12 hours ago
PSA: The Big Ben tour (not Parliament) includes a climb to the clock room, and all the way up to the bells. Take the 11 a.m. slot and you’ll catch all 12 bongs at noon.
The story of how it was designed and built is full of engineering mischief and process hacking. Very much in the HN spirit. Highly recommended.
11 hours ago
I wonder if he still uses his playdate to check the time.
13 hours ago
Technically, Big Ben is the bell, not the clock, from the article as well:
> A common misconception is referring to the entire tower as Big Ben, when in fact, that's just the name of the bell. Andrew clarified: "So it's The Great Clock inside the Elizabeth Tower that rings Big Ben."
13 hours ago
> Technically, Big Ben is the bell, not the clock, from the article as well:
Technically I guess yeah. The tower that used to be called the "Clock Tower", is now called "Elizabeth Tower" yet it's also true that the de facto nickname for the entire tower is "Big Ben", even though technically that is the name of the bell, not the tower itself.
13 hours ago
So is “Big Ben" some kind of recursive synecdoche?
12 hours ago
Ah, you’ve fallen for the “no true Big Ben” fallacy.
10 hours ago
prescriptivists go home
13 hours ago
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted, this is completely true.
Big Ben is the bell not the clock.
12 hours ago
Probably because it’s unclear what this pedantry about synecdoche contributes to the discussion. Many people (including journalists at the state broadcaster) happily refer to the whole tower as Big Ben, so that is functionally one of its names.
Is the fact that the name originates from a bell, and that the official name for the tower is different, interesting? Maybe. Is it worth “correcting”? No, for the same reason it’s not worth policing people’s use of “Google” to mean “Alphabet”.
11 hours ago
While I'd typically agree that pedantry is normally rather boring, the pedantry in this case is actually interesting in that the individual properties of the object have their own name and are addressable uniquely. It sounds like they are public as well.
I also reject your premise this is anything similar to referring to Google/Alphabet as interchangeable.
8 hours ago
pars pro toto, dawg.
13 hours ago
Big Ben is actually the name of the scientist, the bell is more frequently referred to as “The Creature”.
10 hours ago
And the men who used to clean the clockface: https://www.bbc.co.uk/videos/cneezrj0981o
Certainly scary enough for Hallowe'en.
10 hours ago
That link is geo-restricted, but I think this is perhaps the same clip on YouTube:
10 hours ago
Stupid me, I assumed there was a tiny clock driving the mechanism that was just geared up to trigger the bigger machinery. That instead looked like a regular clock scaled up to Big Ben size.
Also - those guys are insane. The "safety harness" was a wooden plank chair with some ropes dangling you over the abyss.
9 hours ago
They really are simply nuts. A harness? No need!
8 hours ago
The first thought that popped into my mind when reading this article was whether Andrew Strangeway was the Elder who maintained The Internet on Big Ben, because the sitcom "The IT Crowd" has ruined me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDbyYGrswtg
13 hours ago
Time change was last week in London :)
8 days ago
And they say no man can stop the march of time.
13 hours ago
You're saying this man can stop the march of time? Or of a clock?
8 hours ago
Little Ben
11 hours ago
His name is Strangeway, he's sporting this preposterous mustache, and he looks after Big Ben. The guy is basically a living meme lol. He must be fun at parties; at least for like 2 minutes haha.