FACTORALY - E46 BATHTUBS

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Bathtubs aren't something that most of us spend a lot of time thinking about. Unless you're remodelling a home, you probably don't even think about the noble bath. But it's hard to beat a tub as a place for winding down, cleaning up, and generally finding a sense of well-being. This time, we go into the history of the tub, its use over the ages, and why you would want to spend vast amounts of money on one. As always, click on the pics to go down inescapable plugholes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Simon. Hello Bruce, how are you today? I'm fabulous, thank you very much. How are you? I'm not too bad, thank you, not too bad. Jolly good. Jolly good. And we're here. Yes, we are. Again. Well, that is to say you're there and I'm here. Yes. But collectively, we are here. We are here, available and making noises.

So what's this? What are we doing? Where are we? What's going on? What time is it? What year are we? So many questions, so little time. We are, well, I don't know what you're doing here, what I'm doing here. Hopefully we're here doing the same thing because otherwise this is a great big mistake. I believe we're here to host another episode of the ever popular podcast, Factorally. And for those who have come here by mistake, or just as a reminder for those who have been here ever since the beginning, Factorally is a podcast with me, Simon Wells. And me, Bruce Fielding. And we are both voiceover artists who like facts and things like that.

We take a subject, which is either huge or tiny, and we try and either expand it to 30 minutes or contract it to 30 minutes, depending on how big or small it is. Yes, some of the subjects are instantly interesting. Pirates. Oh, how exciting to do an episode on pirates. Sometimes it's something as mundane as a potato. You think, how on earth can we get half an hour's worth of facts out of a potato? Turns out you can.

Yes. I guess then we should think of something else that we could do. Okay, let's think of a else that we could do. Okay. Let's think of a topic we could talk about right now off the top of our heads without any forward planning whatsoever. How about bathtubs? Yes. Yes? I don't know that much about bathtubs.

Do you know anything about bathtubs? Not an awful lot, no. I know that I generally don't fit in them. Me neither. I had to buy a special one from Germany. Did you? Yes. Wonderful. Res wonderful resin it was made of resin it took like four guys to get up the stairs into the bathroom oh crikey it was amazing but it was huge it was double-ended claw feet all that stuff it's really really nice very good indeed but it's the only one i've ever had that i actually fit in yes so

we're both approximately the same height yes 6'2", 6'3". Yes, exactly. And yeah, they're just not comfortable experiences for me. You either sit absolutely bolt upright or you sort of, you know, you lay and recline, but your legs are dangling out the other end. When was the last time you had a bath? Where are we now? 2024.

Because they're that cumbersome and that awkward and that inefficient for me, not for quite a while. I shower. I'm a shower guy. Me too. When did you last have a bath? I can't remember.

I mean, people tend to stay away from me now. But I do know that baths use less water than a shower. Do they indeed? It's one of those urban myths, isn't it? Everyone always tells you, oh, you should have a shower because it's more water efficient than a bath. Exactly. But it's not. It's not true. Really? Does it depend on how long your showers are? That's a good question.

I mean, if you're in and out in 30 seconds. Yes. So I read a statistic that the average bathtub takes about 80 litres to fill. OK. The average shower produces around 10 to 15 litres of water per minute. Right. So if you have a five-minute shower, like me, you use just a little bit less than a bathtub. Okay. If you have a 10-minute shower, I was going to say like my son,

if you have a 15, 20-minute shower, like my son, then yeah, it is hugely, hugely inefficient by comparison to a bath. Baths have been around for a while, haven't they? They have been around for a while in one form or another. People have always washed themselves, haven't they? Well, I guess you had rivers and things initially. Yes. But then if you wanted a nice warm river, that was slightly trickier, especially in Northern Europe.

