Big Ben
Big Ben is the main bell hanging in the clock tower[?] of the Palace of Westminster, the home of the Houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It is commonly taken to be the name of the clock tower itself, but this is incorrect - the tower is known as the St Valentine's Tower, or merely the Clock Tower. The name "Ben" comes from Benjamin Hall, the civil engineer who ordered the bell cast.The bell weighs 13.8 tonnes (13 tons 10cwt 99lb), with a hammer weighing 203.2kg (4cwt), and is tuned to E. It has a delay of 5 seconds between strikes. The Clock Tower contains four additional bells (known as the Quarter Bells).
Big Ben is a focus of New Year celebrations in the UK, with radio and TV stations tuning to its chimes to welcome the 'official' start of the year. It can also be heard striking the hour before some news bulletins on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. ITN's News at Ten also used to begin with the famous chimes. These have since been dropped, but all ITV news bulletins now use a graphic based on the Westminster clock face.
The clock on the tower, officially called the Great Clock, is famous for its reliability. This is due to its designer, the lawyer and amateur horologist Edward Beckett[?], Lord Grimthorpe.
The idiom of putting a penny on with the meaning of slowing down, sprung from the method of fine-tuning the clocks regulator by adding or subtracting penny-coins.
A 20-foot metal replica of the clock tower known as Little Ben, complete with working clock, stands on a traffic island close to Victoria Station[?].
The rain.html">rain is
floor.html">floor-gratings yield as the soil becomes soaked; some of them slope
see them, so we miss them at the turnings and put our feet into
shine of Poterloo's helmet.html">helmet, which streams like a roof under the
glistening oilskin. I lock my step in his, and from time to time I
and strong.
When there are no more of the wooden floor-gratings, we tramp in the
Poterloo. Up higher we hear half-angry reproaches--"What the devil,
the re/rest.html">rest of the company. We begin to pant and complain, and bluster
stumble and hold ourselves up by the wails, so that our hands are
of metal things and of oaths.
In redoubled rain there is a second halt; some one has fallen, and
exert myself to follow Poterloo's helmet closely that gleams feebly
right.html">right?"--"Yes, yes, all right," he replies, puffing and blowing, and
elements, drag and hurt our shoulders.
The trench.html">trench is blocked by a recent landslide, and we plunge unto it.
them high at each step. Then, when this crossing is laboriously
bottom of which are two narrow ruts, boot-worn, which hold one's
great splash. In one place we must stoop very low to pass under a
through with difficulty. It obliges us to kneel in the mud, to
paces. A little farther there are evolutions to perform as we grasp
middle of the fairway.
We come to a trench-crossing. "Allons, forward! Look out for
corner to let us pass and to speak to us. "This is a bad spot."
"We're done up," shouts a voice so hoarse that I cannot identify.
On
wordlookup.net
All is still licensed under the GNU FDL.
It uses material from the wikipedia.
|
|