Oh What A Time... - #27 Beauty (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

This week we're discussing BEAUTY via acne, Viking teeth, hair and wigs; plus this week's bonus bit is all about the man who brought bodybuilding to the UK. Was that man Tom Craine? I'm afraid you'll have to listen to find out! Yes we've added ONE DAY SNOG MACHINE to the incredible set of features we have: THE ONE DAY TIME MACHINE, HOW WOULD YOU IMPRESS SOMEONE IN 500AD and of course DO YOU HAVE A RELATIVE OF NOTE? Want to contribute to any of our AMAZING format points? Do let us know at: [e-mail] This is Part One (Part Two will be out tomorrow), but if you want both parts now, why not become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 to support the show, you'll get: - the 4th part of every episode and ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - a bonus episode every month - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). And thank you for listening! We’ll see tomorrow for Part Two, BYE! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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assets and start with the 10 bucks in your pocket. Easy. Go to kraken.com and see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. See kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. See Kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer for info on Kraken's undertaking to register in Canada. Looking for a collaborator for your career? A strong ally to support your next level success? You will find it at York University School of Continuing Studies, where we offer career programs purpose-built for you. Visit continue.yorku.ca. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that tries to decide if the past was

truly dreadful. I'm Tom Crane. I'm Chris Scull. And I'm Ennis James. Each week on this show, we'll be looking at a new historical subject. And today, we're going to be discussing beauty. Yes. Acne. Vikings' teeth. Hair through the ages. And the bonus bit today is the man who brought bodybuilding to the UK. Hello, I'm Tom Crane, the man who brought bodybuilding to the uk i was wondering when this

subject would come up and at last at last my time has come you you thought i'll i'll give it at least 10 or 15 episodes exactly before discussing my greatest achievement bringing bodybuilding to the uk i genuinely want to make a joke at this point about the weight that i can lift but i don't know what number to say that is a big number that people lift uh i hate to have a go at you tom why didn't you say the truth is a thousand kilograms is that what people lift that people lift if you're lifting a thousand kilograms you'd be world famous as the world's strongest so what's a normal amount for someone to lift what is like two bags of sugar which i think is about how you're lifting it yeah yeah yes well an average baby is seven pounds so i'm gonna say

you've not once lifted your own children i think i'm gonna say an average weightlifter can lift four babies seven fourteen'14", 21. I'm going to go, OK, 28 pounds. There you go. That's what people lift. Happy with that? Yeah. Were you just flitting between imperial metric measurements?

Yes. And a further sign of how clueless. I lift them all. I lift them all, Chris. I don't care what it says on the side of the dumbbell. I'll lift it. Be it imperial, be it metric, whatever the number is, I'll lift it. Our overseas listeners now doing some furious Googling.

Anyway, we should probably start by, again, not only, Tom, are you the man who brought bodybuilding to the UK, but also you're a beauty expert. You told us just before we started recording that you're actually wearing two odd socks today. Well, the reason I was slightly late for this record is because I was desperately trying to find two socks that match. I didn't.

I've got one white pair with stripes across them and one grey sort of work sock on at the moment. And that is the closest I could. Because to me, white and grey are at least in the same sort of palette area. They're part of the same discussion, aren't they? Yeah, exactly. White can become grey. Exactly.

Are you quite organised on that front? I'm always at the end of my walk, I'm like, oh no, I've got no socks, no pants, I'm that guy. Hang on, do you look at people with matching socks and think, there's someone who's quite organised? I do. I assume they must be a millionaire and they probably have a PA.

What high beauty standards that individual has. Look at everything, matches. probably have a PA. What high beauty standards that individual has. Look at everything matches. I am a mess. I am a mess. There's one thing I will not compromise on, and that is matching pants and... Well, not matching pants and socks. Two pairs of matching pants.

Ellis gets very chilly down there. Always double bags. A matching pant on each foot But matching socks And the thing with my pants is The last three pairs I have before Armageddon Are so horrific Once I get to that stage someone's doing a wash I remember that, I've still got them, actually.

I remember an ex-girlfriend from about 15 years ago, no, it would be longer than that, almost 20 years ago, looked at these terrible pants and said, what I don't understand is I don't know what point you're trying to make by continually wearing these.

So, when I get to that stage, I always remember her saying that, i think right let's let's do some let let let to the washing machine it does suggest that you're clinging on to them because they are special pants to you memory wise maybe your grandmother gave them to you just before she passed no no you can't can't please take these pants they're your grandad's pants. They were his grandad's pants before him. His final breath. Exactly. I wore these in World War II, and now I pass them on to you. It's like a watch in Pulp Fiction. Exactly.

