[HN Gopher] Ancient law requires a bale of straw to hang from Ch...
___________________________________________________________________
Ancient law requires a bale of straw to hang from Charing Cross
rail bridge
Author : alexbilbie
Score : 133 points
Date : 2025-05-22 08:52 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ianvisits.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ianvisits.co.uk)
| ianbooker wrote:
| The article states that the purpose of this is "lost to time". I
| can image that by now its function is equivalent to a "brown M&M
| clause".
| iainmerrick wrote:
| I'm a bit bemused at that "lost to time", as _immediately
| before that_ it says:
|
| _The law requires a bale of straw to be hung from a bridge_ as
| a warning to mariners _whenever the height between the river
| and the bridge's arches is reduced, as it is at Charing Cross
| at the moment._
|
| That seems clear enough! OK, the reason why it specifically has
| to be a bale of straw isn't obvious, but apart from that it
| seems very reasonable, just outdated.
|
| Edit to add: straw does make sense as a makeshift crash barrier
| -- you'll notice if you hit it, but hopefully won't actually
| damage your ship. It seems like you would always just plough
| through and hit the actual bridge, though.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yeah it's amazing (in a bad sense) how those bridge too low
| warnings are ignored most of the time
|
| Well of course when you get stuck then it's too late.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| They get ignored because there's a fudge factor built into
| them.
|
| Some states (IL in particular) have absurd fudge factors,
| so you have 14ft spaces signed as 12.xx and 13'6" trucks
| drive under them all day every day like it's nothing which
| basically trains them to ignore the signs.
|
| And that's before you consider all the drivers who can't
| read english at road speeds so anything that isn't the
| standardized yellow sign right on/beside the object is
| going to go unnoticed to them a large amount of the time.
| tomxor wrote:
| Similar to how people will read a temporary hand written
| sign on a door, but filter out a (newly placed)
| professionally made sign, because the latter looks too
| permanent.
|
| If something has _changed_ , using something out of place
| or temporary in appearance seems to be the most effective
| way of getting human attention... A bale of straw feels
| like it fits the bill.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Absolutely. A straw bale hanging from a bridge over a
| river is an anachronism. It doesn't normally belong
| there, and it's more likely to be noticed than a literal
| notice.
| tlb wrote:
| Bales of straw are a cheap, large, soft object you could
| always find nearby in the pre-motor car days. I can't think
| of a better object to require.
| bombcar wrote:
| Why does everyone think it's something to run into?
|
| At night it's a light. It's obviously a notification system.
| You visibly see the bale of straw before you get to the
| bridge and you know to slow down and stop and investigate
| what the clearance issue is.
| woleium wrote:
| Yes, a bale of hay used to be a warning of something to
| look out for on the road ahead
| guerrilla wrote:
| In case anyone else forgot what that means.
|
| > The "brown M&M clause" was a specific contract requirement by
| Van Halen that demanded all brown M&Ms be removed from a bowl
| of M&Ms provided backstage before their performances. This
| clause was not a frivolous demand but a way to test if the
| concert promoters had read the entire contract carefully. If
| brown M&Ms were found, it indicated that other important
| technical details might have been overlooked, which could pose
| safety risks for the band and the audience.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| And an additional note: The Van Halen show wasn't a few dudes
| with guitars and a set of drums going around in a van.
|
| It was a massive display of pyrotechnics and staging - the
| requirements in the rider weren't there for fun, it was for
| actual safety.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Are you young? I would think that is common knowledge. No
| offense, genuinely curious. Sounds like I must be getting
| old.
| red_admiral wrote:
| Didn't they also specify something like a 20 ampere widget
| plugged into a 10 ampere cable or something? If no-one
| questioned that, they'd hire or bring their own electrician
| to check absolutely everything with a cable near it. (That
| might have been another band, it was a long time ago I read
| this.)
| gcanyon wrote:
| There's a further aspect (supposedly): the brown M&Ms was
| listed in the pre-check conditions, and the contract stated
| that if any of them were found to not be in compliance then
| the Van Halen team had the right to force checks on any/all
| of them for compliance. So if they found the brown M&Ms it
| gave them the contractual right to demand that other, more
| impactful, requirements be (re)checked for compliance.
| CPLX wrote:
| You know I've seen this explanation a million times for
| decades and it's always just a tiny bit wrong.
|
| It's a small distinction, but actually if the band showed up
| and found all the brown M&Ms still there the plan would have
| already been a failure.
|
| The reason it was in the contract was to make sure the
| promoter had _read_ the contract before signing it and
| understood what they were getting into.
|
| Band riders are almost invariably redlined. Bands ask for all
| sorts of crazy shit and you cross out stuff you can't provide
| or give a substitute brand name (like if the venue has an
| exclusive vendor relationship with Coke instead of Pepsi
| stuff like that) and then you work out any kinks and finalize
| it.
