A curious photo of a man found buried at Pompeii, coated in volcanic ash in 79 AD. The English Metro newspaper (a freesheet) has a story wondering if he was masturbating. Probably not, says a volcanologist. The high temperatures tended to contort the victims in odd ways. So far, so unremarkable. What took me aback was the number of expressions for masturbation the paper managed to work into the text accompanying the picture, some quotes from Twitter posts. "A crafty one off the wrist as all around you burns", "jacking it", "cranking his hog".
In my day newspapers observed a certain tasteful reticence about this and allied topics. But no more, it seems.
Interesting - I'm sorta sad I never got to Pompeii or Herculaneum.. Amused re the photo for my own fanciful conjectures. Re journalism as a mass of either excellent behavior or horrible misrepresentations, I'd have to throw dice.
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centrox
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Tue 4 Jul, 2017 01:46 pm
I think maybe some British journalists are a bit juvenile. I once saw a story in the London Daily Telegraph about a Church of England (Episcopal) bishop who had allegedly had a little too much wine at a reception and fell out of a taxi onto the sidewalk. The headline read ""After the Irish embassy bash, the bishop has a party at home". I was a bit taken aback at the use of 'bash', a slang term for party, until I realised the reporter or sub editor had ingeniously managed to include 'bash the bishop' in the headline.
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edgarblythe
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Tue 4 Jul, 2017 03:04 pm
He looks to me like he was playing air guitar to Johnny B Goode.
Thank you. It was going to be Rome but I changed it.
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Region Philbis
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Wed 5 Jul, 2017 03:27 am
@edgarblythe,
or perhaps it was Great Balls of Fire...
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centrox
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Wed 5 Jul, 2017 10:41 am
Even if he wasn't beating the meat, he could have been instinctively protecting his manly parts. I have heard of soldiers instinctively clutching their balls when under fire. Anyhow, his arm position could have been caused by the heat after he died.
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Blickers
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Wed 5 Jul, 2017 08:54 pm
@saab,
Quote saab:
Quote:
A man died under horrible circumstances and journalists make fun of it.
Shame on them.
I admire your empathy. They were human beings and being covered with lava is indeed a horrible thing. For some reason, horrible things seem less horrible with the passage of time.
Except for those two bratty English princes who got done away with. For some reason, people are still walking around all upset about that.
Richard may have hoped that the problem of the two little boys may simply have disappeared. They did, but the problem didn’t. It is still raging, over five centuries later.
Folks over there are still raging about those princes.
Speak for yourself. I had a rage about them the other night, as there wasn't much on the telly.
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Blickers
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Thu 6 Jul, 2017 04:34 pm
The thing that is surprising about Pompeii is that apparently lava doesn't flow that fast. There had a volcano erupt in Italy in the early to mid twentieth century and they had pics of the people walking away from the town as the lava came down. Everybody got out, because the lava traveled so slowly.
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