So when did baths begin? Well, we had a discussion as to whether this episode should be baths or bathtub because they're slightly different things. If we're just talking about bathtubs, the oldest bathtub that people have found was from 1500 ish bc okay um and this was in in crete and it was mediterracotta it's five foot long and that is the oldest bath that archaeologists have found but people were using baths yes as a space there's evidence going back to obviously the roman times but also the ancient greeks you know they had huge sort of um sunken pits in the ground with steps leading down into the sort of communal bath communal bath yeah public path well not necessarily public but at

least communal inside yeah there was there was a palace that had this this massive massive sunken looked like a swimming pool really yeah not quite big enough for a swimming pool, and therefore probably a bath. And it was lined with bitumen to keep it waterproof, had a couple of staircases going down into it. And even before then, archaeological evidence has been found to show that the Indus Valley civilization, from about 3,000 to 1,000 BC,

who lived in what is now sort of modern day Pakistan. Okay. They had running water, they had whole rooms that were immersed in water that they used for washing and or socialising. So baths as a whole have been around a very, very long time. time i understand that you know you know the image that we have of the roman bath with like luxurious and and um tiled and and delightful and sort of warm towels being brought to you by slaves yeah apparently that's not what it was like oh roman baths are actually built for poor people so the movies basically have got it wrong oh what

a shame lots of poor grubby people getting into interesting yeah you never really think of of roman history from the point of view of the average person do you it's always no palaces and centurions yes exactly it's never your man in the forum you know it's not is it but the japanese do bars well, don't they? But you have to get clean before you get into a Japanese bath. Yes, I read a little bit about this. So Japanese baths are for relaxing rather than cleaning. Yes.

Predominantly, aren't they? I think baths in general are for relaxing in. Yeah, I suppose they are these days. I mean, if we sort of go back, whenever I think of an old Western movie, you know, they had, you know, sort of like a barrel sawn in half. Yeah. With water, you know, gently leaking out of the slats. So they are for cleaning.

You know, back then that was functional. Back in sort of early Victorian times, you had those sort of, you know, cast iron tubs. Or copper. Or copper yes they started off copper didn't they? Yes. So those were very much about functionality rather than relaxation. I suppose it depends on who you are in society doesn't it? If you're poor your bath is small and functional, if you're rich your bath is large and luxurious. Yes, exactly. We have all sorts of images of baths from all sorts of different times in our heads, don't we? I remember seeing films where there are people who are coal miners and they come home and they take a bath in front of their fire in the kitchen.

Oh, yes. And the bath water turns completely black because they're full of coal dust. And that's how they get clean. Yes. And then God knows what you do with the bath water. Well, there was a hierarchy. So dad, who was the grubbiest from working down the mine, went in the bathtub first. Then poor old mum went in second. And then the children went in third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh.

Do you know what? That doesn't make sense. It would be much more sensible to get the cleanest people in first. You've just turned Victorian society on its head, Bruce. Wow. And allegedly, that's where we get the term don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Because by the time the baby has got in the bath, last of all, the bathwater is absolutely black and you wouldn't be able to see what was in it. Yep, I can believe that. I can absolutely believe that. But they are good for, I mean, you mentioned that they're soothing and relaxing yeah it's been

scientifically proven that that having a bath is actually good for your heart oh really uh because what happens is that the hot water kind of like dilates your arteries and veins and kind of makes your blood flow much more smoothly oh really and it's good for your well-being as well because that a bath relaxes you you feel good you feel comfortable so it's very good for your well-being as well because a bath relaxes you you feel good you feel comfortable so it's very good for your for your mental mental health as well taking a bath on the odd occasion that i have squeezed myself into a bathtub i've gone full-on candles relaxing music and a glass of whiskey so you know it's if if you do it right yeah i'm sure it can be very very relaxing do you have a rubber duck i don't very relaxing. Do you have a rubber duck? I don't.

Well, I personally don't have a rubber duck. The household has several rubber ducks because of my son. I personally don't own one. I've never quite seen the point. Well, did you know that the late queen had a rubber duck? No, I didn't. Not only did you have a rubber duck, but her rubber duck had a crown on it. Of course it did.

