Oh What A Time... - #67 Complaining (Part 2)

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

This week we’re looking at how the art of complaining has evolved over history. You’ll hear the evidence of people having a moan in Ancient Babylonia, Pliny the Younger and his tear-ups with his pal Septicius Clarus, plus.. how medieval scribes expressed a displeasure with their lot.  And the big conversation that’s got the nation thinking this week: could anyone feasibly build a house out of Chomps? I’m sure you’ll have thoughts on this subject so please do send them in: [e-mail] If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - two bonus episodes every month! - ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - 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 also 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). Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's get on with it. Right, I'm taking you back to ancient Rome. One evening in 97 AD, Pliny the Younger sat down and wrote a playfully, and that's an important word, playfully furious and angry letter to his mate, again, that's important, they're friends, right? Septicius Clarus, I think I'm pronouncing that properly, an ambitious member of the Praetorian Guard. So Clarus had promised to join Pliny for dinner, but apparently he'd failed to show up. What a fellow you are, Pliny said, as he began, before continuing, you must pay the money I am out to pocket, and you will find the sum no small one. I'd provided for each guest Before continuing... expensive dainties. You would have listened to a comedian or a reciter or a heart player or perhaps to all as I'm such a lavish host. But you prefer to dine elsewhere where I know not and to watch Spanish dancing girls. You'll be paid

out for it though how I decline to say you've done violence to yourself, you've grudged, possibly yourself but certainly me a fine treat. Yes yourself. But how we should have enjoyed ourselves, how we should have enjoyed ourselves, how we should have laughed together, how we should have applied ourselves. You can dine at many houses and better style than at mine, but nowhere will you have a better time. Or such a simple and free and easy entertainment inshore. Give me a trial and if afterwards you do not prefer to excuse yourself to others rather than to me, why then I give you leave to decline my invitations always.

Farewell. a dumpster truck. Yeah, it's that guy. But Pinney and Clarus, right, they had the kind of friendship that allowed for this kind of complaining. So they're basically taking the piss. There was no risk of being ghosted or they wouldn't be sub-tweeted or cut off. Yep. So, you know, he was probably… It's WhatsApp banter. It's basically, yeah, it's basically the group chat. But the group chat from 2000 years ago. Plinneas has left the group chat. But the group chat from 2000 years ago.

Plinyas has left the group. At 1am. Hoping he'd slip out unnoticed. Or on Plinyas. Because I went to watch Wales play Turkey in the football in the Nations League a couple of weeks ago and I was with my friend Yestyn who is an expert in medieval Welsh literature and he was talking to me about these two poets, these famous poets, Griffith Abshankin and David Abedmond, right? And for years they've been writing these really explicit and quite nasty poems to each other. And for years and years, academics and lecturers had read these and assumed that they absolutely loathed each other. But the modern interpretation is actually they were mates. And it was basically the group chat, but 500 years ago. So they would take the piss out of each other's testicles

and stuff. And take the piss out of each other's dicks and things. So like 60 or 70 years ago, academics were like, my god, they had a big issue with each other. But then if you interpret it like it's the group chat, it's suddenly a completely different thing. Mason- Is that happening to you in your group chat, Al? Al- No, no. But I'm aware that- Mason- That's not okay. If someone's taking the piss out of your penis and testicles all the time. You need to leave that... That's not okay. If someone's taking the piss out of your penis and testicles all the time.

You need to leave that group because that's not, that's toxic. It's great banter though, I love it. I love it, it's good. Every time I open my phone there's another, oh yeah, there's another text about my testicles. It's so funny, I love it. So we can all identify with it, can't we? It's so similar to what happens now. Yeah, this is good stuff. So we can all identify with it, can't we? It's so similar to what happens now.

Yeah. This is good stuff. They're my friends, Tom, and I'm glad. But no, that's amazing. I love the fact that there is that sort of... As you read it out, there's lots of really funny lines in there. It's like the idea of snow melting away. It's like, yeah, it's great. It's really funny. It would make me laugh. Also, you know, he's talking about drunken debauchery rather than refined dining and philosophical discussion that you might have had at some dinner parties. But if you look at the other letters in Pliny's archive, he was a lawyer, magistrate, later governor of the northern Anatolian province of Bithynia where he died in 113 AD. Rather than Clarus

who was a soldier, this is another example of something you wrote, you say that certain people have found fault with me in your presence. Well, I plead guilty. Who are they to profess to know my friends better than I do? And if they do know them better, why should they grudge me so happy a delusion? So let these good people, and I'm sure that not many of them, who think it shows good judgment to carp at their mates, transfer them elegant zeal to others, for they will never persuade me into thinking that I love my friends too as well. Farewell." So it's just, he never would have thought that these were going to be read, two thousand years hence.

Of course, yeah. But he was, you know, he was writing all this stuff down, and he was encouraged by Clarice to maintain this record for posterity. So you've got quite a good sense of just how often Romans of his position and his period complained about each other, about events, about their tenants, and also really mundane things like work. Will Barron And also what it suggests, El, is that if they are kept as a record, the time and care

and thought that would have gone into the language, the poetry, it's not just something which would be, you know, it's clearly someone who's enjoying this, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And I think it was probably seen as an intellectual exercise. Exactly, yeah. So it speaks to that, doesn't it, really? So in one letter Pliny wrote to his friend, the general and consul, Cotillius Severus, to ask for news. Well, I've told you my fears, my hopes, my future plans. It's now your turn to write and tell me what you've been doing, and I hope your letter will be more a cheerful one than mine. If you've got nothing to complain about, it'll be no small consolation to me.

But like he loved gossip. So he wrote one letter and he said, I've received your letter in which you complain how offensive to you a really magnificent banquet was, owing to the fact that they were buffoons, dancers and jesters going round from table to table. Oh, will you never relax that severe frown of yours even a little? So he's basically taken abyss at this guy for not being more of a laugh. So, you, you know, so this is the final one I'll read. When a reader or a musician or a comedian enters the banqueting room, how many there are who call for their shoes or lie back on their couches just as completely bored as you were when you endured what you describe as those monstrosities.

Let us then make allowances for what pleases other people so that we may induce others to make allowances for us. So effectively, I don't want to bring your terrible gig at Bournemouth Jongers back into it, Tom. He's basically telling those people on the dance floor, leave the guy alone. He's a better podcaster than he is a stand-up. He's better in a writer's room than he is doing stand-up in front of a lot of hens and stags in Bournemouth.

Mason Go and see him at a new material night where he's working through an idea. He's a bit looser. Will Barron Yeah. When he's a bit looser, a bit more relaxed, that's when he really thrives. Mason Yeah. That last comment actually about him looking bored, it's interesting. That sort of tips over. You can feel that feels a little bit more of a character assassination. There's an edge in that one, isn't there, as well? Will Barron

It's just the letters I got shown by these two medieval Welsh poets, because yes, he texted me sort of copies of some of them with modern translations because they're written in medieval Welsh. And it is at points quite puerile, but quite cruel. But if you read it knowing that they're friends, it's a completely different thing. And that's obviously what's so hard about reading if you're looking at sources or source materialists thousands of years old, you don't know the relationship between these people. Yeah, exactly. And so it's difficult then to work out what the incentive of the author was.

In the same way if we looked at the WhatsApp groups you were in, Elton, it's the constant photos of Photoshop, the swearing, the voice notes about how awful you are. You can easily refer to that as bullying. People would assume I had an enormous medical problem with my down below's. It's just a lot of testicle stuff. It's just a lot of testicle stuff. But it's not that. It's just lighthearted fun. It's lighthearted fun and I'm glad that I love it. Okay, today I'm going to talk to you both about the stresses of being a medieval scribe

and the sort of complaints that they had to deal with. So kind of an open question, I suppose, is do you imagine being a medieval scribe to be a tough job or do you imagine that to be quite an easy job in the context of medieval times. What are you thinking? Not knowing much about it. Currently, before you furnish me with some details, I'm thinking that's the job for me. Sitting at a desk. Quill. Pot of ink. Sandwich for lunch. No problem. I bet it's very monastery based. Yeah, I can handle that. I reckon you are in there in a damp, wet, cold monastery. It's all damp, mate.

Yeah, it's all damp. All right, yeah, I'll give you that. Candle light. Well, actually, it was a lot of sort of like breakout rooms with bean bags and standing desks and that. Table football. The Guardian offices. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Do you know what it's like working at Google? Yeah, they'd bring around the drinks trolley on a Friday. Yeah, it's a bit like the Guardian offices. Exactly, yeah. Do you know what it's like working at Google? Yeah, they'd bring around the drinks trolley on a Friday. Yeah, it's a bit like Spotify actually. You really laid back. You could wear what you want. So a lot of the early medieval texts refer to hot desking as a thing. That was one of the big things.

Open plan monasteries. That's why they're so big, Chris. That's why these cathedrals are so huge, is because they were open plan. That's what it was. But they then introduced small dividers for a bit. They tried that and they thought, it's not working. Let's open it out. Let's let the monks see each other. Hey man, if you're feeling rough, just do 10 minutes on your headspace app. Thanks, man.

They famously, didn't they, knock a load of the cloisters away and tried to rebuild the columns with chomps. Didn't they try that once? Yeah, that was one of the great mistakes. That was actually the disillusion of the monastery. The chompestry as they called it back then. Well, you suggest it's not that tough a job. Well, the things that are written about it by the people that did it would suggest otherwise. They had to sort of hunch over desk, as you would imagine.

They had their scratchy quills in hand. Oh come on. Is that it? These quills are a bit scratchy. Yeah, grow up. Come on. If you can imagine how smooth a rollerball is, it was far harder. Like a gel pen from WH Smiths. But we've all used a sort of dodgy barrow, and that can be quite stressful. They wrote out long manuscripts with these scratchy quills,

and crucially they desperately spent their time trying to not make mistakes. Expensive mistakes. Now this is the first real stressor, because making a mistake must have been such a ball ache, because it would have meant restarting the page again after you've just spent 45 minutes on an ornate colour colourful capital F to start the sentence. Will Barron Yeah, like a massive R. Will Barron You've spent all morning on your big R. Will Barron Yeah. I think the art would be to write the body of the text and then at the end, add the big letter R. Surely that's the way round. Will Barron And then you're 700 years away from TIPEX. Will Barron Yeah. So mistakes were an issue. And because it was such a trying job generally, because they were constantly having to restart throughout

the medieval period, there are, this is what's so fascinating, loads of little messages from the people that wrote them that reflect the day-to-day experiences of their job. It captures not just their name, but also their feelings about the tasks they were being forced or being paid to undertake. For example, at the end of one eighth century manuscript, this is what the scribe writes, he says, he who does not know how to write does not think that it is labor. Three fingers right, but the whole body labours. Whoever has read this book, pray for me." So that's what it says at the end of this manuscript.

Will Barron Do you know what? Occasionally I was in, where was I? I would have been somewhere like York and there was a load of graffiti from the 18th and 19th centuries. And I am, I love that stuff. And I was somewhere by Tower Bridge, by the Thames, and there was, on a down little alleyway, graffiti from the 1700s. Because that is real life. Mason- Exactly. Will Barron- I absolutely love that because it's so authentic. That's what that person really thought. Mason- Entirely. And this authentic irritation comes up time and time again, Al. It's across the

next few centuries as well. It's always expressed in really similar terms. For example, here's what another scribe wrote. He wrote, writing is excessive drudgery. It crooks your back, it dims your sight, it twists your stomach and your side. And as a writer myself, I know their pain. I had to buy an ergonomic chair last year, that's how tough my job is. Will Barron I reckon it would be quite boring. Neil Milliken Yes. Will Barron It's not even creative. You're not even

writing the stuff yourself, you're just copying out. Neil Milliken Or you're being dictated to and you're having to write it down perfectly. But the life of the scribe is not only stressful because of back pain. The people who commissioned the manuscripts and those who read them could also be a nightmare and I love this. In fact, readers of these long medieval manuscripts would often add their own comments in the margins for other people to read. We've all met that executive producer. But what do you mean? Like in a library?

Yes. So on these original documents, which obviously were very important because it took so long to write a manuscript, it would have cost money and time. People would still write these notes in the margins about the quality of the work and their thoughts on it. For example, one reader read in the side of a medieval manuscript, this book is so wrecked by the fault of the scribe that it may not be corrected by anyone. It's quite painful if you're going back into your own work and someone's written that. Feels a bit needless. Also, now this is a potential one for a what a shame slash corrections corner.

or, oh what a shame, slash, corrections corner. I was told when I was at school that in English, which isn't spelled phonetically obviously, silent Ds, silent Ks, silent Ps, etc. That is because medieval scribes were paid by the inch. Oh really? And so they were chucking on these extra letters so that they had more work to do and they could be paid more. Now that is what I was told when I was at school. No way! By my English teacher. I don't know if this is true or not. So if that is true, let us know. If it isn't true, do also let us know. But I do want everyone to know that I am not saying that's a fact. That's a potentially misremembered

fact. This behaviour though, this sort of criticism was also indulged in by the great writers of the time. For example, Geoffrey Chaucer was known to consistently slam his personal scribe. He had this guy called Adam who wrote out Chaucer's dictation. Chaucer's not doing his own scribing? Nope. He had a scribe called Adam and Chaucer complained of his negligence and haste, which feels a bit harsh, and even wrote a poem about how rubbish Adam

was at his job. Bloody hell. I'm doing work! Imagine doing a job and your boss thinks you're so crap that he writes a poem about how crap you are at your job. Also, you know, it's back-breaking because they're hunched over the parchment or the document and you're a good 700 years away from the sports physio. Yes. So there's nothing you can do about it.

