andre I remember once I was walking him and I said to someone you know like because they said what's it like to have a ferret and I said well it's it's fun it's fun and they said before you got him weren't you worried about the smell and Andre said no I'm used to it by now it's a bit rude I'm used to it so smooth stones is

the next one ancient Greece and elsewhere smooth stones or pebbles could be used for scraping the word is smooth because anything rough would be well obviously stones pebbles I'm just imagining it now I suppose if it was like in water you know if you use you I don't know yeah no I've never tried that and it probably never will I've never been on a beach looked at the pebbles on a beach and thought you know what they could be used for we found a solution of getting rid of all that paper we produce no look

at this one broken pottery pieces really fragments of ceramic were sometimes used in the ancient world these are often linked with Greek hygiene practices you would need to be careful wouldn't you and also if you didn't have any lying about like any bits and pieces and you was in a hurry and you got caught short you literally just have to grab the first thing you you got like a bowl and just take it with you to a toilet smash it and then use that to do what you need to do but then what if it

was a bowl that was given to you as a birthday present or for Christmas hi Tom how you getting on all right thanks where's your bowl that I got you for your birthday where is it I don't see it oh it's fine what happened to it it's like it'd be embarrassing wouldn't it especially when everyone probably was doing the same thing maybe people got each other bowls and pots for birthdays and for Christmases specifically knowing that's what it was for bet you have to hold in hold it in until you got to your birthday like

oh brilliant another pot now can go hmm leaves now I know about leaves because that's kind of yeah if you're living in the wild or you're stuck in the wild you kind of have to make do with leaves don't you not stinging nettles leaves make sure it doesn't sting your hand if it stings your hand don't put it near your bum I think is the the thing so they were used one of the most obvious natural options the problem is finding one that's not irritating you know because there's a lot of weird leaves out there

very weird leaves not all not all leaves are the same I don't mean to be prejudiced against leaves but no they're not all the same moss so it's soft and absorbent and common in dark woodland areas for some reason I'm needed to explain what moss is and where it lives it says here probably one of the more comfortable and natural options preserve as long as it's not occupied by tiny creatures the thing is I've played with moss and you may have played with moss as well and you can get a chunk in your hand talk

about the moss now but it crumbles it falls apart very very easily so I can't imagine it being very useful for anything that takes a degree of friction as it were and just a thought grass bundles of grass could be used where grassland was common it was easy to gather but not exactly yeah the thing is grass can be quite sharp can't it and I've cut my fingers on grass before maybe not as an adult but you know sometimes the edges can be quite sharp if you know what I mean yeah I'm not sure about

that one hay in agricultural communities hay was widely available it would have been convenient around barns fields and rural privies I can't imagine it feeling very soft I mean I've seen hay and I've touched it and I've sat on it and not for that reason but just you know I wasn't like testing it for future experiments but I it didn't feel very comfortable it was okay to sit on but I didn't think to myself you know what I hope I ran out of toilet roll because I want to use that hay no straw now straw

I just realized I might be thinking of straw but it's not a lot of difference between straw and hay is there really I don't think apparently straw is drier and rougher than hay yeah it's um which is the one that you could breathe through if you were hiding during the second world war and you were in a in a like a river and or and you was like underneath the water and you were breathing through something was it straw or hay anyone anyone corn cobs apparently according to this you don't take don't take my word

but according to this in rural north america dried corn cobs were famously used before toilet paper became affordable and common um the weird thing about it is I mean how do they get to that point is it just like you're always looking around for something new it's like oh I've tried everything what are you eating there oh it's a corn cob oh do you mind if I borrow one yeah take it just make sure you bring it back no you're probably not going to want it back when I finish with it and corn husks I

don't know what that is corn husks were another agricultural option softer than a cob but still very dependable on dryness and preparation okay so this next bit now this make this is starting to make sense once um once newspapers became common they were reused in outhouses and people often cut or tore sheets into squares and hung them on a nail or string I've even done that in the past when I've run out of toilet paper I used to live with someone that would happily just use newspaper all the time which I didn't really kind of

get but he did have curly hair and brown eyes and he was that's not really relevant is it curly hair and brown eyes and he had freckles and he looked like a human I don't know some people they're not fussy I remember this friend he used to say to me I say well get a pizza get delivery or but go and get go and get a pizza actually I don't think they delivered back then and he said oh okay I'll get a pizza let's go pizza go go I said no let's go to Domino's pizza

or Pizza Hut because it's better and his answer was no it's all the same all tastes the same it doesn't all taste the same if it all tasted the same then there'd be no point in even having different names and different recipes you know it doesn't taste the same all tastes the same pizza go go which was at the time like a very much cheaper version of Domino's sometimes they'd even open a shop next to Domino's and have pizzas half the price and because I used to have sweet corn and pineapple pizzas it wasn't really

very hard to go wrong with that so there wasn't necessarily a huge difference in taste but Domino's is still better back then pizza pizza go go don't even know if it's still around might be really doing well I've got no idea old catalogs mail order catalogs including famous American store catalogs became unofficial toilet paper in many many rural homes they were thick plentiful and free after they were no longer useful for shopping here's a question how are they flushed because toilet paper you know sometimes the toilets can get blocked can't they they can only take