Yes, no, I've never quite got rubber ducks. I think there's a scene in Harry Potter. Mr. Weasley says to Harry, Now, Harry, tell me, what is the function of a rubber duck? Yes. They're just fun little things to play with. They're just fun to play with in the bath. Yeah.

There's other things you can put in the bath, though, like gold. Right. So if you're a certain Mr. Archimedes, you work out water displacement by getting into the bath and seeing it overflow. And then, quite naturally, you apparently run through the streets shouting, Eureka! Which wasn't just a comment on the fact of how he smelled in the bath

yes do you know why he why that was important i used to know i've forgotten okay let me refresh your memory please do it was basically the monarch um had wasn't sure whether his crown was pure gold right and so archimedes uh weighed the crown Yeah. And then he measured out exactly the same weight in pure gold. And he put the gold in the water in a basin to see how much water it displaced and then put the crown in. And the crown actually didn't displace the same amount of water as the gold would. So he proved that the crown was actually not made of pure gold. Oh, it had been padded out with more materials. Yes, other materials underneath the gold.

That were denser to make up the same weight. Yes. So, yeah, so basically he proved that the crown was not as gold as it looked. And he just came up with that idea whilst having a soak in the tub one day. That's the, as in everything on this podcast, we believe all apocrypha. Yes, we do. Now, I just mentioned having a soak in the tub. I don't have an awful lot to say on this, but it occurred to me whilst I was doing my research.

It seems to me the word bathtub is quite an American sounding phrase. Here in England, we have a bath. There in America, they soak in the tub. I wonder when that switchover came because I looked up the origin of bathtub obviously and um it's first mentioned in uh in a piece of writing in 1614 by a chap called george chapman um who was an english poet and playwright and um he he made a translation of homer's the odyssey in 1614 right and um he wrote the word bathtub in in a part of it um and that was the first time the word bathtub had ever been written down, or at least the earliest recording of it. So it was obviously of English origin and quite a long time ago. But I now associate bathtub is something that an American would say

rather than an English person would say. I don't know. I think they're interchangeable. Okay. Well, I went on to Google and looked up why there was this difference. I found one page saying, why did the Americans say bathtub instead of bath,

which led on to an English person having a rant about how the Americans have got everything wrong. The next page said, why do the English say bath instead of bathtub, which led to an American having a rant about how the English get everything wrong. So there are at least two other people who think that this is an American-English divide. Whilst looking up the origin and etymology of the word, the etymology is dull. It contains the word bath, which means bath dull it contains the word bath which means bath and the

word tub which means tub yes um and those two words have meant that since yeah forever so that's a bit bad or something like that rather it was it was sort of bar there um in in old english slash dutch slash proto-germanic um but i came across the word tub thumping. Oh, yes. Which I only really know from a 1990s pop song. But tub thumping or a tub thumper is a thing. And apparently, the word tub in its original form, it just used to refer to a wooden receptacle or vessel, somehow or other over the years, it became a nickname for a pulpit because it's roughly tub-shaped. The preacher goes up and stands in the wooden pulpit. And a particularly passionate preacher might be thumping the side of the tub as he's preaching. And that's where the phrase, to be a tub-thumper, came from.

Never realised. Okay, that makes sense. Nothing really to do with baths, but little aside. Oh, interesting. phrase to be a tub thumper came from never realized okay that makes sense nothing really to do with baths but little aside oh interesting but but you talked about sort of roman baths and and earlier baths yeah would you reckon any of them were filled with asses milk i mean we hear these stories about cleopatra cleopatra bathing in milk yeah i'm not sure i'm, don't they? Cleopatra. Bathing in milk. I'm not sure. I don't know whether she ever did it. There's a rumor that she did. There's also another rumor about another beautiful woman.

Right. Marilyn Monroe. Oh, with the champagne. Yes. The belief is that she had a bath in. I mean, I've got champagne on my hands and it goes sticky really fast. So the idea of bathing in champagne, I mean, allegedly 350 bottles of champagne to fill a bath. Is that how much champagne it takes to fill a bath? Yes, absolutely.

