Today is the day that Putin cuts off the gas supply to Europe unless they pay in rubles. Even he has a sense of humour.
Today is the day that Britain's energy costs rise by about 50% in one go, but France's rise by 4%. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that France owns it's own generators and - crucially - most of ours too.
Yesterday, B.J. pledged to spend £7 billion to try and stop private water companies (that's all water companies) deliberately polluting every river in the country with raw sewage. Since all the regional water-boards were sold - free of debt - to investors, they have paid out £47 billion in dividends. You see where I am going with this, don't you?
Don't worry, I am not going down this road for the rest of this post, but you must allow me to vent a little despair, today of all days. No more Mr Grumpy, I promise.
My next job is to make a set of 4 ornamental stone obelisks for a client's large garden. He sent me a photograph of some things he saw in another garden, and said the design should be based on them, but he did not want obelisks. I asked what he did want and he said they should be like the things in the photo.
I said that the things in the photo were obelisks. He was as confused as I before the right description was attached to them. I asked him if he knew the original purpose of obelisks. He did not know, so I told him.
Obelisks were always used in pairs, albeit some distance apart. Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames Embankment is one of a pair brought back from Egypt by ship. The other needle somehow sank and is still at the bottom of the ocean somewhere. Oh wait, it could be in New York.
Many of Ancient Egypt's massive stone objects were astronomical instruments. By setting up a large stone needle in one part of the country and another identical one in a different part several hundred miles away on the same latitude, they could accurately calculate the circumference of the Earth.
Having calculated the exact time by observing the sun, they would simultaneously measure the shadows of the obelisks at midday. From the difference in the length of the shadows they could calculate the circumference of the Earth.
Once you know the circumference of the Earth you can then produce things like yardsticks. A true yard is a number of seconds of a degree of longitude and varies a little depending on where you are.
People on the equator got the best deal.
Phallic symbols of course ;) There is one situated just before you get to Castle Howard, you travel down the long road and then up for full visionary impact. Interesting that obelisks had a real useful job to do. Read somewhere yesterday that notched prehistoric stones were also used.
ReplyDeleteThere is a notched prehistoric stone on high land near my workshop. I have always thought it was gave a sight-line to some other distant hills.
DeleteP.S. A metre is the alternative to the yard created by French Revolutionaries in the 18th century by calculating the distance between Paris and some other place. They got the calculation wrong, so a true metre can never be measured using astronomical techniques. It is what they say it is. You have to take their word for it. Bloody frogs.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Wikipedia, the metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299 792 458 of a second. Presumably, it can be measured with a thermos flask and stopwatch.
DeleteWell, I have a Thermos and a stopwatch, but my reactions have slowed down a little over the years. It's a job for a younger man.
DeleteMenhirs and a good friend of Asterix so clever...
ReplyDeleteGetafix, maybe.
DeleteObelix!
DeleteOh yes, I forgot about him.
DeleteG7 group of nations rejected rubles in payment for gas. Despite the April 1 deadline, the gas is still flowing. Have you arrived at a design for the 4 garden structures requested?
ReplyDeleteThe gas will continue to flow because it is paid for on the world market in whatever currency the country buying uses. If the funds are to be converted into rubles, it will be the exchange which does so. The design is mainly there. It only needs tweaking.
DeleteMy brain hurts after reading the last few paragraphs and I am nowhere near knowing what an obelisk it.
ReplyDeleteI will come round one sunny day and give you a demonstration, Weave.
DeleteWill you need a ladder, then a lowloader, and then a crane to finally lift them into place?
ReplyDeleteThey will be about 5 feet in height, so I may not even need a young man.
DeleteAnd we were taught a yard was the distance from George III's nose to the end of his index finger. No kidding. We roughly measured fabric that way. It could have been Henry 8th or some one of those rule makers.
ReplyDeleteWell they were rulers after all...
DeleteAnd he still wants four obelisks? That's a rather grand(iose) commission!
ReplyDeleteAn 18th century tradition. His garden is a classical one. I made him the huge, pear tree fire surround if you remember that.
DeleteI found your fire surround and it's magnificent! Before my time but "pear tree" throws up some interesting past reading on your blog.
DeleteThat convoluted, scentific definition of the metre that Wiki quotes is typical of French revolutionaries. But practicalities will come to the fore - in the French countryside the locals still measure by "uncies" (inches) which are related to the length of the thumb's final joint and derive from the Latin.
ReplyDelete