a certain amount of stuff to flush away and newspapers and old catalogs wouldn't that be quite I mean I don't even know if I put if I've got a cat lock page and put it in a toilet I don't think it'd even flush away maybe the toilets were bigger more powerful back then although I have been places where they've said don't put the toilet paper down the toilet like really you want me to put it in a bin really that you you like no that's just it just you you it you build the toilet for

what it's needed for I mean did they not realize that it needed to be able to flush away toilet paper as well or how why would you invent a toilet that couldn't take toilet paper it makes no sense to me anyway um old letters now this is a weird one because we don't thanks for flapping your ears Vinnie this is a new one um old let's we don't really do letters anymore do we I'm sure some people do but although I was speaking to an elderly lady today she's over 80 and she was just heading

off to the post box to post a letter to her ex-boyfriend who she dated in the 70s not her 70s in the 1970s and they reunited online a few years ago well by a few years it might have been 20 years ago I don't know and they've kept in touch and they meet up once a year Vinnie's now hassling me there's no reason to hassle me Vin old letters so I don't know about that because I've realized that I've chucked away a lot of stuff that I would now be nostalgic about my old love letters

things from the past that I wish I still had so I could just read them to you so you could see how soppy I used to be honestly I used to I used to write poems mind you if it's letters that I sent I wouldn't have them would I I didn't used to copy them out one for myself and one for them yeah that's the point I wish I still had the letter from the the lady that um I basically asked her to take my um should we use the term pop my cherry okay I

was very inexperienced and she was a lot older and we were dating and I said oh I gotta tell you something she said what's that so I said I'm a virgin she didn't look surprised which was weird I thought she'd be well she'd fall off her chair like no really and I said I'd like you I wonder if you could do the honor and she said okay well you know we'll think about it we'll just you know she sent me a letter and uh she said no she didn't want to so yeah um old letters

yeah that I mean what if the toilet didn't flush and someone came in after you and it was a letter from them because back in you know people used to write it by hand took time you know it does make me laugh though the amount of people that moan when they see stuff on facebook you know comments and there's no apostrophe no full stop you know there's no you know proper grammar as if they just realized that people are talking into the phone that's why there's no grammar and that's how it's going to be in

the future people aren't going to be typing I don't I can't even I struggle to type on the phone my old big sausage fingers receipts and wrapping paper before soft tissue became common any scrap paper might be pressed into service the softness varied while widely widely wildly I mean a receipt they're tiny ain't they a receipt wrapping like wrapping paper like christmas wrapping paper I could see I mean it's a colorful way to do it yeah oh rags clothes rags were used by many people especially where cloth could be washed and reused wealthier people had

access to softer fabrics washed and reused no I mean I remember when I was a kid my first step-mom she used to boil the hankies and we used to have hankies it was it was a thing back then everyone seemed to have a hanky on them and she would boil them and I'm pretty sure I'm not 100 sure but I'm pretty sure that she used to boil the nappies as well when my little brother was born I don't think they had disposables back then they might have done but I have a memory that they didn't

I know definitely when my nance in her day then this was in like in the 40s all the nappies were boiled you know you reused everything and it was normal it was grim but it was normal um linen cloth linen linen linen was used by those who could afford it I mean you could say about anything couldn't you really it was washable and much more comfortable than straw stones or pottery really no wool wool was soft and absorbent making it more comfortable a more comfortable option for wealthier households or regions where sheep farming was common

wool doesn't sound no no no sorry wool doesn't sound right animal fur some people used fur especially in colder regions who had access to animal hides it sounds luxurious but cleaning and reuse would have cleaning and reuse would have been the issue snow okay this is interesting because I've never even thought about doing this not that I give this a huge amount of thought generally but snow in cold climates snow could be used for cleansing it was clean looking abundant and very cold a rather bracelet experience yeah it yeah I don't know I mean I've

never done it probably never gonna do it yeah I mean I've never sat down in the snow with no pants on just never never thought about doing that for some reason water so in many cultures water was and remains the primary method of cleaning or cleansing this common this is common across parts of the Middle East South Asia and other regions often combined with the left hand and washing afterwards okay um I want to move away from that as this just I find that grim sand sand really in dry climates sand could be used I'm

struggling to even say this out loud it could be used as cleaning material it was available in deserts we know where sand's available when beaches of course but no no dust or earth dry soil or dust no no seashells coastal people sometimes use shells as I wish I'd done a different subject now coconut husks no again banana leaves um yeah I can see that it might be okay palm leaves yeah now we've got now we're going somewhere because palm is palm oil comes out of palm leaves doesn't it so palm leaves would have actually been

um possibly one of the best things that we could still use bamboo slips or sticks my goodness wooden sticks as well simple sticks were used in various ancient societies the phrase wipe sticks appeared in discussions of pre-paper hygiene cloth wrapped sticks which is someone made for reuse washing and reuse sponges beyond roman stick sponges natural sea sponges were used when available they were soft and absorbent but needed careful cleaning salt water um yeah vinegar water again the romans used that hemp fiber fibrous plants such as hemp could be used very available flax fiber is the