Wow. And to come out of that and then go sticky, I'm not sure. Let's be fair. I think she might have already had a few glasses before she made that decision. There might have been a certain amount of barbiturates involved. Who knows? She probably wasn't making the most rational decision when she did that. That's true.

Drinking the bathwater, however, would be fun. But in the 1930s, people were drinking. Actually, in the 1920s in America, people were drinking the bathwater. Were they? Do you remember bathtub gin no so i mean gin is effectively vodka plus flowers right um so what you do to make gin is you would you would distill and make a large quantity of vodka right and then you'd flavor it and but you need to water it down as well okay so the most sensible place to water it down is in a large container that will take um liquid and the largest containers that people

have in their houses are bathtubs right so that hence bathtub gin well there you go bathing even at the turn of the 20th century was not exactly um popular yeah and certainly people didn't do very much for example um on the titanic right uh if you were third class passenger and there are about 700 third class passengers on the titanic yeah and two baths no way really oh yeah crikey so you'd have to you'd have to take turns on that one. You can't exactly throw yourself off the side of the ship and have a quick dip in the icy waters, can you? Yeah, not good. From freezing cold waters to naturally hot springs.

Okay. A lot of, obviously, the public baths, a lot of these were fed by local sources of water. You're not going to have a great big Roman bath being fed by someone carrying thousands and thousands of jugs of water. So there was a tendency to build your baths around natural springs or wells. Right. Which is why we've got a few places around england

with the word wells in the title which is quite suitable me being me well exactly um so tunbridge wells sadler's wells um anything with the word spa in it lemmington spa etc etc all of these places were built on natural springs which were alleged to have restorative properties, either by drinking it or by bathing in it. And of course, the oldest one of those is in a place called Bath. Yes. So prominent was it that they actually named the place after what it did. And this was a Roman discovery when the Romans came to England. They made these first baths in that place.

They called the area Aqua Sulis Minerva, which means the waters of Sulis, who was a local Celtic goddess, and Minerva, who was a Roman goddess. And they built these baths around this naturally warm water that just sort of bubbled up out of the ground and had restorative properties. um these were just in these ones in particular were for the the rich and wealthy you know these were these were built with a sort of an entertainment space a small theater incorporated into into the bars they had you know rooms for hanging out and chatting with your your rich roman mates they had areas to serve food they even apparently had um private spaces where a couple

of you could go off and shut yourselves away from the outside world for a period of time. And get to know each other a bit. Indeed. And these were very, very luxurious things. And so Bath sort of carried on its fortunes from the properties of that Roman tradition. And then the other places I mentioned, Tunbridge Wells, Lamington Spa, they were sort of built around later discoveries of these natural springs. So yeah, that sort of bridges the gap between

since forever people have been bathing in rivers and lakes and then the modern day bathtub, these towns, these sort of public springs and public baths okay bridge the gap in between that makes sense do you know how many people you can get into a bath i suppose it depends on the size of the bath it does it does well do you know how many people you can get into jacuzzi no okay slightly tricky question because in the company jacuzzi, how many members of the same family actually worked for the Jacuzzi company? Oh, I don't know. Let's say six.

Okay. Let's say 257. That's more than six. Really? 257 members of the Jacuzzi family worked for Jacuzzi. That's a lot of Jacuzzis in Jacuzzi. It is. And it's not even the correct way to spell their name. Because when they came over from Italy, their name started with an I.

Oh, Jacuzzi. Because they pronounced it Yacuzzi, the guy at Ellis Island basically wrote it down as a J. Ah, okay. Right. The original Jacuzzi was invented, again, as a j okay right the the original jacuzzi was invented um again as a health thing yes so there was a one of the sons of one of the uh brothers the seven brothers that started the business and uh yeah one of their sons um had a medical problem and uh was used to taking these spa baths yeah and the jacuzzis invented the pump that aerated water

and circulated it in a bath. Oh, right. And this was as an aid to help this young boy to recover better.

Oh, okay. So it was actually a health aid and it only stopped being a health aid about sort of a hundred years ago. Oh, really?