|
| The reason to put the M&M clause in there is _to get the
| promoter to strike the clause during the contracting process_
| because any competent promoter will read every line carefully
| and strike something like that.
|
| So when they do you know they read it and know what they are
| doing are comfortable signing a deal with them.
|
| You would never want to be arriving at the venue with the
| clause still in force, that's a sign you have a larger
| problem.
|
| Source: I was a concert promoter in the 90's
| lmm wrote:
| Roth's own statements in his autobiography ( as quoted on
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brown-out/ ) contradict
| that; they were playing in universities and the like that
| weren't used to hosting big technical band shows and
| probably didn't have dedicated band promoters in that era.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| It's both. Compliance statements don't prove that something
| will be complied with; they prove intent to do so. On-site
| test proves it was complied with.
|
| Source: I am a systems engineer.
| red_admiral wrote:
| It's rarely a brand issue with M&Ms though? I'd expect a
| competent promoter would read it and charge a reasonable
| amount for that line item. Band asks for crazy shit, you
| quote an almost-crazy price for it.
| frederikvs wrote:
| Removing the brown ones from a bowl of M&Ms is a 5 minute
| job that can be handled by anyone. I would expect a lot of
| people would go "well that's a bit eccentric, but if it
| makes the band happy, why not".
|
| I doubt the band would say "you didn't redline this weird
| but inconsequential request, we can't work together.
|
| If they wanted to be sure the redlining process worked,
| they should have put in something like "remove all fire
| extinguishers from backstage".
| comrade1234 wrote:
| I should patent my tennis ball-on-string solution for the same
| thing.
| dismalpedigree wrote:
| This is why laws should have sunset clauses
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Sunset? So that after a few years people can do work on bridges
| without having to put up warnings? In a modern context, we
| wouldn't sunset a law saying that traffic lights be green and
| red, even though maybe in a few years we might want orange and
| pink. You dont mess around with safety warning standards.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| If the law is actually valuable and there is political
| capital for its continuation then surely the legislative body
| can vote to extend it with minimal fuss.
| looperhacks wrote:
| If the law is useless and there is political capital then
| surely the legislative body can vote to abolish it with
| minimal fuss.
|
| A bit tongue in cheek, of course - but I can't image the
| amount of unnecessary work regular continuation of _every_
| law would cause. Time limits on laws are already a thing,
| but it shouldn't be a default.
| TRiG_Ireland wrote:
| What you're suggesting is that if the government is
| dysfunctional, useful safety standards get abolished. That
| seems counterproductive.
| Ekaros wrote:
| You do not remove them. But you should change them when
| environment changes. Straw bale was decent indicator back in
| the day. But I think there should be some more modern and
| even global standard that law could be changed to. And this
| should be done with reasonable planning, schedule and
| communication.
| maratc wrote:
| Decent indicator of _what_?
|
| It could be, to the contrary, that the legislators have
| come up with "straw bale" as something that simply _does
| not belong under the bridge_ , in order to raise the brows
| of the people navigating the river, and make them wonder
| what's going on, all that in order to draw their attention.
| If so, it serves its purpose _even more_ as straw bales are
| getting less common.
| johngladtj wrote:
| We absolutely should sunset those laws.
|
| If they are needed they can be voted upon again by
| parliament, and will no doubt pass.
|
| In fact I would say not only should all laws have built in
| expiration dates, such expiration dates should be shorter the
| lower the percentage of votes in parliament it too to pass
| them!
|
| If you can only get a 51% majority in parliament to pass a
| law, that law should not exist beyond that election.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I see you've never played Nomic. Laws that automatically
| self-destruct are a very clever way to create the
| conditions needed to win the game. You should try it some
| time.
| twixfel wrote:
| Sounds like a huge waste of time to me.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _should have sunset clauses_
|
| That would be the extra lights that have to be turned on at
| night.
| arp242 wrote:
| They can just change the law?
|
| I suspect the reason it's not in this case is because it's kind
| of an endearing tradition that people like. I don't think you
| can say much about "the law" in general based on this case.
| layer8 wrote:
| The law does say that the bale of straw is to be replaced or
| supplemented by a white light at sunset.
| metalman wrote:
| This is a good reminder of how law is actualy created and works,
| and the what our legal foundations are, including the laws
| governing our rights and responsibilitys. The real thing to
| understand is that all law is arbitrary, and whatever possible
| balance and measure is included in existing law, and discussions
| about change and reform are always predicated on some imagined
| "justice" to be had, but no matter how "just" or logical a law,
| someone still has to impliment and administer it, and there in
| lies the trap, so sticking to an ancient precident speaks volumes
| about the form that those laws will follow, and how to function
| inside that legal system. Another recent hint, was an article,
| here?, about ancient water pumps scattered about greater London,
| digging there will likely reveal that those pumps have and
| represent a primary right to water that can not be
| removed......or ignored...much like the many scattered temples
| and shrines in Japan where fantastic acomodations in modern
| building and construction have been made in order to build
| around, but not over, these structures that have precidence.
