´óÏó´«Ã½

The Glass Box for Friday

Comments

1. At 04:31 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Peter Underhill wrote:

   Afternoon all, well what a day The ladybird has passed away, we still have no summer and Nigel Dempster still has to much to say for himself.
   Good news about Conrad Black, how the mighty are fallen, the germans have a word for it.
   Regards,
   Peter Underhill

2. At 04:49 PM on 13 Jul 2007, wrote:

   What do I have to say to earn the award of "Cloth-Eared Buffoon of the Day"?

   And is that available on the Italian herb bread?

3. At 05:16 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Kevin wrote:

   Entertainment news: Crossharbour to stage an end of Peer show. It may be out of tune but it's not a racket.

4. At 05:27 PM on 13 Jul 2007, The Stainless Steel Cat wrote:

   So the Tory party's withdrawn the whip from Conrad Black?

   Where had they stuck it?

5. At 05:30 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Peter Cooper wrote:

   Regarding the "insult" to the Queen. I don't remember the ´óÏó´«Ã½ apologising to the miners for reversing the order of events at Orgreave coke depot in 1984, which appeared to show the miners attacking the police followed by police charges, with very different political implications from the reality. Why then apologise to the Queen for following an ancient and dishonourable ´óÏó´«Ã½ tradition? Or is there an even more ancient ´óÏó´«Ã½ tradition - toadying?

6. At 05:31 PM on 13 Jul 2007, wrote:

   Nice one, Kevin!

   Must admit, I've been out of touch the last five days (only CNN on the TV in Estonia). Must admit, I missed out on all this "Royal Outrage" nonsense. I'm a bit of a Republican, so it's not really surprising that I don't care if there was an implication of Elizabeth Windsor walked out of something. SO WHAT?!? She's a human being who is in the position she is purely because her ancestors were a bigger bunch of murdering b*stards that others a few hundred years ago. There is really no reason for deference towards her or the rest of her family....

7. At 05:38 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Graham wrote:

   I love it, but it's like a time warp, so ditto to Peter Cooper, too.

8. At 05:42 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Graham wrote:

   I love this blog! Hear, hear, Kevin and the fearless one.

9. At 05:42 PM on 13 Jul 2007, hywel maslen wrote:

   although we moan over competition between imperial and metric system, the imperial system was originally introduced by spanish wool merchants who begged of introduction of avoir-du-pois weights in the middle ages. "it is interesting to note that the complications which distinguish our country from those which have adopted the metric system, are chiefly due to the fact that we have adhered to various competing systems which were originally introduced from abroad.' w cunningham - Alien Immigrants to Britain, p.62. (Cambridge, 1897)
   Hywel Maslen, University of Leicester

10. At 05:43 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Mel Read wrote:

    re the comment that the government is giving £8 millions to the flood relief.

    Can I ask the ´óÏó´«Ã½, all politicians and civil servants to note that it is THE TAX PAYERS' money that is being used for flood relief.

    Mel;R

11. At 05:44 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Len Ferrier wrote:

    Today's Feedback had Terry Thomas, editor of Today giving a predictable monologue of regular ´óÏó´«Ã½ producers' rhetoric when listeners complain.
    "No, we got it just right" is the story they ALWAYS tell. Well his attempts to justify the amount of time devoted to promoting Alistair Campbell failed. It just showed his hero worship of a non-elected mouthy yob who should be in the Tower for tampering with British politics.
    

12. At 05:48 PM on 13 Jul 2007, wrote:

    Oh Eddie, no more Beckham stuff, please!!! Why is this even being mentioned???
    GAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

    *runs screaming to find something to drink to console self"

13. At 05:49 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Graham wrote:

    And just to prove it, my comments appear reversed to how they were submitted. Love it.

14. At 05:49 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Gillian wrote:

    On the subject of increased participation in sport.....in my experience it's an expensive business, when your children want to participate in sport outside school. You pay registration fees and weekly subs, pay for kit, and then as your child improve there are competition fees, travelling expenses and so on. On top of that you're expected to contribute to fund-raising. Sport is an elitist past-time, even if only from the point of view of simply participating, not competing.

15. At 05:53 PM on 13 Jul 2007, D.W.Roberts wrote:

    When talking about all the Government effort to increase participation in sport, you again followed the NuLab line slavishly, and did not ask the obvious and embarrassing question. "How has the sale of hundreds of school playing fields helped to increase children's participation in sport?"

16. At 05:54 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Big Sister wrote:

    Eddie, you are PRICELESS! And, Paddy, we know you don't 'flounce'.

