The lip balm with the “less than savory” name…

That’s right – Cat Crap™ brand lip balm. You can get it here. The name is where the resemblance to that other odoriferous substance ends – this product is described as “minty.” You may read user reviews, here.

This, in turn, is a spin off of Cat Crap™ anti-fog lens cleaner.

A Slop on King Arthur

While we’re on the subject of Medieval/Renaissance sanitation (or, more accurately, the lack thereof), let’s watch a classic clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, wherein there’s some lovely acting, and where, near the end of the clip, a French person dumps a pot of crap on King Arthur and his hapless kaaaaaaanigget companion, Sir Bedomir–

In Days of Olde…

…the shit ran freely in the streets.

An excerpt from Christine A. Powell’s excellent online essay, “A Matter of Convenience”–

In Renaissance Scotland, the housewives threw their chamberpot contents and slops out the windows with the cry “Gardy Loo!” (This evidently derived from the French “Gardez l’eau,” meaning “Look out for the water!”) Unfortunately, the sound of the cry and the discarded material often arrived simultaneously. Woe to the one who looked up to see what was happening. It is believed that this may be the origin of the British term “loo” for a toilet (Pudney, 28-9). The high-rises of Edinburgh were hardly the only places in Europe to present a sanitation problem during this era.

Indeed, the period from 1550 to 1750 has been called the “two rather insanitary centuries.” When the court of Charles II spent the summer of 1665 in Oxford, the local diarist Anthony Wood observed they were “nasty and beastly, leaving at their departure their excrements in every corner, in chimneys, studies, coalhouses, [and] cellars.” Contemporary accounts and engravings frequently illustrate the morning ritual in English and Scottish cities of emptying one’s ordure out of upper-floor windows into the streets beneath (Wright, 75-8). It was not until the mid-1800s, when Dr. John Snow proved the connection between cholera and sewage-polluted drinking water, that cities began to control their waste (Colman, 46). There is no reason to suppose that Port Royal and other contemporary cities in the colonies were any cleaner than those in Europe during the “insanitary centuries.” (source)

Daisies: Beautiful Toe-Jam Flowers

And particularly “toe-jammie” is the Shasta Daisy, “Alaska” variety, common in flower gardens the world over. This large and lustrous botanical gem was given to us by the pioneer American horticulturist and botanist, Luther Burbank. Read excerpts from Burbank’s short monograph “The Shasta Daisy: How a Troublesome Weed was Remade into a Beautiful Flower”.

That should be “a beautiful, stinky flower.”

In all fairness, not every variety of Shasta Daisy reeks. There are some of the “Esther Reed” variety growing in my garden, and they don’t have any fragrance at all.