In this instalment of Rob Newman's The History Of The World Backwards, viewers discover how a gathering of anti-sociability breaks out over Britain from the late 1800s. Neighbours quarrel and leave the cities to go and live in rural, isolated cottages, often deliberately affecting or inventing an unintelligible local dialect, so as to discourage conversation and enquiry.
Meanwhile, ministers deny that the introduction of faith schools will mean only monks will get an education. Middle-class parents move close to monasteries so as to be in the catchment area, just in case.
Mozart gives a press conference at which he declares that his new opera will stay true to the key operatic principles: nostalgia for British rock acts of the Eighties. And John Milton takes inspiration from the Kaiser Chiefs and begins using the words "thou" and "thee".
War is strategically planned: in 1763 countries around the world get together and decide to hold the Seven Years War. It proves such a fabulous success that in 1648 it is decided to hold the Thirty Years War. So many fortunes are made in those 30 years that an even more ambitious sequel is planned: the Hundred Years War.
And what of love in reverse? We discover, via a docu-soap, how relationships work in Backwards History. Love starts with cold disinterest and passion grows with age. Couples sleep in separate beds for the first 10 years.