    By the way, Paddy, has the fine been paid yet?

17. At 05:54 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Richard Simpson wrote:

    It's good to hear of proposals for sport development. I would like to think that some of the investment that we have heard about will help canoeists and kayakers to gain access to lakes and rivers in England and Wales. These hugely popular activities provide sporting opportunities for people of all ages and ability; from olympic medal winners to those who enjoy a range of experiences including white water adventure to peaceful river trips. Access to rivers and lakes however is often jelaously protected by fishery interests, protecting their sport at the cost of that of others. No doubt however new funding will continue to find its way into those areas where money has already been spent -it's more convenient than disturbing the established order.

18. At 05:57 PM on 13 Jul 2007, wrote:

    Also on the matter of money being spent on sport, we seem to have forgotten the promise long ago that lottery money wouldn't be used to replace government spending,,,,

    In the report this evening, the two were completely muddled together.
    xx
    ed

19. At 05:57 PM on 13 Jul 2007, barbara wrote:

    thanks Eddy for attempting to get through to the sports representative that pouring money into competitatve sports does not improve participation.
    Their are vaste amounts research evidence from the last 20 years that young people particularly young women are not all interested in competing in sports. There needs to be as well as support for competitative support, recognition of other important forms of physical activity that are collaborative or solo as families or peers.
    For example the brasilian form of dance/ martial arts is a superb example of physical activity where all can take part to their abilities.
    These are the sort of activities along with Uk traditional activities like walking /boating as communy activities that need much more recognition.
    Barbara

20. At 05:57 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Big Sister wrote:

    DW Roberts:

    For the record, the sale of playing fields is done at local, not national, government level. It has been very convenient for some local authorities to sell off school land and allow developers to build new estates .......

21. At 06:00 PM on 13 Jul 2007, barbara wrote:

    I wrote a comment but it didn't get through and now i haven't got a copy. Rather a waste of my time! Pity I really wante tocomment on the sports piece.

22. At 06:01 PM on 13 Jul 2007, tk wrote:

    Wow! The ´óÏó´«Ã½ get's its wrists slapped for misrepresenting the Queen in a trailer and you think it's so funny you take the p*** with an impromptu sketch at the end of today's programme! You guys really have no respect for the news and facts do you?

23. At 06:02 PM on 13 Jul 2007, The Stainless Steel Cat wrote:

    Len (11):

    Today editor Terry Thomas' actual quote - said to Humphries and Naughtie - was "You're a shower, an absolute shower!"

24. At 06:03 PM on 13 Jul 2007, roy malkin wrote:

    As any Navigator knows The entire metric system is based on a mistake. I metre was suposed to be 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the equator to the pole. They then made the metre as a fixed unit but it did not match the fraction of the distance to the pole. Therefore a metre can not be used for navigation and the SI unit of Navigation is the Nautical mile based on 1 minute of the earths arc subtended at the earths centre. Consequently miles are still used in all forms of Navigation and unless the metre is redefined always will be.
    Roy Malkin Master Mariner

25. At 06:10 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Clare Seal wrote:

    On the subject of participation in sport, following her school sports day, my daughter aged 11, wrote this:

    "Sport is the crapest thing.
    It doesn't have a name.
    Now art, that's the king,
    it's nowhere near as lame."

26. At 06:10 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Ann Tarrant wrote:

    Best bit was that final trailer...

27. At 06:25 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Tony Judge wrote:

    I've just done an internet search on John Wilkins, and there are countless references to his definitions of standard measurement. Wikipedia have several links on the subject, suggesting it was he who invented the metric system.
    This does not therefore appear to be "new" news at all.

28. At 06:31 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Brain V Peck wrote:

    According to the Guardian today there are 9.5 million people world-wide who have net assets of more then 1 million dollars, out of the 6.7 billion people on the Planet. On the day that super rich Condrad Black is found guilty of fraud in Chicago. Ironically about 2.5 billion people live on about 2 dollars a day and 1 billion are completely destitute, in little Britain '12 million live in relative poverty'. However if we were not so deferential & sycophantic towards the rich & powerful and question how they got rich in the first place....ie: stealing State assets, including property and land over centuries, ruthless exploitation of the masses and so on...perhaps more would be on trial for fraud and so on.....anyone up for a guillotine party on top of the Tor in Somerset? Fearless Fred et al are all welcome....

    BVP

29. At 06:35 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Bruce wrote:

    Roy Malkin mentions the "mistake" in the definition of the metre a 0.02% error in the late 1700s when we did not know that the earth is not perfectly spherical.

