Time travel is a favourite subject here at Squeamish Bikini, one of our resident contributors is quite the Doctor Who expert, another fancies herself a history buff and the rest of us just think it could be a bit of a wheeze. But what would we actually do with time travel? Could you be happy just as a time travel tourist? Or would you smuggle a sports almanac to your younger self, Biff style in Back to the Future? Or go back in time and wow the people of the 1840s with your song writing skills courtesy of Lennon and McCartney? Maybe we wouldn’t be calling the vacuum a Hoover but a… Grundy (or whatever your surname is). ‘Get the Grundy out, there’s dust everywhere!’ We might find ourselves suddenly saying, thanks to your cleaning product based time travel. So here is our Friday 5 question, if you could go back in time what would you take credit for? Come on, it can’t be worse than stepping on a bug at the dawn of time.
1. Ah, this is something I spend a lot of time thinking about. This subject easily occupies about a third of my daily thoughts. It’s taking the “I wish I’d said that” regret rather far and is dependent on being able to gauge a time where the zeitgeist is right for the product or art you’d be nickin’ the credit for would be successful. For instance I couldn’t go back to 1659 and insist the mini skirt was my invention, that’s too soon. Come 1668 and Nell Gwyn’s sponsorship we could be discussing the Restoration mini skirt right now. Really though it would be easier to negotiate a more familiar time and instead I’d go meet my 16 year old self with an award-winning script from the future (“yeah I wrote this…I’m just really, really precocious”) and the rest would be Oscar winning history. Squeamish Kate
2. Ok so I am going out on a limb here and going back in time to allow you all to truly see yourself. Yes, for I am the creator of the modern mirror! You will no longer have to look into the dull surface of metal because I, Squeamish Nicola, not to be confused with a bunch of 16th Century Venetian glassmakers, found a better surface to reflect the image of your ugly mug in. Let the vanity ensue! Mercury and I have a lot of credit to take; imagine not being able to sort yourself out in the morning before you stepped out the front door? Without us you’d look a right mess. Van Gogh and a whole bunch of other dudes you like wouldn’t have been able to do their self-portraits. Leonardo da Vinci didn’t call my invention the "master of painters" for nothing. So I rule. You’re welcome. Squeamish Nicola
3. That’s easy – sliced bread, it’s clearly the best! However, if I was feeling noble rather than taking credit for an invention I’d go back and stop Thomas Edison taking credit for Nikola Tesla’s. Edison was a business man not an inventor – everything he ‘invented’ was actually created by his employees or swindled out of others (he conned Tesla out of $250,000 [in 1909! That’s millions in modern dollars] after he redesigned his generators, saying he’d been joking about paying him). Tesla is the father of the electric age, whereas Edison’s greatest achievement was electrocuting an elephant in order to prove that Tesla’s rival Alternating Current was deadly. Gareth
4. I don't know about going back in time to steal inventions/claim credit. That sounds like way too much effort for me. Nah, my get rich quick time travel scheme has always involved going back to [insert appropriate epoch here after doing some basic research... yeah right] and buying up all land within three miles of the Thames in what is now London. Then I will come back to the modern era and LONDON WILL BE MINE. I might do this for all of the major world capitals, thinking about it. World domination, here I come! F1 Kate
5. I would go back to 1880 where I would have been an influential employee of the Albany Perforated Wrapping Company in 1877, and where I invented modern day toilet paper.
Toilet paper of the recognisable variety was in fact invented in the 1400's by the chinese who had their sheets, that's sheets, made in 2 foot x 3 foot rolls. Since chinese times however we seemed to have taken a retrograde steps as demonstrated in 'Rears and Sorebutts' catalogue; nowadays one would expect the Andrex puppy to advertise more than the fact the paper was splinter free for example. Though air fresheners are not called that any longer; the ones in your loos are called motion detectors, so beware of any motion!