| card_zero wrote:
| This one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44024278
| eleveriven wrote:
| It reveals something deeper about how legal systems evolve (or
| don't).
| maratc wrote:
| That's the British system working as designed. If there's a law,
| no matter how ancient, the British should comply. If a law needs
| to be changed, that's the Parliament's job.
|
| Even the British courts, in sharp contrast to many other places,
| "deliver the law as it is, and not as we wish it to be" -- see
| for example [0] or [1].
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashford_v_Thornton
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens_v_Owens
| breggles wrote:
| So, the full clause reads:
|
| "When the headroom of an arch or span of a bridge is reduced
| from its usual limits but that arch or span is not closed to
| navigation, the person in control of the bridge must suspend
| from the centre of that arch or span by day a bundle of straw
| large enough to be conspicuous and by night a white light."
|
| Does that mean the law is not being complied with, in this
| case, since the bales are hanging from adjacent bridges, not
| the "centre of that arch or span" itself?
| maratc wrote:
| I think you'd need a couple of "solicitors" -- or maybe even
| "barristers" -- to decide on that. I'm neither :)
| ipsin wrote:
| Thanks, I was annoyed that the article didn't cite the actual
| law in question, but the BBC comes in with "Port of London
| Thames Byelaws, clause 36.2"
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmlrx89jdv2o
| maratc wrote:
| The BBC also didn't call it "ancient," which would be
| questionable considering that the law is from 2012.
| alexbilbie wrote:
| Its an ancient practise, codified into law in 2012 when
| the regulatory framework was re-codified from multiple
| laws like Port of London Act 1908 as well as time
| immemorial acts like this.
| danans wrote:
| According to the article the original practice is
| medieval, not ancient. It's colloquial usage of "ancient"
| as in "my car is ancient" is a bit odd.
| gjm11 wrote:
| Fun fact: in English law "time immemorial" has a very
| specific meaning: it means "any time before 1189". See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_immemorial for more.
| red_admiral wrote:
| Delays due to trucks striking bridges are a worldwide
| problem, at least in countries with railroads. Despite yellow
| black striped reflective panels and height warning signs and
| sometimes height detectors that trigger flashing red lights.
|
| Perhaps we should try a bale of straw next.
|
| The London Blackwall tunnel has a more modern take on
| checking height: https://maps.app.goo.gl/b5P5Td1hsuSjLU3w8
| traffic signals, barriers like at a railroad crossing, giant
| panels across the road at height, and a police car on standby
| to pull out and fine anyone that doesn't read the signs - I
| presume this happens often enough that they can justify the
| cost.
|
| But then the bale of straw applied to ships not vehicles and
| bridges not tunnels.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Your link shows the Dartford Crossing, an M25 bridge miles
| downstream of the City. The Blackwall Tunnel runs under the
| Thames at Greenwich and afaik just has the old school
| hanging metal blocks at height
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/N5xSF148ggLVTDtS8
|
| It doesn't surprise me too much that police are on standby,
| a closure of either tunnel or bridge has a major effect on
| traffic all over London
| peteri wrote:
| There are additional traffic lights on the blackwall
| tunnel further in and a slip road out that can be used
| for overheight vehicles. I do remember having a 10-15
| minute wait once while they sorted things out when a
| lorry driver got caught.
|
| I'd have a feeling there are automated signs prior to the
| tunnel (or at least used to be) but I've not been through
| the tunnel for a year or so and things will have changed
| with the Silvertown tunnel opening.
|
| I have seen someone not paying attention at the
| Rotherhithe tunnel and the roof of their van was a mess
| (and they're going to pick up a fine probably due to
| restrictions, the 2 tonnes gross weight limit is lower
| than a lot of van drivers expect)
|
| Edit there were:
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/MP7fkhS394DJPQaZ9 If you zoom in
| you can see the overheight vehicle warning.
| red_admiral wrote:
| I presume the Blackwall one is that unlit LED sign just
| at the start of the off-ramp. Then there's another set of
| height detectors on the same post to catch out anyone
| who's still not paying attention.
|
| I question who approved that the main lanes ahead of your
| link have 2.8m/9ft limits but the police warning says
| vehicles over 4m/13ft will be stopped. Can I take my 10ft
| truck through or not?
|
| I'm starting to feel a tiny bit of sympathy for drivers
| that get confused by this.
