IN 1939, the BBC bought a stately home on a wooded hill near Evesham in
Worcestershire and spread the rumour that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were
going to live there. In reality, the government was making Wood Norton Hall the
largest secret broadcasting centre in Europe. During the war it put out nearly a
thousand hours of radio every week.
After the war, the BBC turned Wood Norton into a training centre for
engineers, and in the 1960s the British government funded a new training wing
for the centre. Why did the government get involved? Because the ugly,
two-storey training block goes down ten storeys and is actually a
self-sufficient nuclear bunker.
Wood Norton is still used as a training and conference centre. Locals who
work there tell of tunnels under the hill, which is topped with a government
transmitter station.
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Locals also tell how Wood Norton became a hive of activity over the recent
New Year holiday, with the bunker on alert and BBC staff on duty to broadcast to
the nation and around the world by satellite if the millennium bug caused
disaster.
On government orders, Wood Norton hired huge standby generators to supply the
site and transmitter if the national power grid failed. A month later they were
still sitting idle on the site.
The government now likes to justify the fact that Britain spent more per
capita than any other country on anti-bug measures by saying the money ensured
that vital services would not fail. But the reality, clearly, is that no one
knew what would happen on the night.
ABANDON all energy research, forget hot and cold fusion, stand down the wind
farmers. Britain鈥檚 Midlands Electricity Board has the answer: light bulbs that
put out five times as much energy as you put into them.
The board has recently been promoting Philips鈥檚 Ecotone energy-saving light
bulbs. They come with a glossy leaflet which includes the following paragraph
under the heading 鈥淎mazing Energysavers from Philips鈥�:
鈥淲hat is an Energy Saving Light Bulb? An energy saving light bulb is more
efficient than an ordinary light bulb. It only needs the equivalent of 11 watts
of energy to produce 60 watts of light. And because it uses less electricity, it
lasts longer and saves money too.鈥�
Amazing indeed.
THERE is an article in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical
Physics (yes, it really is called that) entitled 鈥淚nvestigations of
chemical reactions between single levitated magnesium chloride microdroplets
with SO2 and NOx by means of Raman spectroscopy and elastic light
scattering鈥�. The authors of this paper are Jurgen Popp and Jeanette Musick.
It occurs to us that if these two authors married they could call themselves
Jurgen and Jeanette Popp-Musick鈥攁nd if they had children, then Jurgen
would become Pop Popp-Musick.
Just a thought.
TELEVISION programmes always end with a copyright date. But instead of an
easy-to-read year number, BBC programmes end with a confusing string of Roman
numerals that flash up far too quickly for anyone except an arts scholar to
decipher.
We asked a British TV producer why this is. Is it because lawyers and judges
still like to talk Latin?
Oh no, we were told. Screening a quick flash of Roman code stamps the legal
date but stops most viewers recognising on old programme for what it really
is.
Sadly for the producers, the year 2000 spoils this little game. The Roman
date is MM, which is as easy to recognise as a McDonald鈥檚 hamburger joint.
THE CAMPAIGN to promote the public understanding of science still has some
way to go, it seems. A waterways rescue service worker being interviewed on BBC
News West had this to say about the conditions during a recent call-out: 鈥淭he
air temperature was round about freezing, and I suspect that the water
temperature was a lot less than that.鈥�
WHEN reader Raphael Comagnon was returning from a holiday in Greece, he was
somewhat flummoxed by the signs at the Zurich airport passport control desk.
The first queue was labelled 鈥淎ll passports鈥� and the second 鈥淥ther
辫补蝉蝉辫辞谤迟蝉鈥�.
HOW many readers keep a calculator by them in the kitchen? You鈥檒l need one if
you鈥檙e going to follow the cooking instructions that come with a roasting
chicken from Tesco鈥檚 supermarket.
鈥淐ook for 20 minutes per 454 grammes (1 lb) plus 20 minutes,鈥� the
instructions told reader Jack Harrison. The chicken he had bought weighed 2.25
kilograms鈥攖he weight in pounds and ounces wasn鈥檛 given.
So how long would it take to cook? Get calculating!
FINALLY, does anyone happen to know an electrician with a 3-pin navel? The
instruction manual for the Sovereign TLH240 laminating machine begins: 鈥淧lug
into the qualified electrician to install the proper power outlet.鈥