Yeah. Oh, interesting. Did you know that there are some patents regarding baths? Oh, no, I didn't. Not about the baths themselves, although there are some about baths. But the British have patented a latex spider bath ladder in 1996. A guy called it ed doney um he patented this sort of roll down

latex ladder if you if you find a spider in your bath so that the spider can escape the perils of the plug hole that's i don't know whether that is genius or ridiculous. I think it's genius. I mean, you can just put a towel over the edge of your bath, which will do the same thing. Yes. Or if you're an arachnophobe, you can just flush the sucker down the plug hole. Well, there's that. Although they tend to hold on to the sides with their legs, don't they? Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, just a simple piece of fabric draped over the side of the bath. Just as well as this patented latex spider bath ladder. That's grand, isn't it? Wonderful. Please see our previous episode on plugs to find out who patented the first bath plug. Yes. Earlier on, you said you had a Clawford bath. Oh, yes.

Now, I had a look around on a... It's amazing how much history and interesting knowledge you can gain from a well-known high street bath retailer. There are several bath selling companies who just have a history page telling you about the history of baths. And there was one particular retailer that went into the different types of bathtub. We're talking sort of freestanding, sitting in the middle of your bathroom type tubs. So you mentioned having a clawfoot.

So that's a bathtub that has four feet on it so they can stand away from the ground. And a variation on that is called the slipper bath. And a slipper bath is one of those ones that sort of has, it's higher at the head end than it is at the foot end. And it's slightly curved inside, and you sort of sit in it all nuzzled and cradled and relaxed. And then there's one I'd never heard of before called a boat bath, or in French, a bateau,

which is exactly the same as that, but it doesn't have feet. It just sits, the whole thing sits on the floor and it looks rather like the hull of a boat. Okay. And that's why it's called that. A bateau bar. Oui. A bit like a bateau lit.

So a bateau lit is a bed that looks like a boat. Okay, well, that would make sense then. Yes. Yeah. And as you said, usually have the the taps and maybe a portable shower head on one side in the center of the bath so they don't sort of you know get in the way of your your feet or your head depending on which way you're sitting on pipes basically it looks like this is like coming from nowhere that's it that's the one yes um again if

they made one big enough i would be all up for having one of those because they look rather comfy they are very comfortable i found that in in 1828 in liverpool was the uk's first modern public wash house okay and a wash house was sort of a mixture between a public bath and a laundry so you sort of went you went down there with your dirty clothing and your dirty self and you got both cleaned at the same time yes um and the first one of these was set up in liverpool in 1828 and they were specifically for just like the origin of the roman baths they were specifically for the working classes and they were built in sort of in and around slum areas. Yes. Although having said that, there was one in Hampstead.

Oh, was there? Okay. Yes, in London. Not all built around slum areas then. But this became quite a popular thing and they spread to various other cities in the UK. In 1844, and I'm mentioning this largely for the amusing name of this organisation. The Committee for Promoting the Establishment

of Baths and Wash Houses for the Labouring Classes. Isn't that catchy? How condescending. Isn't it? It was set up by the church. It was set up by the Bishop of London. Not the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Oh, wouldn't that have been so much better?

And this was set up in 1844. Basically, they started giving local councils the option to voluntarily set up funds to create local public baths for the working classes because not having them in your own house, not having running water in your own house, not having running water in your own house, was bad for you. So this committee was set up to sort of try and encourage local councils to provide this as a free service. It wasn't instantly taken upon because it was

expensive, but it became popular quite quickly. By the end of the 1840s, most cities, particularly industrial cities, where you had an awful lot of dirt and grime on you, this became a popular thing quite quickly. Oh, interesting. Of course, you don't have to use a bath to have a bath. Right. You can use a bath for all sorts of other things. Oh, I see. have to use a bath to have a bath right you can use a bath for all sorts of other things i see for example um i once heard a lecture by a guy called tim fitzhaim yes i recognize the name who had crossed the channel in a bath yep that's right do you know about this i vaguely remember it i remember seeing images on blue peter of the bar this was a chap who who used to take um

edwardian and victorian uh wagers from the wager book in gentlemen's clubs and try and recreate them and see if they were possible to do. Oh, fantastic. And as he was doing this, he came across the idea of rowing across the English Channel in a bath. Right. Just to see if it could be done. And what was the result?