I tell you what, Ellis, this is my salvation when I'm wearing socks that don't match, is the high-top shoe. Because it means I can walk around town and nobody knows I'm wearing one red sock and one blue sock and be laughing at myself. They cover a thousand sins, isn't it? Yes, exactly. I've beaten the system.

You will never know. I could be in a high-powered meeting with Alan Sugar and he'd have no idea that I'm wearing mismatched socks. Do you do any of the washing in your house, Tom? I do half of the washing, yeah. Is, are you to my face lying to me?

Okay, I do three quarters of the washing. It's 2023, guys. I do. I put on regular washes. I'm very bad at hanging it out. I'm very bad. I will admit that I'm very bad at hanging it out. I'm very bad. I will admit that I'm very bad at putting it on the dryer.

It's always crumpled. At most, half the T-shirt will dry and the other half will be just completely damp. Well, there was a photo taken of you hanging out washing at the Edinburgh Festival about 10 years ago that is continually shared amongst comedians because people can't believe it. They can't believe the lack of technique. It's just thrown onto the... I've never seen anything like it. People have tweeted it in the past.

We need this podcast to become huge so that that photo can become viral because the world needs to see it. We should put it on our Instagram and see if anyone else can do it it's a bit like it's like someone you know those things that the nba when they shoot t-shirts into the crowd it's like they've used one of those and just shot my clothes at the drying rack that's the sort of look of it we'll put it on our instagram i can't be alone in this i want to find out any any other listeners as bad at this as I am.

Do you know what? I mean, it's worth saying at this point, Tom, you have a thousand horrific pictures of yourself from down the years. So much so that one year, I actually made a Tom Crane calendar as a secret Santa gift. And every month, every month was sensational.

That year sped through because I just enjoyed it so much. For you, maybe. For me, every month was a paid reminder of what an absolute loser I was. When the Oh What A Time merch shop comes live, I think people will be clamouring for a Tom Crane calendar and I think we'll have to give it to them. The Oh What A Time and sexy calendar. Help you keep the wall from the door

Hang it up at the end of your bed You're getting a bit too excited Look up at me Right, so Shall we move on to some history? Does that sound like a sensible thing to do? Yes, I think so Shall we begin with some correspondence?

So we've had an email from a listener called Gareth Hutchins A man who I'm sure dries his clothes sensibly And his email is titled one day time machine open brackets the 90s okay dear Chris Ellis and Tom huge fan of the show here always makes me titter on public transport leading to other passengers assuming that I'm a madman anyway the greatest podcast feature ever invented the one day time machine unearthed a long dormant memory I didn't realize it was a triggering part of it I'marthed a long dormant memory i didn't realize it was a triggering part i'm really hoping this long dormant memory was an all right one it really flared up my ptsd

yeah exactly i went by doing therapy going no it's okay it's fine it's a good one it's a good one we can relax we can relax um it's unearthed a long dormant memory of when i was working at my old office job about 10 years ago and a few colleagues and i were pondering the question if you could go back in time to anywhere any place where would you go just to be clear gareth this is our format point our format point you are not laying claim to it a scottish girl rebecca answered that she would go back to edinburgh in the early 90s that she could buy her flat cheaper than she actually paid um he's pointed out not 50 years back not 100 years back to when you could get it for like literally a tuppence yeah early 90s dream big

rebecca dream big so thoughts on that the idea that going back and buying something you've got now but cheaper so you've got more money now. My grandmother's house, her father died in World War I and they were given compensation by the MOD, I think, and they bought the house for £200. This is in like 1921 or something. And my other grandmother, I remember they bought their little bungalow

and they bought that in the 60s or early 70s and it was like two and a half thousand quid or something. Ridiculous. Like the kind of price that you have to sort of double check because you think, surely not. People weren't buying houses.

They were, obviously. What I find so funny about that is that... Of course you did,, obviously. What I find so funny about that is that... It's all quite where you go, of course you did, Graham. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what I find so funny about that is most Edinburgh flats are really old, so you could go back to the start and buy it for 40 quid, but she just wanted to go back to the 90s when it would have been 80 grand, wasn't it? 80 grand, exactly.

Still quite an annoying amount of money. Is that because she doesn't want to buy it like the 80s and then have to live through the 80s at least if you start in the 90s

oh yeah no Chris because if you think about it she's only going back one day to exchange contracts and then return

and it's in her name so she doesn't need to live through any of this period I tell you what in our as someone who bought a house

last year that would be a very stressful day. It does take more than a day to get a mortgage in place, doesn't it? Oh my God. It took us nine months. You'd have to have £80,000 cash. Cash in old notes.

Pre-internet as well. That's a really good point chris you couldn't take that present day tender because they go why is there a really old picture of the queen on all of your notes she doesn't look like that why is she why have you have you forged these but made her look old what a weird what's your problem with the queen but if you do you think is it would be allowed for a flat to lay dormant for 30 years until someone turns up there you go i'll walk in now i mean the the flat would become dilapidated there's obviously the potential squatter issue there was a big squatting scene in the 90s as well there was a squatting scene now like there was then. It was massive in the 80s and 90s.

A squatting scene? I know quite a few people who were quite involved in the squatting scene. Who were quite big in it. Swampy. They could name Swampy and that's it. I wouldn't even say that's squatting. He was digging tunnels, wasn't he?

Yeah, yeah. He was squatting underground. The worst kind of squat. The worst quiet kind of squat. Our overseas listeners slash anyone under the age of 40, no one is going to know who Swampy is. I thought Swampy was up a tree trying to stop a bypass. Oh, he was everywhere,

mate. He was trying to stop the Newbury bypass in about 1994, I would say. He ended up on Bloody Have I Got News For You, incredibly. What, as a guest? As a guest, yeah. What? Yeah. Was he funny? I think he was very quiet

from what I remember. Paul Merton spent a lot of time on that episode talking over him. They were the Newbury Bypass protest of 1996. He became a naturally known figure

after spending a week in a complex series of tunnels dug in the path of a new extension to the A30 in Fairmile, Devon, resisting attempts at eviction by police. Specialists were called in to safely remove Swampy. His real name is Daniel Mark Hooper. It's basically our version of the Vietcom. That's what it is.

Several people took part in the protest but Swampy was the last one to be evicted. The magistrate passing sentence on him was David Cameron's mother. The mainstream media became fascinated with Swampy. It really did. We all loved Swampy. And his subsequent fame included an appearance

on the BBC comedy current affairs quiz of I Got News For You. It was the show's youngest ever panellist. I do have a question, by the way, briefly. You might know the answer to this. Did he refer to himself as Swampy, or did the public call him Swampy? Because one way it's quite offensive, because if he's just Steve, and I like people keep insisting on calling me Swampy in all their headlines No, that is a really good question. Swampy was born in

I mean his wiki refers to him as Swampy Swampy was born in 1973 and lived in Bedfordshire In 2006 he was living with his girlfriend and their three children in a yurt, a dome shaped tent in Tepee Valley, a commune in West Wales, quite close to Carmarthen where I grew up As of 2013 he

was still living with his family working for the forestry commission and running marathons and half marathons i think i'm sure i saw a program about the newbury bypass protesters they had all these tunnels underneath where they were going to dig the bypass. And they were... They had things like old washing machines down there, from what I remember. And they would be sort of chained to the washing machines. It was sort of impossible to remove them. Wow.

That would be a shock when you go down to the tunnel. You'll never guess what he's chained to. Well, swampy! Bet he never used it Tell you what, chuck your clothes in there, mate You're right, he occupied a treehouse As part of the Stop HS2 protest That was in 2020

So he's gone below ground And he's gone above ground Branchy, as he should be called Can I tell you one brief story Before we move on to the actual history and he's gone above ground. Yeah, branchy, as he should be called. Can I tell you one brief story before we move on to the actual history? It's just, I was mentioning there, Chris, the idea of you going back and people saying, why have you forged these fibres

to look like the Queen is really old? This is the weirdest bit of forgery I've ever seen in my entire life. I was at King's Cross Station at WH Smith and there was a guy in front of me in the queue trying to pay for newspapers and magazines and chocolate. And the lady behind the till was holding up the fiver and was saying,

well, this is clearly a forgery. And he goes, no, no, it's not, it's not. She goes, it's clearly a forgery. She goes, it's half the size of a £5 note, shouldn't it? And looked at me, and it was the tiniest £5 note I've ever seen in my life. In general, a minimum of half the size of what a fiver should be. It must have been from, like, a board game or something like that.