Even in 1960 there was still some ghastly thing called Izal. Yes it came on a roll (and also in sheets I believe), it had a cardboard tube and everything. Yet it was the consistency of tracing paper and was impregnated with some dreadful carbolicy discinfectant smell which you couldnt get rid of when washing your hands after scratching your nether regions to pieces before hand. It hung in pride of place in the outside loo at my grandparents house and was strictly rationed to two sheets per visit.
So I invite you to visit the Virtual Toilet Paper Museum, which threw its cubicle door open in 1999, where you will see me in pride of place representing APW, who just pipped Scotts Paper to the Pan, who were embarrassed to put their name to something used at the bottom end of the market. They probably got the best wipe at success in the end, becoming as they did, purveyors of two ply to the Waldorf Hotel. Squeamish Sue
2. Ok so I am going out on a limb here and going back in time to allow you all to truly see yourself. Yes, for I am the creator of the modern mirror! You will no longer have to look into the dull surface of metal because I, Squeamish Nicola, not to be confused with a bunch of 16th Century Venetian glassmakers, found a better surface to reflect the image of your ugly mug in. Let the vanity ensue! Mercury and I have a lot of credit to take; imagine not being able to sort yourself out in the morning before you stepped out the front door? Without us you’d look a right mess. Van Gogh and a whole bunch of other dudes you like wouldn’t have been able to do their self-portraits. Leonardo da Vinci didn’t call my invention the "master of painters" for nothing. So I rule. You’re welcome. Squeamish Nicola
3. That’s easy – sliced bread, it’s clearly the best! However, if I was feeling noble rather than taking credit for an invention I’d go back and stop Thomas Edison taking credit for Nikola Tesla’s. Edison was a business man not an inventor – everything he ‘invented’ was actually created by his employees or swindled out of others (he conned Tesla out of $250,000 [in 1909! That’s millions in modern dollars] after he redesigned his generators, saying he’d been joking about paying him). Tesla is the father of the electric age, whereas Edison’s greatest achievement was electrocuting an elephant in order to prove that Tesla’s rival Alternating Current was deadly. Gareth
4. I don't know about going back in time to steal inventions/claim credit. That sounds like way too much effort for me. Nah, my get rich quick time travel scheme has always involved going back to [insert appropriate epoch here after doing some basic research... yeah right] and buying up all land within three miles of the Thames in what is now London. Then I will come back to the modern era and LONDON WILL BE MINE. I might do this for all of the major world capitals, thinking about it. World domination, here I come! F1 Kate
5. I would go back to 1880 where I would have been an influential employee of the Albany Perforated Wrapping Company in 1877, and where I invented modern day toilet paper.
Toilet paper of the recognisable variety was in fact invented in the 1400's by the chinese who had their sheets, that's sheets, made in 2 foot x 3 foot rolls. Since chinese times however we seemed to have taken a retrograde steps as demonstrated in 'Rears and Sorebutts' catalogue; nowadays one would expect the Andrex puppy to advertise more than the fact the paper was splinter free for example. Though air fresheners are not called that any longer; the ones in your loos are called motion detectors, so beware of any motion!
Even in 1960 there was still some ghastly thing called Izal. Yes it came on a roll (and also in sheets I believe), it had a cardboard tube and everything. Yet it was the consistency of tracing paper and was impregnated with some dreadful carbolicy discinfectant smell which you couldnt get rid of when washing your hands after scratching your nether regions to pieces before hand. It hung in pride of place in the outside loo at my grandparents house and was strictly rationed to two sheets per visit.
So I invite you to visit the Virtual Toilet Paper Museum, which threw its cubicle door open in 1999, where you will see me in pride of place representing APW, who just pipped Scotts Paper to the Pan, who were embarrassed to put their name to something used at the bottom end of the market. They probably got the best wipe at success in the end, becoming as they did, purveyors of two ply to the Waldorf Hotel. Squeamish Sue
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