    Why does nobody point to the error in the foot? Not only is the foot not the same for all of us, but the you would need to have size 12 shoes to have an "imperial foot". The average foot size is only 80% of that. It is the foot that is "wrong"!

30. At 07:09 PM on 13 Jul 2007, wrote:

    I just listened to the PM programme's interview with Pat Naughtin. He makes many good points and I also read a press release elsewhere about this.
    It just proves that the British people were once the great inventors of the world, beating the French to invent the best measurement system ever, albeit with different unit names to what we have today.
    So the metric system is British, but using French names. Suddenly the Imperial system seems far more foreign than metric, considering its units came mostly from Bablyon, Rome and France.
    Metric is British and best!

31. At 07:20 PM on 13 Jul 2007, david evans wrote:

    Obviously I'm not going to go to the trouble of reconstructing my comment because your misconceived system frivolously rejected it.
    I simply clicked on "submit" three times because the system didn't respond to my clicks and I assumed that they hadn't registered.

32. At 07:54 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Rupert Allman wrote:

    Tonight's Editor writes - thanks for the comments. We'd like to do more of the AM on PM thing - just a few early thoughts on what's on our radar. Or on days like today - more a stream of consciousness about what would be best in the best of all possible worlds. Eric & Patrick cooked up the Broadcasting House trail - which I see has split opinion (26) v (22). Made me chuckle..

    The Conrad Black story has caused us a degree of frustration on PM. It is a strong story - but so often most of the reportable court action has fallen outside of our time - so has worked better for m'learned colleagues on the World Tonight. Tonight it landed well for us - and the super smooth Nils Blythe did us proud.

    Naffed off to be honest that we couldn't convince the new sports minister to enter into a discussion with Matthew Syed. Mr.Sutcliffe - to be fair - is new into the job, but just think it makes for a more engaging listen. And to SSC, the editor of the Today programme sadly sports neither a moustache or a gap between his two front teeth. But I think they're both fond of "jolly good show".

33. At 07:54 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Alex Thornton wrote:

    Did I hear that Doncastrians have taken to breaking up their scrap flood damaged furniture to stop looters?

    How selfish!

    THe owners have already decided that they no longer want it, why damage it even further just so no-one can own it at all?

    If looters exist, it must be becasue there is a demend for the stuff. Either the 'looters' are entrepreneur enough to profit from it where the owners simply can not be bothered OR they really have a personal requirement. Why stop them?

34. At 08:48 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Dr Frances Willmoth wrote:

    On early proposals for decimalisation:
    the piece ended with a question as to why Wilkins' proposals weren't taken up in England. The answer is that Wilkins was just one amongst a number of people keen on decimalisation in the 1650s - it was all part of the enthusiasm for radical social and economic reform expressed under the Commonwealth and the Cromwellians, by people broadly in sympathy with those regimes. After the Restoration there were still a few who promoted decimal arithmetic and wider decimalisation, but the climate was very different and it may all have seemed politically dubious because of the earlier associations.
    For further information see Charles Webster, The Great Instauration (1975), pp. 411-15, and my Sir Jonas Moore (1993), pp. 74-75, 202.

35. At 09:09 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Derek Pollard wrote:

    Roy Malkin may not know that the original definition of the metre was intended to be acceptable to every country by being common to all countries and independent of any particular country. In this it was very successful, and the metric system has now been adopted by over 95% of the countries of the world.

    As a navigator he will know, however, that the exact distance represented by a minute of the earth's arc varies from place to place. Hence the international nautical mile is defined as 1852 metres exactly, and is not to be confused with the imperial or US mile which is 1609.344 metres exactly.

36. At 09:31 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Electric Dragon wrote:

    Interesting that Dr. Willmoth links the failure to use metric in this country to the Restoration of the monarchy. In France, of course, metrication was all part of the reforms of the Revolutionary government there - metrication took off, but the Revolutionary calendar ( ) did not. If it had, today would in France be quartidi le 24eme Messidor, an CCXV.

    Meanwhile, the Americans use their own set of units (or rather they continue to use traditional English units, while we introduced a set of new Imperial units in 1824). Hence a US pint is 16 US fl. oz., but an Imperial pint is 20 Imp. fl. oz. - so a US gallon is about 1/6 smaller than an Imp one.

37. At 09:39 PM on 13 Jul 2007, tony ferney wrote:

    Re 10) - Mel. Thanks for stating the obvious. I, for one, needed that.

    Re 27) - Tony Judge. Well it was news to "you" since you had to do a Wikipedia search. So why act so superior?

