<p>ebeee – the pudding moment was beautiful. So worth the implausibility factor. </p>
<p>All you wonderful history people – I added to your reputation for the wonderful posts, but apparently I broke the system, because the green boxes disappeared right after that! </p>
<p>If you really want to get in to the ins and outs of HVIII’s quest for an annulment, read Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel. Delicious!</p>
<p>Lergnom, thanks so much for the historical context. And bookiemom, you’re right about the limp!</p>
<p>I also greatly appreciate all of the information about the historical context.</p>
<p>This was one of the best episodes for me. Loved it.</p>
<p>anouilh: actually I take full credit for breaking the green boxes…see the thread titled “has cc become the new facebook?”</p>
<p>oh, you started that thread. Then you do get some credit. 
But there were the prestigiosity people too --</p>
<p>I feel like I should say something about Downton. How do we think Thomas will take his revenge on O’Brien. She really has it coming! Will we have to wait for next season for that to play out?</p>
<p>Ya definitely I had help. It takes a village. I hope Thomas takes revenge but my money is on OBrien.</p>
<p>The propriety of this kind of story is a staple: one mis-step and you’re done. We saw it with Mary and the dead guy. With Ethel. I think it’s an historical exaggeration and much of it comes from the patriarchal way these stories are presented. It is really a man’s world in these things and the women are confined, dressed, corseted and restrained.</p>
<p>But in real life? It’s really complicated.</p>
<p>We need to remember we think of Victorians through a lens they created of family and sobriety but that was a fake story taken from the Queen and Prince Albert and extended to an entire society and an age. This story begins at the end of that age and of course Edward is perhaps as well known now for his Parisian sex chairs as for anything else. I’m not kidding: he would visit his prostitutes in Paris and had special sex chairs built to accommodate his bulk. Remember also that not particularly secret sex societies existed for those with money. Whipping was popular - as giver or receiver - and though sodomy was illegal it was certainly accepted in upper class life. </p>
<p>As for the nobility, no one would say they were ever particularly moral. Affairs by men were so common, I think fidelity would be the exception. Much of that was perhaps due to the financial reasons for marriage - seen in Downton - so marriage was not based on love. Women were also expected to have affairs but the issue with them was literally issue: can’t have an illegitimate son before you have a legitimate son because the laws insist on male succession for titles. So contraception - and abortion - was the rule. There is a wonderful scene in The Citadel where Andrew Manson, our hero idealistic doctor, sends a poor patient to a famous surgeon and he botches the operation. When Andrew expresses his sorrow to another doctor, he’s told, “What! That old abortionist.” The imagery in literature is the Harley Street surgeon who performed abortions for the upper classes. </p>
<p>Servants of course did become pregnant. And they would be dismissed. But there were other jobs in other houses of various sizes and children could be raised by family or put in orphanages, etc. A poor house then - and in the US as well - might be a place where a poor family put a child for periods not permanently. (As an aside Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s, was put in an orphanage for some years with his brother because his mother couldn’t afford to keep them. She took them out when she was able.) </p>
<p>But I don’t know how much of a problem pregnancy actually was. This is an area of controversy in history. One of the most interesting bits of data I’ve read is an analysis of actual birth records for significant periods of time in various English counties. Not as many fatherless children or parentless children as one might imagine from literature. The numbers of unacknowledged children was fairly low, perhaps because there was no system for mandating and enforcing child support or inheritance, especially for children not born in marriage. If you read diaries - the famous ones like Pepys will do - you see literally the sex: his affair with the wife of a naval man, for example, was tawdry bend her over and do it in the afternoon. </p>
<p>But even marriage is an issue because not that many people were actually married: it cost money and took time and involved you with the religious and civil authorities. You sometimes read in literature - even in Austen - that x will marry with a special license. That meant paying more money to skip the weeks long period of publishing wedding banns (and maybe then dealing with blackmail attempts, etc.). And of course we’ve all heard of Gretna Green: cross the border into the closest lowland Scottish town and just declare yourself married. That also says a lot about the nature of marriage in Scotland among all but the upper classes. So when we hear about children and marriage, I think of Charles II and how his illegitimate sons were made Dukes. </p>
<p>Much of what we think of as British history has been sanitized beyond recognition. I recommend learning about history of British policing and how the formation of what became the Metropolitan Police was motivated in significant part by gangs of upper class young men attacking and even murdering people at night. Not drunken hijinks but actual assaults, robberies and murders. And if you want lurid reading, find stuff about the various “actresses” and prostitutes who married into the upper classes and how the riding lanes like Rotten Row in Hyde Park were hookup spots for adulterers.</p>
<p>And so Ethel. Well, the actress is pretty so I’m glad to see her.</p>
<p>I really liked last night’s episode. We watched it right after a couple of interesting Mad Men episodes (end of season 2). Between Betty shutting out Don and Cora shutting out Robert, the men of great tv were really taking a beating last night! </p>