You're not going to get your back cracked, are you? By someone who's once won the books at Crystal Palace. Will Barron What is the process there then? So is Chaucer telling Adam what to write? Is he writing it down like, is he just scrabbling it down? Adam Boulton Yes. By hand he's scribing it down onto manuscript. That's exactly it.

Will Barron It's going straight into manuscript. so he's not making notes. That's crazy. That's exactly what it would be, completely. And as I say, according to Chaucer, he complained of his negligence and haste. So Chaucer, despite employing this guy regularly, was not happy and told him so. But Adam, he got off lightly, really. Other scribes were beaten, they were schooled for mistakes, attacked, berated, dismissed or they were whipped for producing sloppy or slow work. So, you can now start to get a picture of what this was like. It wasn't simply back pain. You'd also get attacked by the people that were paying you to do this work if you

didn't do it perfectly. However, it wasn't only one way traffic and I really like this. Scribes would sometimes get their own back by leaving notes in their manuscripts explaining why the work wasn't perfect. These are all genuine excuses that were given by medieval scribes and written in their manuscripts as to why the manuscript wasn't perfect. What I want to know is which of these excuses could you see yourself sort of grabbing hold of and claiming? So here's one. New parchment badding, I say nothing more. Oh, 100%. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is what I really like. I'm doing that on morning one of day one of my new job. God, this parchment's a bit shit. That's why I blame this quill, that's the phrase, isn't it? Now, this next one, you need to understand that parchment was made from animal skins. The comment simply says, the parchment is hairy. Oh, God. You'd think they'd sort that out.

But that is no different to Microsoft Word playing them. Yes. And they're like, oh, and it's, oh, god, it's inserting a tab. Why is that happening here? Can you imagine? Can you imagine you're sat there waiting to describe and they go, oh, waiting for the parchment tab. Oh, parchment's here. You get it out and it's like hairy and it's like maybe got a mole on it or something like that. You're like, guys. Yeah. You're getting the shaving cream out the Gillette. Yeah. Imagine about it. You're not paid for this. I'm not paid to bloody sheath it. Yeah, exactly. The waxing strips.

Yeah, bloody hell. Sure. So look at his wristwatch just over your shoulder. God, this is taking the piss. Other scribes complained about the environment. Here's one, a medieval scribe, it's another thing they wrote. While I wrote, I froze. And what I could not write by the beams of the sun, I finished by candlelight. So there you are Chris, they are sat in a cold environment, often under candlelight, just like freezing their ass off, struggling to get this stuff done. Another scribe simply writes, a curse on the O-pen, so he's just blaming the pen. And the

final one says, I cut my finger and I lost as much blood as a sheep. So they write these things, but they are also adding notes as to why they're not nailing it. Other things they used to moan about, they would kind of moan about the challenges of writing with quills that were intended for right-handed people. I really like that. So basically quills work better when they're pulled by the right hand rather than pushed by the left. Will Barron You're left-handed, so you'll know all about that. Will Barron So I would have been one of these moaning scribes

had I lived back then. But there is a difference. Will Barron But I remember my mate was left-handed. My son is left-handed. And he would occasionally smudge his work. Will Barron Yes. Absolutely. I used to do that with fountain pens. Will Barron Yeah, with fountain pens. There is something in that. Will Barron Yeah, completely.

Will Barron It's just you would think that you wouldn't go into it if you were left-handed. You'd think you'd find out before the application process that it was going to be a ball ache and you'd do something else. I don't think you can get away with being a left-handed medieval scribe. Why not? The ink is not drying in time. Yeah, smudging that beautiful capital R you were talking about. With your sleeve just dragging it across everything else. Do you think that is why people are more right-handed than left-handed? Because through these various generations of scribes, people have just been right-handed.

Just with the stress of the quill. The stress of the quill. People were encouraged to write with a right hand for years. Yes, that's true. So I think it's about 10% of people are left handed and left footed. Will I think my mother-in-law was saying when she was at school you'd basically get whacked on the hand if you wrote with the wrong hand.