38. At 09:44 PM on 13 Jul 2007, Bob wrote:

    On hearing the item on today's programme on the subject of the government's increase in the funding of sport in school, I was struck by three thoughts. Firstly, that the rush to sell off school playing fields may have had somethining more to do with the decline in competetive games in schools, secondly that when I was young the only thing our compulsory games and p e left me with was an almost pathalogical loathing of such activities and a marvellous sense of relief when I no longer had to pariticipate in them and finally that, for all of her admirable enthusiasm for sport in her school the head teacher in the rport (from a school I believe in Southampton) hardly represents the cream of the teaching profession in that she appeared to be unable to correctly pronounce the word sport itself, preferring instead to drop the hard T at the end (as in the correct English pronounciation) in favour of an almost french spore or spaw, in additon to other slovenly and rather strangled use of the language. As I say, not exactly the creme de la creme!

39. At 12:17 AM on 14 Jul 2007, wrote:

    Dragon (36),

    "a US pint is 16 US fl. oz., but an Imperial pint is 20 Imp. fl. oz. - so a US gallon is about 1/6 smaller than an Imp one."

    Er.... 1/5 smaller, and if it's petrol, considerably cheaper!

    ;-)
    ed

    P.S. Loved the trailer & Kevin's bit

40. At 09:21 AM on 14 Jul 2007, Anne P. wrote:

    The BH trailer had me chuckling, the piece on SEN left me feeling that there is still a huge problem out there and the powers that be are not addressing it. Thanks for following it up, would be worth keeping an eye on it under the new administration to see if anything changes.

    Item on metrication was interesting even if it turns out not to be new news, it was new to me and highlighted the interactions that went on in the eighteenth century between America, England and France.

    Glad you kept the Beckham item short. I'm not a fan of football or celebrity but don't think you should have ignored it as there must be a lot of general interest in how he will get on in the US.
    

41. At 11:09 AM on 14 Jul 2007, Aperitif wrote:

    Just "listened again" to the last bit. Ha ha ha ha :-)

42. At 11:28 AM on 14 Jul 2007, wrote:

    Subjects,

    Never mind the Cornetto. Does One's bum look big in this?

    BB

43. At 11:41 AM on 14 Jul 2007, wrote:

    That silly Photographer woman asking one to 'dress less formally" Couldn't she see One was already wearing the of one's headdresses!

    Really! Just how common must one become to keep the peasants quiet? Oh the indignity of it all!

    BB

44. At 12:10 PM on 14 Jul 2007, Electric Dragon wrote:

    Ed: nobody out-pedants me! US fluid ounces are also smaller than their imperial counterpart:

    user@jupiter~$ units
    2438 units, 71 prefixes, 32 nonlinear units
    
    You have: gallon
    
    You want: brgallon
    
            * 0.83267418
    
            / 1.2009499
    
    You have: floz
    
    You want: brfloz
    
            * 1.0408427
    
            / 0.96075994
    

45. At 12:10 PM on 14 Jul 2007, Paul Ancill wrote:

    Ever wondered why bottles for water fountains are 18.4lt (4 gallons) wood is 48mm (planed 2in) I bought a new ball cock the other day to replace one 40 years old the thread was the same the old one was imperial the new metric. The metric system is an attempt to put things that are natural sizes into ridged containers it doesn’t work.
    Even the revolutionary France did away with 10 day week!
    

46. At 12:30 PM on 14 Jul 2007, wrote:

    .

    Part of our continuing service, as our former Chancellor prepares to visit his predecessor's paramour.

    ;-)
    ed

    "But it's different this time!"

47. At 12:41 PM on 14 Jul 2007, paul Ancil wrote:

    A nautical mile is 2025yds or 1852mts the yards are much closer to a simple number of yards (2000)

48. At 01:17 PM on 14 Jul 2007, wrote:

    O Dragon of invisible script,
    "US fluid ounces are also smaller than their imperial counterpart"
    You have: gallon
    You want: brgallon
    * 0.83267418
    / 1.2009499

    1.201 ≈ 1 1/5 or 6/5ths of a US Gallon, so on that you're right, but this only holds true if the US ounce is LARGER than the Imperial ounce, to wit:
    You have: floz
    You want: brfloz
    * 1.0408427
    / 0.96075994

    So there!

    ;-)
    ed

49. At 02:49 PM on 14 Jul 2007, Graham wrote:

    Hi All,
    We want more Friday afternoon silliness, satire and sketches from Eddie and Paddy. In fact, I'd like to go for a drink with those two. It's the one thing motor-mouth, wind-bag politicians and the rest of the feudal establishment can not deal with in their Right Honourable manner.

    PEACE x