"At Home"

[fiefoe]

In this book, Bill Bryson never met a digression he didn't like to pursue.

The first part of the book is a bit scattered, as it leaps from now to 1851 to neolithic times and back.

• Twenty thousand dead in the graveyard raised it three feet, giving the church next to it a sunken look.
• Home isn't a refuge from history but where it ends up.
• Phallic pendant (causing) the same look of consternation by its finder.
• Crystal Palace was built in merely 5 months.
• Paxton: the prodigy was hired for his strong clear voice by Duke of Devonshire who was hard of hearing; his work inspired Olmsted's Central Park; invested in railways so well he ended up on the board of these railway companies;
• The Great Exhibition idea came from Cole, who also invented Christmas cards to boost the sales of penny postage.
• The many-interested vicar/ rector class: Malthus/author of Tristam Shandy/breeder of Jack Russel/inventor of the power loom
• At the start of sedantrinism, farming set back people's height by 4 inches; hunter-gatherers actually ate better.
• Human population in neolithic time was very low; whole of Europe had less than 20,000 (?).
• the wonder of corn cultivation
• People learned to make striped fabric before thinking of doors and windows.
• V. Gordon Childe
• Furniture was first made to be moved around, (hence mobilia in Italian) and the domed lids over chests are so to let water slide off.
• board being the most simple 'lap table' -> 'room & board'
• Benches (think 'banquet') came before chairs.