He did it. He did it. He did it. He joined the Honourable Company of Lightermen to do this. He became friends with various people in the Navy. I think they had to do something about the shipping in the channel to avoid the bathtub. Sure, yes. And he was

completely mad. But he did it. He rode across the English channel or La Manche, whichever you would call it, in a bath. Well, good for him. But I'll put links to a video about what he did

on Factorial.com. There you go. That must have been quite a feat because they're not the most aquadynamic-looking shape, are they? No, they're not. I can't imagine that being terribly speedy. No, absolutely not. But the company that made the bath for him have actually named

one of their ranges the Fitz Haim. Really? How fitting. Yes. So, records. Oh, yes. Come across any interesting bath-based records? Yes, I did, actually.

There are quite a few. The biggest bathtub is 12 feet wide by 72 feet long is that a bath or is that swimming pool it's a bath because it is a single unit separate from the infrastructure around it which contains water okay and it's semi-portable so this thing actually goes sorry yeah semi-portable in as this thing actually goes... What? Sorry. Yeah. Semi-portable? In as much that it can be moved from one place to another. Once it's there, it's pretty firmly fixed in, but it can be moved around.

And this thing actually tours around the world, and you can hire it for parties. So none of this pool party malarkey. That's so yesteryear. Let's have a bathtub party. So this thing cost roughly $118,000 to build. It's fitted with steam jets, perfumed sauna boxes, TV screens, telephone service, and a little jacuzzi pool and shower panels here and there.

And you can hire this thing out and and have a party in this bathtub can't imagine how long it would take to fill it uh presumably quite a long time it takes 24 000 liters of water to fill so i'd imagine that would take quite a long time yes and um the other record i found which i knew i would find before i even went looking for it it just seemed like the sort of thing the most expensive bathtub okay so i've got a figure for this as well. Oh, okay. Go on. On the count of three. Should we go pounds or dollars? Dollars. I've got mine in dollars. Okay. One, two, three. $1.7 million. $845,000. Okay, right. That's quite different.

So I wrestled with this because Guinness World Records, their website is very, very deliberate about the fact that this is the record for the most expensive bathtub. But there have been more expensive bathtubs made since then. The only thing I can think to account for that is the fact that this record was set in 2010. So that's 14 years ago. Okay. And money was worth more than than it is now that's the only thing i can think of no fair enough um inevitably there will be more expensive bathtubs but as a percentage of what money is worth at the time this one has the record uh so this was set in 2010 it it cost 845 000 it was cut from a 10-ton Amazonian crystal stone. Oh, okay. Oh, yes, I've seen that one. And it was on sale in Harrods back in 2010. Two metres long, weighs more than two tonnes

when filled with water. Yeah, blooming expensive. Wow. Well, should I tell you about mine? Go on, tell me about yours. So mine is a $, tell me about yours. So mine is a $1.74 million bathtub. Right. And it was made from a single piece of caillou wood, which is a fossil wood. So it's basically one piece of stone.

It looks beautiful. It was designed by a guy called Simon Krapf. And it's called the Grand Queen or Le Grand Queen bathtub. And the wood itself, the caillou wood is known for its healing ability. So it took about 120,000 hours to find and excavate the piece of caillou big enough. Spent months carving it out and polishing. And it looks fabulous. And it takes two to three months for a bathtub to be completed.

You can actually buy this for $1.7 million. A snip. Yeah. Let's all club together. Absolutely. We'll share it. I've run out of facts about baths yes

all of my facts have washed away down the plug hole yep mine too yeah I've overflowed

yep and it's gone yes so but before we go yes we need to tell people about things don't we

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