What is the point of maintaining all the works and old fashioned gizmos that whirl round and click and tick in order for the clock known as Big Ben to function?
Hey, before we continue, Big Ben is only the big deep, er, ‘bell’, the one that goes ‘bong’ every hour to count out that hour, yet for some reason its name is extended to mean the clock and the clock tower as well. Humans eh? Mental.
Once upon a time the only technology there was for time keeping was the old fashioned gizmos that whirl round and click and tick in order for the clock known as Big Ben to function. Today these are not needed. There are far cheaper and far more accurate mechanisms available. Certainly none of them would cost the £40Million they are suggesting that is needed to stop Big Ben from stopping.
It makes no sense to try to remake the original mechanism. It won’t be the actual original mechanism will it? It would just be a copy. So why bother? Just replace it with an electronically controlled radio synchronised modern mechanism. Nobody can see the mechanism, just the clock face. Nobody anywhere cares how the hands turn, just that they turn. Sorted.
Indeed, if it was up to me, I’d get rid of the old fashioned clock face and replace it with something far more current. I mean, here we are in 2015 and how many of us actually use Roman numerals?
Nobody uses Roman numerals. Well, except for film makers that are trying to hide how old a film is by putting the copyright date in Roman numerals so you have no idea when it was published. Mental.
Add to that, what in this modern day and age, is the point of an analogue clock? Everything is digital.
So, not only is everything digital, but also all the latest display screens are just a screen containing a representation of whatever it might be that is required.
Or, to put it another way, why not replace the clock faces of Big Ben with huge screens? That’s what I’d do.
The screens could contain a display of the old original clock face, thus reducing further still the cost of maintaining Big Ben. Or, ideally, a bright sparkling new digital display showing year, month, date, day, hour, minute and second. Maybe also temperature, moon phase, or a host of other things. That would be brilliant.
Heck, messages could even be splashed across via the screen. Like when a royal baby is born, or when it’s new year or something important has happened. Brilliant.
Or, like with the Google logo, the font could be changed daily to reflect events or historic references. Heck, the possibilities are endless. Let’s do this!
Digital signage screens are appearing all over the country with moving adverts on them, so why shouldn’t the clockface of Big Ben be one huge digital sign too?
The £40Million could be spent instead on something important like my next holiday.
England's England 