To: 999 & Neil Parry
From: K6X (Cluke)
Subject: Primates vs Pachyderms
If there is one thing I find hard to
believe, it is that a grown man can
not accept defeat gracefully! As you
are very well aware Neil, I was far
more accurate with my timing method
than you were; on each occasion I was
accurate to within +/- 2, that's TWO
seconds, whereas your best effort was
more than 15, ho!ho! FIFTEEN seconds
out, something you forgot to mention
when you sent in your pathetic message
asking the membership to support your
lost cause. To sit there and say that
just because you cannot make it work
does not mean you are wrong, smacks of
King Canute trying to turn back the
rising tide! Whilst still in Sheffield
at Jonathan's, you said that you would
send in a message for the next issue
and open up the topic for discussion
amongst the membership, but I did not
expect your message to take the form
of a whinge! Did you honestly expect
to drum up much support? There is only
ONE message in your support on this
disc but that is from Yorkshire, which
as an independant nation with their
own language, has a different view of
almost everything to the rest of the
known world anyway. I am sure 8BS has
better things to publish than sad
messages from bad losers! I know you
live 20-odd miles North of Watford,
but I expected better of an Essex Boy!
The plain truth is that my method has
official Government approval! I served
my telecommunications apprenticeship
in The Post Office. At that time it
was a Government-run organisation, and
was regarded as part of the Civil
Service. Therefore, it follows that
methods practised by The Post Office
were Government-approved. Telephones
in those days had dials on them, and
in order for the exchange equipment to
function correctly those dials had to
rotate at the correct speed in order
to produce ten loop-disconnect-pulses
per second (thats 10 Hz to you kids).
Dials were factory-set to this speed,
but over a period of usage would tend
to either speed up or slow down, thus
giving rise to wrong numbers, or other
problems in the exchange. Along with
thousands of others, I was trained to
adjust the dials to the correct speed,
and guess how we were taught to count
seconds accurately? What a surprise-
one-chimpanzee! This effective and
Government-approved method kept the
nation's telephones working on the old
Strowger system for over sixty years
until the advent of the modern digital
exchanges, so I don't think you can
argue with it's pedigree!
Should you still feel that there is a
remote vestige of validity in your
claim for elephants to be used as a
basis for measuring elapsed time, let
me give you this final blow. A friend
of mine worked at London Zoo for many
years, as keeper to Guy the Gorilla.
He assures me that elephants cannot
count, and if anybody should know, he
should. It logically follows from this
that as they cannot count, there is no
way that an elephant would be able to
tell the time. I rest my case!
EDITOR.... Come on lads, calm it down