Life of Pee: The Story of How Urine Got Everywhere
Dec 2011 · Quarto Publishing Group USA
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2 reviewsreport
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220
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About this ebook
A frank and humorous encyclopedic history of the forgotten life of urine and its many uses in society.
Alchemists sought gold in it. David Bowie refrigerated it to ward off evil. In the trenches of Ypres soldiers used it as a gas mask, whereas modern-day terrorists add it to home-made explosives. All the Fullers, Tuckers and Walkers in the phonebook owe their names to it, and in 1969 four bags for storing it were left on the surface of the moon.
Bought and sold, traded and transported, even carried to work in jugs, urine has made bread rise, beer foam and given us gunpowder, stained glass, Robin Hood’s tights, and Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring.
And we do produce an awful lot of it. Humans alone make almost enough to replace the entire contents of Loch Lomond every year. Add the incalculable volume contributed by the rest of the animal kingdom and it might soon displace a small ocean. No wonder it gets everywhere.
In Life of Pee Sally Magnusson unveils the secret history of civilization’s most unsavory and unsung hero, and discovers how our urine footprint is just as indelible as our carbon one.
Alchemists sought gold in it. David Bowie refrigerated it to ward off evil. In the trenches of Ypres soldiers used it as a gas mask, whereas modern-day terrorists add it to home-made explosives. All the Fullers, Tuckers and Walkers in the phonebook owe their names to it, and in 1969 four bags for storing it were left on the surface of the moon.
Bought and sold, traded and transported, even carried to work in jugs, urine has made bread rise, beer foam and given us gunpowder, stained glass, Robin Hood’s tights, and Vermeer’s Girl With A Pearl Earring.
And we do produce an awful lot of it. Humans alone make almost enough to replace the entire contents of Loch Lomond every year. Add the incalculable volume contributed by the rest of the animal kingdom and it might soon displace a small ocean. No wonder it gets everywhere.
In Life of Pee Sally Magnusson unveils the secret history of civilization’s most unsavory and unsung hero, and discovers how our urine footprint is just as indelible as our carbon one.
Ratings and reviews
5.0
2 reviews
Tom McClean
- Flag inappropriate
November 1, 2015
Well researched, informative, educational and brilliantly presented. Expressed with a discrete sense of humour.
About the author
Sally Magnusson is one of British broadcasting's most familiar faces and voices. An award-winning journalist and writer, she presents Songs of Praise, anchors the Scottish news programme Reporting Scotland and reports occasionally for Panorama. She also hosts Radio 4's Tracing Your Roots and Radio Scotland's Sally on Saturday.
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