Monopoly money. At least look at the original. Because he looked it up on his computer. He goes, well, that's what it looks like. I have no idea of scale, but I know what it looks like. So I'll just print that on some random piece of paper. It's half the size it should be. That's funny, man.

All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show you can email us at hello at oh what a time dot com and you can follow us on instagram and twitter at oh what a time pod now clear off what does possible sound like for your business it's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum.

Breaking news coming in from Bet365, where every nail-biting overtime win, breakaway, pick six, three-point shot, underdog win, buzzer beater, breakaway pick six three point shot underdog win buzzer beater shootout walk off and absolutely every play in between is amazing from football to basketball and hockey to baseball whatever the moment it's never ordinary at bet 365 must be 19 or older ontario only please play responsibly if you or someone you know has concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca. So this week we are discussing beauty. And I'll be talking about hair through the ages. I'm going to be talking about acne through the ages.

And I'll be talking about the man who brought bodybuilding to the UK. But firstly, I'm going to tell you about Viking teeth. Now, teeth as something to be modified in the pursuit of beauty i was trying to think of people who have done this well yeah contenders for me i can only think of two really shane mcgowan damon alban a gold tooth i still think that's cool uh bobby for me new the the white The whitest teeth. A 50,000-foot high wall of white enamel. Yeah, yeah. The whitest teeth in global sport, Bobby Firmino.

Apologies if you just mentioned him, Chris. I don't know if I missed that on your list, but drum and bass DJ Goldie. Oh, Goldie. Did he have a whole set of gold? He had a whole set of entirely golden teeth. Oh, wow. Which I think were removed and replaced for effect, basically.

It wasn't like a dental issue. That is the kind of thing that if you went back to any ancient society in a one-day time machine, having golden teeth would instantly turn you into a king or emperor. Yes. But you're turning up absolutely in i don't know in in ancient egypt and you've got a gold mouth like oh my god goldie could convincingly travel back to 100 a.d in britain and say i'm the king from 2000 years time and everybody would believe

it yes yeah yeah well you don't believe I'm the king? I've got gold in my mouth. See, every one of my teeth is made from gold. Every time I eat Coco Pops, I am chewing those Coco Pops with you-don't-know-what gold. Okay, that's fine. Just look at my mouth again. I'd also get a little gold anus

and claim the gold went all the way through. That's how powerful I am. Straight through the middle of me. Like a boost bar. The caramel through a boost bar. I had a dental issue last week. I ate a toffee and a crown came out

in it. That's a sign of age, isn't it? That is a classic. It's not something that young, vital, urgent, relevant people do, is it? Did I mention I was skateboarding at the time?

Yeah. I was doing a 360 backflip on the half tube. Do any of those words mean anything? Anyway, and I was wearing Vans. Yeah. Oh, Chris.

On with the history. Now I've established your credentials, let me tell you about the Vikings. They modified their teeth. I don't know if we knew this, right? Several years ago, a study of Viking burials near Weymouth in Dorset uncovered a shocking detail

that the Vikings who were buried there had all been decapitated but also all had grooves filed into their front teeth. Oh, wow. Horizontal grooves, like sometimes a couple of lines, three lines, all almost filed into their teeth. Similar discoveries have been made in denmark and especially in sweden so what was going on how do you feel so now i've described that

let me go into a little more detail so these grooves that seemed as though and the bodies they recovered that the grooves had been painted or otherwise colored using charcoal or reddish pigments. So the Vikings, when they kind of snarled, you could see these lines. They were filed in and they had charcoal or reddish paint in the grooves. You would shit yourself. That is so scary. Yeah, that is so scary. You're some poor farmer in Northumberland

that's all you're trying to do is scrape an existence. And some absolute maniac from Scandinavia with red charcoal grooved teeth starts snarling at you. You're like, mate, take my crap farm. I'm not putting you in a fight.

Have more faith in yourself. You might have quite a nice farm. Take my lovely farm. I'd take my lovely farm and my happy pigs. Can you take the missus as well and the kids? They're all doing my... What do you want? What do you want?

Just have it. Yeah. I'm going to send you a picture of... I'm going to send you a picture of the grooves in the teeth now. Wonderful. Just so you can get a sense. Just in case we want to get them done as well. We can just show them to the dentist and go, this please.

Obviously, this picture will be on our Instagram. The weird thing about these grooved teeth. Oh, my God. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. When I think about living in the age of the Vikings, you're thinking about the tooth pain would be a nightmare. Yeah.

