111–118 of 118 posts
Reminds me of the tradition of topping out a finished roof. You often see 100m+ skyscrapers with a pine wreath hanging on top as if we were still worshipping some forest gods.
> You often see... Where in the world is such a thing a frequent enough sight to say that?
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This is 100% pure speculation, but I wonder if, at the time that the bylaw was made, a straw bale was the happy medium of being relatively soft (in case someone passing under the bridge ran into it) but also relatively cheap.
Soft to a boat, but not soft if you happen to be standing on deck and run into it. A modern straw bale is going to weigh about a hundred pounds. When this bylaw was written, straw was gathered and stored loose and they'd have been just tying a bundle together for this purpose.
Collection of bales was manual. Picking them up with a hay fork and lifting them up to an increasingly high person on a trailer.
This was ok with the ancient baler, but when that broke and he borrowed another the bales were twice as heavy, which isn't fun when the pile on the trailer is 9ft high.
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Probably because a clock is an easily changeable thing, but a schedule or an announcement is less so. Putting a "Opens at 8:00" on sign on your door involves a fair amount of effort of buying a physical piece of equipment. Changing an appointment may have required walking somewhere and talking to the right person. Before modern luxuries a million of such tiny adjustments would have required a lot of time and effort.
One clock may be an easily changeable thing, but is it really that much easier than changing one sign? Besides, if you knew you'd be changing your opening times throughout the year, then when you ordered a sign you'd just order both signs at the same time, or maybe get a sign with replaceable numbers, or a sign with washable/writeable numbers for your opening times. Or you could just not bother, and pick a time that…
And if you make an appointment for 8am at the other side of a (not) time change. Does that appointment change, or do you need to attend an hour earlier or later?
One of the linked articles is also pretty esoteric. The bale is hung because the bridge is being cleaned, as part of the cleaning project discarded chewing gum will be removed, a process objected to by an artist who paints tiny pictures on the gum [1] 1. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/05/artist-ben-w...
Wow, that is super gross. Neat.
I thought this was a more interesting story https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/05/artist-ben-w... Painting dropped chewing gum (600 works on the bridge) seems heroic to me.
Years ago I worked in Soho and watched him paint a piece of gum outside my office - it was stunning and real piece of art. I got a few photos that evening. The next morning it had already been scrapped out - I imagine by an art collector of sorts, as the rest of the gum on the pavement hadn't been touched. Shame to see it go, but interesting while it was there.
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One clock may be an easily changeable thing, but is it really that much easier than changing one sign? Besides, if you knew you'd be changing your opening times throughout the year, then when you ordered a sign you'd just order both signs at the same time, or maybe get a sign with replaceable numbers, or a sign with washable/writeable numbers for your opening times. Or you could just not bother, and pick a time that…
Have a look round at how many social distancing signs there still are. Signs don't get updated, so is that 8am opening the actual opening time or have they not updated the sign? And if you make an appointment for 8am at the other side of a (not) time change. Does that appointment change, or do you need to attend an hour earlier or later?
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> How do you define country? Not having anyone say you're a different country, aka sovereignty.
I don't think that one works for England; see W. T. Conqueror.
You might as well say France only dates from 1945 if we follow your logic.
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1066 was just another guy coming to claim the throne. You wouldn't say a company was abolished when it gets a new CEO, and you shouldn't say a country is no more when someone claims the throne.
I would if the new ceo quartered the old one.