<p>Downton Season 3 came in for me at the library tonight so I have to decide if want to watch the rest of the new season now or wait for each week’s new episode. I have absolutely no patience for once a week after watching the first two seasons back to back in a week. </p>
<p>I like Anna and will be happy when Bates is back and they can get on with their life together. Daisy and her FIL are so sweet. I like the way they are portraying that relationship.</p>
<p>Thomas… no matter what happens with him, I just cannot muster any sympathy or good feelings for him. I actually am liking O’Brien more and more. Carson’s facial expressions and mannerisms last night were hilarious.</p>
<p>I think it would be an interesting twist if after some time passes, Bates does or says something which causes Anna to realize he actually did kill Vera.</p>
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<p>We’ve discussed that. Prison has been restorative for him. I’m actually glad they didn’t make prison as grim as it could have been. I want to see the pretty clothes and pretty houses, not Edwardian prison.</p>
<p>I noticed that the prisoners all are wearing matching pants, coats, shirts and VESTS (all buttoned up). they are grimy and worn, but suit-like, nonetheless. :)</p>
<p>I saw an interview with the costume designer, and she said that they were unable to make all the prison uniforms themselves, so they gathered what they could from various sources (she didn’t say where - maybe other sets?) and made them work. She said they aren’t all period appropriate, but since it’s prison, they weren’t going to be picky. I guess even in prison, a man must wear a suit. Anything else would be - undignified? </p>
<p>And I think Bates is still limping. It’s just that he doesn’t have his cane, so it’s less noticeable. But then, he couldn’t have a cane in prison, could he?</p>
<p>When I saw Edith’s editor in the previews I nearly jumped off the couch because I thought it was Colin Firth! My daughter disagreed with me and we rewound it a couple of times. I still think it’s Colin but she doesn’t. Imdb doesn’t list DA under Colin’s filmography so maybe she’s right. I’d love it if he had a cameo!</p>
<p>I’m later than usual to this thread this week. Not due to the Superbowl - I missed that too. But becasue I was traveling.</p>
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<p>What I thought was even odder was the reverend’s appalling rudeness in making anti-Catholic remarks with a Catholic member of his host’s family sitting right there at the table with him. That was so odd and rude that it seemed completely unbeleiveable to me.</p>
<p>New topic - for a series that strives so hard to for historical accuracy in the costumes and technology of the times, the scripts often have a surprising number of anachronistic words and phrases in them. A striking example occurred in this last episode when Matthew said something about a “steep learning curve.” That really jarred on my ears as way out of place. I don’t think I ever heard to term “learning curve” used prior to about the 1980s. It’s more modern business-speak than anything else.</p>
<p>Learning curve was a term coined in the 19th century by pioneers in the field of psychology–although I have no idea when in entered ordinary vernacular.</p>
<p>[Downton</a> Abbey Facebook Recap Season 3 Episode 5 | Happy Place](<a href=“http://www.happyplace.com/21079/downton-abbey-facebook-recap-season-3-episode-5]Downton”>http://www.happyplace.com/21079/downton-abbey-facebook-recap-season-3-episode-5)</p>
<p>Here’s the latest Downton on Facebook episode. :)</p>
<p>I looked up the term “learning curve.” It was first described in 1885, then used from 1934 on in psychology. (Just" learning curve", not “steep learning curve.”) In the NY Times, “learning curve” was used once in 1938, then not again till 1968. The first use of “steep learning curve” was 1978. So this use in Downton was not appropriate to the time period. Matthew should have said, “I have much to learn in a short time.” Or something that sounds like the era.</p>
<p>The expression I couldn’t stand was Lavinia saying to Isobel, “Any bride who doesn’t suck up to her mother-in-law should have her head examined.” Approximate quotation; it’s the “suck up to” expression that just floored me. I have always thought that is a really rude expression and strongly discouraged its use in my house. But I have looked that up twice now, and apparently it isn’t beyond belief. It is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1860 as schoolboy slang, and then again in 1905. I still think Lavinia had better manners than to use that phrase with her future mom-in-law.</p>
<p>I actually like something about Thomas, he has layers. I like the play with Hughes and Carson, they mirror some of the upstairs interactions between the women and men. I am glad Bates if Bates gets out. I wonder if he and Anna will have a child.
In Call the midwife, women had so many children until birth control came about, and the midwives were not needed as much. Then we got TV so then people had somthing else to do with their time.
I keep thinking how boring it all must have been,I have read books on Florence Nightingale, and the life was like watching paint dry if you had a brain cell.</p>
<p>thanks patsmom, keep those coming–this one lit-rally had me in stitches!!</p>
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<p>This is the reason my English father won’t watch the show. Actually, that and some historical inaccuracies that don’t have to do with grammar.</p>
<p>I am SURE Lavinia would not have used the expression “suck up,” or anything involving the “S” word by itself. I have been surprised over the years at how even the most common American phrases elicit a negative reaction from some of my relatives–who are far from the aristocratic class of the Crawleys and their peers.</p>