It would make you go insane. So to remove the enamel and groove into it in an era where tooth decay is enormously prevalent, it seems mad to me. I think I'd be brave enough to say, everyone, I don't think that dentistry is good enough yet. I think we're about a thousand years early. I'm not even a huge fan of dentistry in the 60s and 70s, actually.

So I think if we could just wait about a millennium or so and then do it by all means. I've heard there'll be a sort of like a drum and bass of jungle artist with gold teeth. If we're willing to wait. Once you've invented that weird blue liquid,

I can swill my mouth with that and spit it into a sock cup, whatever it is. I don't know what it does, but once that's there, it burns a bit, that stuff, then come back to me. And thin bits of minty string. Once we're at the thin bits of minty string period, then I'll groove my teeth that must have been such an uncomfortable process because that's obviously done with just

you know probably a blade i imagine something metal just scraping against your teeth while you're having to lie there with your mouth open you imagine a kind of a nail file kind of style instrument going again and again in your teeth creating these grooves the one thing they've seen from all the the the bodies they recovered is that they that obviously as you can see there's a high degree of precision in these grooves and that they were obviously done but quite skillfully by someone who really knew what they were doing yeah this then they're not just having a go themselves they're not you know when you see this used to be big in the 90s but people who had like homemade tattoos this isn't these guys aren't doing it themselves there's a local expert involved the first culture to be able to identify someone by their dental records actually the vikings know that that uh detectives could go i know who this is

it's got three circles and a dot through it It's Olaf I reckon that would be my job We found another one I think I'd be the Viking Tooth chiseler Talk me through why you think that would be What if it gets me out of any battles I'm bang up for it But I think it's your duty

As most hairdressers will see Hairdressers they have cool hair they show their lovely art you're going to have to have the craziest teeth in camp yes good point but just imagine if you file too far and it hits the nerve

horrendous can you imagine that what happens then oh and he's a viking having a go at me and that's all I'm trying to do is do my job Can you imagine that? What happens then? Oh, and he's a Viking. Having a go at me, and that's all I'm trying to do is do my job. The Vikings probably enjoy that, to be honest. I loved it. They hit the nerve. More!

I absolutely loved it. More, exactly. Famously fair temperament on them all as well. So these indentationsations they were horizontal some have been fat some uh bodies have been recovered with vertical grooves in their teeth and interestingly so they've done a kind of study of viking teeth to try and understand where these grooves come from and they can see that the vikings did take very good care of their teeth. There's evidence that they removed food with toothpicks. They've also recovered evidence that they engaged in dental surgery to provide relief from tooth decay.

And there's even examples of Vikings having had cavities filled in as they emerged into adulthood. So there's very primitive dentistry knocking about in the viking era that's a very important word though they're primitive i am so um nervous as a dentist that i used to until quite recently two years ago i used to travel back to my childhood dentist in bath which is a two three hour journey from london to have any dental work done because the only way i could deal with it was to go back and see the dentist in bath and the only way i

could deal with that there was they had a plastic duck hanging from the ceiling and i was to lie in the chair and stare at the plastic duck and just think about the plastic duck that was my way of getting through it and then i went back about three years ago and they had to remove the plastic duck because of health and safety safety reasons they were worried the plastic that was going to fall off the ceiling and i quote straight into someone's throat which is never going to happen but they had a man came round with a clipboard and said you can't have the plastic duck and that was my salvation and it's only that plastic duck leaving that has meant i now have moved to a dentist in london anyway my point being i do want to lie down in a muddy village

in Viking times and have someone meddle with my tea. Couldn't do it. Had something happened to you? Yes. Well, I think it's my dad was older and as all dads are, but he was older.

That's not worth sharing. My dad had me when he was 50 So his experience of Medicine was from Further back than most parents So he had a fear of Doctors and dentists And stuff like that

So I think that's basically where it sort of slipped in a bit I just got a bit of a panic But the dentist hand like Slipped and sort of Drilled through your cheek I just got a bit of a panic. Oh, okay. But the dentist hand slipped and sort of drilled through your cheek when you were nine. Oh, yes, that happened as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you mention it. That probably didn't help.

She stole all my teeth and sold them. But apart from that. So that's the end of part one. If you want to hear part two straight away, then do become an Oh What A Time full-timer. It's just £4.99. What a bargain. And you can listen to it in one meaty piece,

as it should be. If not, you catch it tomorrow. You can become an Oh What A Time full-timer on OhWhatAT time.com or on your app i'm sure look down there you can click on it it'll be there thanks guys Thank you.