Will Absolutely mad. Will There was such a push for you to write in a right handed way that you would be admonished for that. Will My son's colouring in and someone whacked him on the hand because he was using his left hand. I'd be like, are you nuts? What's wrong with you? Will But there are even better excuses. Sometimes these scribes would blame their pets. And once again, these are all real notes left

in medieval manuscripts. I really like this one. Cursed be the pesky cat that urinated over this book during the night. I think that was the scribe that was caught short. He's got up in the middle of the night after a few beers. Will Barron This is very relatable to me. Mason Vick Is it? Will Barron Yeah. Chaucer is basically the exec who's told you off for writing something and you think, well, maybe you try it then. The cat, I mean, I often, sometimes my cat purrs on podcasts and it's got to be edited

out. This is all stuff I can relate to. So could you see your cats peeing on your manuscripts? You could see that as a possibility? No, because obviously we live in the litter tray age. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is pre-litter tray. They're more likely to chew on them if they like animal skin. Wouldn't that buy its smell nice? I don't know. Might smell like it's edible. There are two other animal notes here. One scribe says that the flies suck on the ink. And another one, and this is my favourite, simply wrote, that the flies suck on the ink. And another one, and this

is my favourite, simply wrote, a mouse urinated on the margin. That's all he's written at the bottom. It's a funny note to write at the bottom. And one final way they would vocalise their complaints was by venting about the text they were being commissioned to write out. Now this is the sort of the uber slam. Now bearing in mind the person who you're writing this for is also the person who's paid you. One scribe tasked with copying something by Thomas Aquinas was so bored that he got to the final full stop and then added this. Here ends the second part. Very long, very verbose and very tedious. Thank God, thank God and thank God again.

That is hilarious. So he's been paid to write out this work by Thomas Aquinas and at the end has said, thank God it's over. Imagine you've written a book, it's gone to the publisher, you go to Waterstones, you pick up your first novel and at the end the person who's typed it out from you has written, thank God that's over. That's hilarious. It was so tedious. It's kind of like a director's commentary, isn't it? Yeah.

Do you know what though? Like I wrote a book with John a few years ago. So A, we had to have it sent off to a proofreader and B, we had to send off to a solicitor so they could check it for legal things. And the notes, we did a tour of that book and we read out the notes because it was so funny. It was things, you know, lots of legal advice on whether jokes were suitable or not. It was very funny, but I remember thinking, that's that person's job. Yes.

To read books, but not for pleasure, as a solicitor to see if you're brick-in-the-lawn anyway. And also, if you're a proofreader, you're just checking for commas and apostrophes and all that kind of stuff. Mason- Absolutely. I would be terrible at it. But what you were mentioning earlier, Elves, is the final point. You're right. I think what's so interesting about all of these complaints and all these notes, be it Babylonian times, be it medieval scribes, whatever it happens to be, you're right. It is capturing the experience of the person who is living it in such a direct and sort of unfiltered way.

Love it. This is literally someone's emotions poured onto the page. Someone who was sat in a monastery in the freezing cold with his cat having just pissed on his work. It is capturing their raw emotions that we can still read now, you know, these many centuries later. I would gladly buy a book that was a compilation of these notes. I would find it so interesting. That would be an amazing coffee table book. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what? As well, it must be, if you're that lonely scribe in the monastery in the dark, it must be such a wonderful outlet to know that you can write this stuff.

It's kind of like the Big Brother diary room, but for many, he was scribes. But for many he was scribes. Well they refer to themselves as brothers as well don't they Munks? That's their thing. Dear Fourteen. In the Geoffrey Chaucer house. I've written out the country be Tears longhand. Still on the massive C at the beginning. Can't wait to get onto the A. This is really slow work. Well that's it for complaining. We loved that. I enjoyed that.

Such a fun subject. Absolutely loved it. Also it's really good to be back as well. Thank you for bearing with us during that break. It's really fun to be back. We've got some really good subjects coming up actually. I think it's going to be a good year ahead. If you have any ideas for anything you want us to talk about, any historical subjects, do get in contact on hello at owatertime.com. And for £4.99 a month you can become an O What A Time full-timer where you'll get bonus episodes every month, you'll get first dibs on live tickets, you'll get parts one and two every week together in one lovely lump ad-free. Lots of lovely reasons.

But please don't leave your authentic complaints like a medieval scribe. As much as I love authenticity, I don't like things to be that authentic. Yeah, absolutely. If you must leave feedback, make it five stars and leave it on the podcast app. Thank you so much guys, see you soon, take care. Bye!. You spent. 18 T customers switching the T Mobile has never been easier. We'll pay off your existing phone and give you a new one free all the

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