Luke Pollard, Labour MP for Plymouth, said on Twitter: “The Big Ben dongs will return. Silence will reign, and a certain amount of derision has been placed on those who wept mightily about the end of the bongs. And I hope that the Speaker, as the chairman of the House of Commons commission, will look into this urgently so that we can ensure that we can continue to hear Big Ben through those four years.”īut it’s no shakes for the Bongers.
The British Prime Minister Theresa May even got involved, saying last week: “Of course we want to ensure people’s safety at work but it can’t be right for Big Ben to be silent for four years. It perhaps says a lot about how confident Brexit supporters are in their mission that they need the symbolic seal of a bell to make them feel more secure.
It would be very strange if at midnight on that day it does not chime out, very bizarre. Where will the eyes of the world be? On Parliament and Big Ben. We are being liberated from the European Union superstate and Britain will again be a completely self-governing country. It would be symbolically uplifting for it to sound out our departure from the EU as a literally ringing endorsement of democracy.”įellow Tory Peter Bone chimed in (sorry): “Big Ben should bong when we come out of the EU, absolutely. The extremely posh Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who doesn’t so much sound as if he has a plum in his throat as much as swallowed an entire plum orchard, told the Daily Mail: “I think Big Ben ought to be kept striking as much as possible during the repairs as long as it doesn’t deafen the work force. Their hearing would apparently be put at “serious risk” if the bongs were allowed to continue while the work was carried out. The bongs must be silenced, say officials, because of the deleterious effects on the hearing of those workers tasked with repairing the bell. You didn’t wait for them to happen, and unless you were traveling to experience a bong for a specific reason, you left the bongs to themselves.īut the end of the bongs bought outrage, and hand-wringing over bell-ringing, with Conservative ministers and press-like the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph-particularly stirred to their Union Jack core that the bongs would be brought to a temporary halt. Otherwise, London is a noisy city, and the bongs themselves were not a part of the city’s wider routine. The bongs could only be heard near Big Ben itself beside Parliament. Some are very upset at the prospect of no bongs. They feature on the opening credits of current affairs comedy panel show Have I Got News For You? They play before the midnight news on BBC Radio 4, and fade out as the headlines are read.
The bongs would signal the beginning of News at Ten, the ITV main evening news show.
BIGBEN SOUND MULTIMEDIA TOWER SAMSUNG TV
The bongs were most ubiquitous to ring in the New Year-and provide an excellent accompaniment to dramatic film and TV cliffhangers set on New Year’s Eve. Parliament and its MP occupants will reside in bong-less peace for four years. The stern-sounding bongs happen after a little introductory peal called the Westminster Quarters, which play on the quarter hour, and which will also be silenced. Now, the Elizabeth Tower, which holds the bell itself, is having a $37 million restoration, hence the silencing of the bongs until 2021. As a landmark it is loved by tourists, and loved more symbolically by Londoners and Britons who have grown up with the “bongs,” as those strikes of the 13-ton bell on the hour-their number depending on the time-are known. Sure, it’s great when Big Ben goes ‘bong.’ It’s a grand-looking edifice, completed in 1859, a widely revered symbol of London and British democracy.
0 kommentar(er)