plant used to make linen could also provide softer fibers soft bark really okay wood shavings it I wouldn't want to rub wood shavers um wood shavings on my arm because it's going to be quite scrappy isn't it sawdust sawdust I mean sawdust is good to chuck onto the floor to absorb stuff that's landed on the floor for example in a toilet a public toilet and stuff sawdust is good for that um ash wood ash has been used historically in cleaning because of its alkaline properties it could help with odor but it would be harsh on

skin okay water and small jug so before modern bidets bidets bidets or bathroom sprays a simple jug of water could be used this remains a traditional cleansing method in many parts of the world yeah I mean it's just I've never used a bidet I did have a girlfriend who had one in a bathroom and well so I never used I've never sat one on I never sat on one and the so I don't really know what it's like I can I can imagine what it's like but I don't know I'm not quite sure how how

high is the pressure on those things which is a question I have bidet style washing a bidet developed in Europe as a washing method rather than wiping method it shows that toilet paper was never the only path to cleanliness chamber pot cloths it's basically in households using chamber pots cloths or rags might be kept nearby they would need washing the thing is this is before this is before washing machines I'd yeah blimey I don't know I don't know um outhouse paper scraps yeah this was quite common like an outhouse or outside toilet we would call

them here the Karzy this would be at the bottom of the garden and in this country and you'd go down there and it would just be bits of toilet bits of newspaper or you take a newspaper with you but then here's a weird one yeah when inside toilets was it introduced apparently most people didn't want one even though going outside in the middle of the night freezing cold in the dark not being able to see what you're doing was more preferable than having a toilet inside the house because they thought it was unhygienic back then

and it took a bit of persuading for people to actually come around to the idea apparently but then some people I think it can be part of human nature to to want to just stick to what is and change it can be sometimes scary for people kind of even if the change is way better than where the person is now a degree of comfort of like knowing where you are and what you're doing and everything kind of staying the same I guess Sears style catalog pages so mail-order catalogs became so associated with outhouse use that

they were often mentioned in the history of toilet paper alternatives yeah like I don't know if we had a Sears in the UK but we did have I remember this my step-mom had a few catalogs absolutely huge they were and really thick and the paper was so thin and it'd literally be well over a thousand pages and it's really weird I'd look at everything I'd look at every section but guaranteed my mum would walk in when I was looking at the brass section now I didn't spend all my time looking at them I was looking

at the bikes I was looking at the jewelry I was looking at all kinds of stuff but whenever anyone walked into the room I was looking at the brass section it's almost like the the catalog just opened itself to that section without me knowing and I could hear it laughing at me knowing it embarrassed me for no reason yeah anyway too much information I do believe old book pages damaged or unwanted books could be used as paper sounds terrible to book lovers but paper was paper I guess um scented paper in China so it just

shows you how far ahead China were on this particular subject to the rest of the world because Chinese imperials records mention special soft perfume toilet paper for the emperor's family during the Ming dynasty so many people elsewhere used leaves and sticks elite Chinese households had something far closer to luxury tissue so it wasn't for everyone um plain paper in China paper paper for toilet use is recorded in China as early as the 6th century um apparently one someone wrote that he would not use paper containing sacred or classical texts for toilet purposes which suggested the

practice already existed yeah reusable family cloth so some household used washable cloth pieces this is basically a pre-modern reusable wipe system and then there's got number 49 and 50 so near the end of this thank goodness nothing but washing afterwards so in some circumstances people may not have wiped with an object at all relying instead on washing this is still normal normally many cultures where water is considered cleaner than dry wiping I'd agree with that actually I feel you can't really disagree with that um yeah um whatever was nearby this is the last one this

is basically you just grab whatever you can and use it so basically if someone was need to go to the toilet everyone else would just hide yeah corn on the cob I can't believe people use corn on the cobs no corn on the cob that's just weird it's weird it's weird it's weird it's weird it's weird it's weird so that's Tuesday's trivia Tuesday and I can't believe I thought perhaps I should have chose a different subject but I chose this subject I've done it I can't undo it it's been done and I'm just gonna try

and wipe it away from my memory talking of wiping I mean there would have been a time when people didn't even they just like animals they just do it where they do it I do wonder about sea pigeons pigeons was it seagulls where did they go before lampposts invented where did they go to the toilet because this is like just always I actually got I got some bird poo on me the other day a week or two ago it's supposed to be good for you not good for you but lucky didn't feel lucky yeah it

didn't it's weird just didn't didn't have that feeling about it it didn't I didn't think oh this is good I'm ever so grateful this is this is really nice the day's gonna be really good I can tell what it meant is my cardigan I was wearing outside had to be washed which is ironic because it's it's like pretty much a white-ish top but the seagull poo ended up being black so the white yeah had to wash it in the end so I would say this has been a very educational recording I've learned stuff I never

wanted to learn never needed never needed to learn never hoped to hear about and here I am with all this new knowledge all right that brings me to the end of this recording so thank you for listening remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy and be gentle with yourself you deserve to feel safe lots of love bye