Wet Bath & Soppy Puns

"Bath: Where the water is best - because it stinks of sulphur!"
- Bath city motto

The pungent city of Bath is known for their baths of the Roman variety which were famed in ancient times for their holy association with the goddess Minerva and their healing powers.

The baths are now famous for their incredible variety of puffy moulds and number of hilarious tourists falling down dead after failing to read the "Do not drink or touch - Untreated water" signs.

The Romans/Early Britons/Some Unwashed Guys/King Arthur and Knights of Camelot, etc. who first discovered this steaming, stinking reddish swampy stream of smelly goo, immediately flung off their togas and began to worship it.

I somehow managed to remain calm and clothed.

They were a number of creepy tombstones in the baths (which just goes to show you the brilliance of the Romans: "Let us bathe where we bury our dead! Surely nothing can go wrong and - oh sweet thundering Zeus! All my limbs appear to be rotting. I think I should go take another communal bath!").

This one appears to be of a man being trampled by some horses. At least, I hope he's being trampled by horses.

... ew.

At no point in my self-guided journey through the baths, did I ever feel a need to immerse myself in the water and smother myself with its healing goo.

However, I did go back to my hostel and take an erratically cold shower in the dark to cleanse myself of the ancient spores and fungi clinging to me after my trip to the baths. And then I burned my clothes.

Those in the audience wishing to see some naked Roman torso will be gravely disappointed by the Victorian use of strategic facecloths.

So, what have the Roman ever done for us?

Nothing except rob me of £11.50.

And the aqueducts.

But Bath is not all about their titular cleansing facilities.

There's also Bath Abbey where I assume a number of priestly high jinx occurs. This is the only reason I can fathom as to why they are continually ringing their church bells.

"Brother Fred! Brother Fred! I've just seen Jesus descending from the Heavens and onto High Street and he looks pissed!"

"It's the Second Coming, Brother Bob! I must go ring the bells to tell the righteous that our Lord and Saviour has finally reappeared."

After several minutes of impassioned early morning bell ringing:

"...Tee hee! I was pulling your cassock Brother Fred. Jesus hasn't come. What a lark!"

"Oh I see. What a jape Brother Bob! I'll stop ringing the bells then, shall I?"

"Yes I think so, Brother Fred... Because Jesus isn't on High Street.... He's on Union Street!"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

*Bell ringing*

And this continues ad nauseum until Brother Bob runs out of streets for the Lord and Saviour to descend onto.

They have Cornish pasty and bridges. One of which changed my outlook on life.

They have picturesque views. This one was taken from some footballer's private soccer pitch before I was chased off the grounds by a pack of angry Spaniels.

They have lovely canals with suspicious boaters who shook their paddles at me as they went by. Hopefully, they drowned.

Bath also has glorious, glorious sopping wet rain.

There is also the Jane Austen Centre. However kitchy you think this will be, times it by a packet of Mr. Bennett biscuits and then multiply it by a couple of Jane Austen aprons and divide by a Northanger Abbey thimble and a Colin Firth cross stitch and then you will truly understand how goofy this was.

There was a very nice display of the costumes from the recent ITV production of Persuasion which was lovely. But then the creepy mannequins came alive and fed us to their pagan god under London Eye.

Or maybe that was an episode of Doctor Who.

Either way, neither of these incidences was more traumatic than the Jane Austen dress up doll.

I walked outside and in the park next door, rival Jane Austen societies were having a dance off to see whose interpretation of Mansfield Park was more in keeping with the Austen aesthetic.

The pro-Persuasion faction maintained a strong hold in the north under the elms and shouted accusations at the Mansfield Park front that they supported incest between cousins and that Edward was the lamest Austen hero ever. The Northanger Abbey gang insinuated that he couldn't even pick out a proper muslin.

The ladies, through various flicks of their fans, threw down that Mr. Crawford was a victim of character assassination and had been judged unfairly. Also that Edmund was symptomatic of Austen's satire towards the Anglican church.