And the youth of today think they have it hard.....

[Polarbear]

https://i.postimg.cc/RCjcgjHB/hungover.jpg

I'm not quite old enough to have experienced this but I've slept in some pretty bad places in my nefarious past.
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Triumph Trophy Launch Edition

[Riejufixing]

I don't think I believe that (after a look around on the 'net). Still, it's a funny story. Seriously, though drinking too much is damaging and sinful.

[MCN]

[Ste]

Fake rope.

From Dennis J Hudson, London: A Sunday newspaper article recently claimed that hangover has nothing to do with alcohol but refers to Victorian workhouses, in which inmates slept by draping their arms over a stretched-out rope which they ‘hung over’ as it supported them. Is there any truth in this?

A None whatsoever, but it’s yet another good example of people jumping to completely the wrong conclusion on the basis of knowing a bit of esoteric information.

There really was once a sleeping system like that. The principal reference I have for it is George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London of 1933: “At the Twopenny Hangover, the lodgers sit in a row on a bench; there is a rope in front of them, and they lean on this as though leaning over a fence. A man, humorously called the valet, cuts the rope at five in the morning. I have never been there myself, but Bozo had been there often. I asked him whether anyone could possibly sleep in such an attitude, and he said that it was more comfortable than it sounded — at any rate, better than bare floor.” It’s mentioned in a work of a century earlier, The Magic Skin by Honor de Balzac, which was translated into English by Ellen Marriage in 1895: “We ... made it a point of honour to find out whether you were roosting in a tree in the Champs-Elyses, or in one of those philanthropic abodes where the beggars sleep on a twopenny rope.”

The connection sounds pretty convincing, with Orwell actually using hangover to describe the method. But the historical evidence for the word in the alcoholic sense shows that it’s from the idea of something that remains or is left over — a remainder or survival or after-effect — not of a person literally being hung over anything.

Several subscribers have since told me that the same story has also been advanced as the supposed origin of to be able to sleep on a clothesline, meaning to be so utterly tired one could sleep anywhere. There might be an association here, though it’s impossible to be sure. But the image behind sleeping on a clothesline is that one lies along it, as in a very thin hammock, being too dead tired to move about and so fall off. It seems not to fit the situation.

More folk etymologies vanquished!

https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-han4.htm

[Polarbear]

[Ste]

Wiki says...

"The Salvation Army operated other homeless shelters in the area. These shelters charged the clients different amounts depending on the amenities offered. At the low end was a penny sit-up, where a homeless client could get food and shelter from the cold in exchange for a penny. He was allowed to sit on a bench all night, but was not allowed to sleep. For an additional penny, there was the "two penny hangover". It was like a penny sit-up except that a rope was placed in front of the bench. The client was allowed to sleep when he leaned on (or hung over) the rope during the night. He was not allowed to lie down flat on his back and sleep. For four pennies, a homeless client could stay at a coffin house."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_penny_coffin

[bhinso]

Not enough BAME in that photo

Is that casual racism, or could it be that BAME had better standards of living back then?

[Ste]

As it's a photo of privileged white people sleeping, doesn't that mean it would have been taken by one of their BAME slaves?