A half-hour- long (plus a bit) Ha'penny Horror 'Hursday minisode IN WHICH —

0:02:05: SWEENEY TODD, THE BARBER OF FLEET-STREET, Chapter 59:

• IN WHICH:— We return to the scene of Sir Richard Blunt in Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop. Once Mrs. Lovett has gone to bed, he slips down the stairs on which he followed her to see if he can learn anything more about the voice that answered her from the room below. He arrives just in time to stop the captive cook from doing something very rash … and is then rewarded with quite an earful about Mrs. Lovett’s business model!

0:17:15: TERRIBLE TIDBIT OF THE DAY (from "Dickens' Dreadful Almanac"):

• An account of the tragic and untimely deaths of two young lads of about 7 or 8: one in a grisly industrial accident, the other at the brutal hands of a 12-year-old murderer with a bill-hook (a sort of hook-shaped machete).

0:18:20: THE LAMENTABLE ACCIDENT, WHICH TOOK PLACE AT GOSFORT PIT:

• A broadside elegy printed up in the aftermath of a horrific explosion in a Yorkshire coal-mine in 1825, which took the lives of 30 men and boys and injured scores more.

0:22:36: THE ROBBER BY NECESSITY:

• An uncharacteristically uplifting account of the redemption of a poor shoemaker, forced by hunger to turn to robbery, at the hands of one of his former victims. From The Terrific Register (1825). Yeah, I know, it's Horrors 'Hursday; but come on, we've just had two stories about dead children. I think we've earned this little ray of hopeful sunlight.

Join host Finn J.D. John. for a half-hour-long spree through the darkest and loathliest stories seen on the streets of early-Victorian London! Grab a flicker of blue ruin, switch off your mirror neurons, and let's go!

GLOSSARY OF FLASH TERMS USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• BLACK SHARKS: Highway robbers who work on foot rather than mounted on horseback.

• BODY SNATCHERS: Housebreakers or burglars.
• KNIGHTS OF THE BRUSH AND MOON: Drunken fellows wandering amok in meadows and ditches, trying to stagger home.
• CORINTHIAN: A fancy toff or titled swell. Used here as a reference to Corinthian Tom, the quintessential Regency rake depicted in Pierce Egan's "Life in London" (usually referred to as "Tom and Jerry")
• CHAFFING-CRIB: A room where drinking and bantering are going on.
• SHERRY OFF: To run away at top speed. Adopted from the nautical term "to sheer off."
• FLATS: Innocent, not-too-smart persons who are duped by "sharps." In other words, suckers.
• BUMS: Bailiffs.
• CRAPPING COVES: Pronounced "crêpe-ing," it means hangmen, who cause the widows of the criminals they execute to wear crêpe in mourning.
• THE OLD STONE JUG: Newgate Prison, or prisons in general.
• PADDINGTON FAIR: Execution day at Tyburn Tree gallows, which was in Paddington parish.
• DUNWICH, TOWN OF (spelled with no "T"): A seacoast town east of London, once very large, which eroded away and fell into the sea starting in the 13th century; only a few streets and houses remain today.
• DUNWITCH, BARONY OF (spelled with a "T"): A small estate in the hills West of Arkham, according to Colonial chronicler H.P. Lovecraft. Does not actually exist, but if it did, would be headed by Finn J.D. John, 18th Baron Dunwitch.

• DUNSANY, BARONY OF: A large estate in Ireland, including Dunsany Castle in County Meath, headed until 1957 by legendary fantasy author Edward J.M.D. Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany (Lord Dunsany), one of Mr. Lovecraft's favorite authors and a major influence upon his work.

A spicy (-ish) Tuesday Twopenny Torrid minisode IN WHICH —

0:01:50: BLACK BESS (starring Highwayman Dick Turpin), IN WHICH —:

• CHAPTER 23: Turpin and King arrive at the Hand and Keys Inn as the sun is coming up — just in time — and wake up the ostler to get their horses stabled and cared for. Tom Davis sets out a big breakfast for them. And Dick once again sets to thinking … how is he going to get Black Bess back?
• CHAPTER 24: We learn that the inquest is to be held on the old steward’s son, who shot himself in Room 8 at the Hand and Keys. Turpin reconnects with Ellen, and, while making sure she is happy at the Hand and Keys, tells her he feels that “my rescue of you from A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH is a good action in my life that will outweigh many of the bad ones I have done.” Then he prepares to hide out while the inquest is held.

0:22:30: BROADSIDE STREET BALLAD:

• "The Barber of Seville." Don't be fooled, though — when the REAL Barber of Seville came out in Paris, it became an instant classic. So a Salisbury-square printer, hoping to cash in but not knowing the first thing about The Barber of Seville beyond the title, commissioned one of his house hacks to dash off a poem about a barber in Seville, and put it out there to cash in! It's pretty bad, but the story is funny and the art is great.
• "Gentle Annie," an elegy sung for the memory of a love lost to Death's cruel hand, which if you like you can sing to the tune of "Piano Man" by Billy Joel.

0:24:50: A SALACIOUS SALOON SONG:

• "The Troubles of a Pair of Breeches," a humourous and ribald account in song of an evening on which the singer got so very drunk that his breeches started talking to him and told their life story.

0:30:20: THREE VICTORIAN-AGE DIRTY JOKES.

• From "The Chestnut Club."

Join host Corinthian Finn, a.k.a. Finn J.D. John, for a half-hour-long spree through the scandal-sheets and story papers of old London! Grab a decanter and top off your glass, unload your stumps, and let's go!

GLOSSARY OF FLASH TERMS USED IN THIS EPISODE:

• JACK PUDDINGS: Funny fellows, jolly companions.
• HIGH FLYERS: Spirited, audacious, possibly dangerous ladies.
• KNIGHTS OF THE BRUSH AND MOON: Drunken fellows wandering amok in meadows and ditches, trying to stagger home.

• CHAFFING-CRIB: A room where drinking and bantering are going on.

• CHICKSTERS: Flamboyant ladies, often prostitutes
• LADYBIRDS: Another term for chicksters
• BULLY ROCKS: Brothel muscle men
• ABBESS: Brothel madam
• MOTHER H: A famous abbess from the 1830s
• BOLT THE MOON: Fly by night
• BEAKS: Magistrates and judges
• GET FLY TO THE FAKEMENT: Get wise to a swindle that's being perpetrated.
• DUNWICH, TOWN OF (spelled with no "T"): A seacoast town east of London, once very large, which eroded away and fell into the sea starting in the 13th century; only a few streets and houses remain today.

• DUNWITCH, BARONY OF (spelled with a "T"): A small estate in the hills West of Arkham, according to Colonial chronicler H.P. Lovecraft. Does not actually exist, but if it did, would be headed by Finn J.D. John, 18th Baron Dunwitch.
• DUNSANY, BARONY OF: A large estate in Ireland, including Dunsany Castle in County Meath, headed until 1957 by legendary fantasy author Edward J.M.D. Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany.