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Anorak News | Getting Wood

Getting Wood

by | 6th, May 2004

‘SAMUEL Pepys apparently gave up writing his famous diary while still a comparatively young man because he was terrified of losing his eyesight.

Elizabethan fashion

And well we might have worried because the Sun reveals today that Pepys was the proud owner of one of the country’s most impressive collections of 17th Century porn.

The diarist collected 2,000 ballads – bawdy songs, often accompanied by an illustrative woodcut.

‘Pictures of buxom women could be a selling point for a male audience,’ Professor Angela McShane Jones explains, ‘and a female one too if they described the latest fashions.

‘It is noticeable that there are more busty ballads in the large collection made by Samuel Pepys than any other collection.

‘It is hard not to suspect that there may have been a certain preference in his ballad buying.’

Professor McShane revealed that in the 17th Century every night was TV Awards night and it was fairly common for women to reveal their breasts in public.

Charles I’s wife Henrietta Maria, for instance, had a nipple-revealing dress created for her by celebrity architect Inigo Jones. And Mary II (as in William and Mary) was often shown topless.

Thankfully, the tradition of the Queen baring her breasts has long since lapsed, although a picture of a bare-chested Prince Philip was unveiled last week.

The Sun is delighted to find that its Page 3 has got such a long and illustrious history – and dresses up 21-year-old Nicola T as an Elizabethan stunna.

‘Of course, the camera had not been invented,’ the paper explains to its readers.

‘But in early-day versions of Ye Soaraway Sun, craftsmen carved wooden print blocks showing Page 3 wenches baring their breasts.’

Readers were then invited to chop these print blocks into three and glue them together again to create their perfect Page 3 wench.

The face of Mary II, the breasts of Henrietta Maria and the bum of Nell Gwynn… Phwoar!’



Posted: 6th, May 2004 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink