Nine Tailors Make A Man Very, Very Annoyed.

Anyone who knows the slightest thing about bell ringing will be unsurprised by this story

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15635252

What is clear is that Mr Martin Creed has no idea about bell ringing (and the BBC has no idea that the term "campanologist" may get you punched in the serious bell ringing fraternity.)

The 27th of July 2012 is a Friday. Any bell ringers who work (or, in the case of some of the ringers in our local church, go to school or uni) will not be available to ring at 8am because they will be on their way to work - many of them in London and its environs having left early because getting to work is going to be hell during the Olympics. The original plan to ring all bells (including door bells) at 4am would have been feasible but would have caused ructions, even if the ringers had agreed. (Round here, they would have had the dogs and shotguns turned on them.)

Further more you never ring bells "as loudly as possible for three minutes" - hell, it's not worth going into the tower for that.

The amazing thing is that the Olympics organisers ever considered this. Remember, also, that your average citizen considers the Turner Prize the opportunity for a good laugh. What were they thinking of?

NB: I ought to explain that I live with an ex-bell ringer and therefore know a lot more about it than your average LJ contributor.

Tags: stupidity

30 comments — :

( 30 comments — Leave a comment )

louisedennis

2011-11-09 08:10 pm (UTC)

The amazing thing is that the Olympics organisers ever considered this.

You've seen the logo they came up with right?

lil_shepherd

2011-11-09 08:13 pm (UTC)

Lisa Simpson giving head, right? Animated on the internets within a couple of hours. I still can't see anything else.

*sigh*

I was rooting for Paris.

(no subject) —

muuranker — Expand

lil_shepherd — Expand

del_c — Expand

aunty_marion — Expand

philmophlegm

2011-11-09 08:34 pm (UTC)

And then there's the airbrushing of HMS Belfast out of the publicity pictures.

2011-11-09 08:35 pm (UTC)

Really? Well, the stadium is well within range of her (still operative) guns.

reggietate

2011-11-09 08:42 pm (UTC)

*boggles* What on Earth for?

philmophlegm — Expand

del_c

2011-11-09 08:58 pm (UTC)

"This consists of trying to ring all of the bells in the whole of Britain for three minutes as loudly and as quickly as possible. That includes all types of bells that you can find. I don't know which notes are the best ones, so I think it's best to just ring them all at once."

That's not a work, that's a suggestion. I could write "everybody in the country paint their toenails pink on Friday," post it to the Olympic committee and call myself an artist, but I can hear the ghost of Marcel Duchamp telling me I go too far.

2011-11-09 09:07 pm (UTC)

It's not a suggestion - it's an idiotic idea.

There are conceptual artists whose work I admire (Gilbert and George, anyone) but this twit isn't one of them.

madfilkentist

2011-11-09 09:29 pm (UTC)

What's the issue with the word "campanologist"? I found it in my decades-old Webster's.

Personally, I think campaigning for Olympic hosting is something that should be done to enemy nations. It's politer than starting a war but almost as nasty.

2011-11-09 09:31 pm (UTC)

In this country, at least, bell ringers are bell ringers - campanologist is regarded as a term invented by people who have never been near a bell tower.

joereaves — Expand

desperance — Expand

grey_lady — Expand

owlfish

2011-11-09 10:16 pm (UTC)

I would have assumed that a campanologist was someone who studied bells, regardless of whether or not they rang them.

2011-11-10 08:10 am (UTC)

One might, if one had not encountered the word, but the way it is used is to mean "bell-ringer" but only by the truly pretentious and by those who know nothing about it. I suspect (I haven't looked it up) that it was invented for the Music Hall where a hand-bell ringer was sometimes one of the acts.

heleninwales — Expand

ellarien

2011-11-09 10:51 pm (UTC)

All I know about bell-ringing I learned from Robin McKinley's blog or Dorothy Sayers, but even I can tell that's not what you do with church bells, even it it wasn't an obnoxiously daft idea in general.

2011-11-10 10:00 am (UTC)

I've read both (though I have given up on McKinley primarily because she drove me mad with the way she fusses over those dogs and her dedication to woo) but most of my knowledge comes from

inamac who in her youth rang all over Kent, and still identifies the different peals for me by ear, and remarks if someone makes a mistake.

inamac

2011-11-10 12:55 pm (UTC)

Technically, if the church bells are wired up for chiming (little clappers that strike the outside of the bell with the rope rigged up to a frame in the bell tower) one person could probably pop in for three minutes of 'jangling' - I note that the Council spokeswoman carefully did not mention this option, and I don't blame her (chiming for three minutes is sweaty work).

la_marquise_de_

2011-11-10 11:32 am (UTC)

Headdesk.

lil_shepherd

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