| red_admiral wrote:
| You're right of course.
|
| Blackwall seems also to have two sets of lights and
| barriers, and an off-ramp in between. That's probably for
| fire safety too to close and evacuate the tunnel and get
| the emergency services in, but I imagine it's used for
| height detection too if a loud CLUNK on your truck cabin
| isn't enough.
|
| As an aside, the person who signed the original heights
| as (13ft)(4m)(9ft)(2.8m) needs to learn a bit about UI
| design. Yes, two lanes, but the gap between the central
| two signs is far smaller than to the other sign for the
| same lane. Also 4m is just over 13 ft 1 inch, which
| there'd be space to include as there's already a 0 on the
| leftmost sign (and from the rightmost we see that
| decimals are allowed on signs). Guess we're going to rely
| on the CLUNK after all.
| pjmlp wrote:
| In Germany even this wasn't enough, in a couple of bridges
| they had to constrain the road leading to the bridge in a
| way that only small cars would still be able to reach the
| bridge under repairs.
|
| I also imagine it wasn't cheap doing this, but apparently
| as long as people can get away with something there is
| always those that will try, regardless of how it impacts
| others.
| oniony wrote:
| https://youtu.be/ImU1mG7QC4I?feature=shared
| dghf wrote:
| In what places do courts ignore or modify law to deliver the
| result they prefer?
|
| (To be precise: where is that accepted practice, rather than
| aberrant behaviour by some judges?)
| maratc wrote:
| Usually the judges do not "ignore or modify" the law, but
| rather "interpret" it in a creative manner. You might use, as
| an example, the question of "does the US Constitution
| guarantee the women a right to abortion." Some judges decided
| that it does, later some other judges decided that it does
| not. Considering the opposing outcomes to the same question,
| it's clear some of these were wrong.
| userbinator wrote:
| In the US, it's usually _enforcement_ that 's ignored.
| AngryData wrote:
| That is why everything is illegal 3x over. If they don't
| like you, you get farked. If they like you, they just
| ignore it.
| ljm wrote:
| Letter of the law vs. spirit of the law.
|
| One could argue that 'a corporation has personhood' is a
| technical contrivance that tries to manipulate the letter
| of the law into achieving a particular outcome. Going with
| the spirit of the law instead, that argument would never
| hold water.
| davidw wrote:
| The Supreme Court in the United States has been playing a
| looooot of "Calvinball" recently. They've never been
| completely immune from it, but it has gotten a lot more
| nakedly political.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Off topic but I am now old enough that more than once
| Calvinball references were lost with my co-workers.
|
| I was surprised (and then sad) at the realization that Bill
| Watterson is fading from the cultural ethos as I age.
| sethammons wrote:
| I've noticed similar. I quote lots of movies, usually one
| liners as appropriate. Between age and less uniform media
| exposure, my references more often than not fall flat.
| And I feel less connected.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| If you talk to anyone under 30, there's a vague sense of
| 'the past' with a few landmark events - mostly Star Wars,
| Pokemon, Miyazaki. Beyond that it's all recent comics,
| superhero movies, video games, and anime, with a big
| subculture stanning book trends like romantasy.
|
| Most of what happened before 2000 doesn't seem to exist
| in cultural memory.
|
| It's not quite true that nothing that happened before
| 1950 exists at all. But you're not going to find many
| people who are interested in the art, music, literature,
| design, or architecture of earlier decades - never mind
| centuries.
|
| It's as a big a break as there was in the 60s. For that
| generation the 50s were still an influence, but anything
| earlier pretty much just disappeared.
| card_zero wrote:
| I guess the sense of a rubicon at the end of the 40s was
| due to WW2, but why at the year 2000? Because phones? Or
| big round number effect, perhaps? The year 2000 was built
| up in our minds as when the future was expected to begin.
| (Every new gadget produced around 1990 was the
| Something2000. CarVacuum2000, Ionizer2000,
| SuperShoehorn2000, etc.)
| bmacho wrote:
| > And I feel less connected.
|
| Watch whatever today's kids watch.
| card_zero wrote:
| The "less uniform media exposure" phrase invokes the
| (paranoid?) fear that we might lose common cultural
| reference points. In short, today's kids watch whatever.
| Though I'm sure we'd just find a new social script to
| work around the inability to quote Python.
| mionhe wrote:
| I like to use the phrase "skibidi" wrong. My kids make
| the greatest faces.
| bregma wrote:
| Gone are the days when everyone was spammed with Monty
| Python references. The Gen-Zs in my office haven't even
| heard of, let alone viewed, the Holy Grail so half the
| references our boss lays out are lost on them. At least
| it's not dead yet.
|
| On the other hand, I had to ask them what a Kirby was.
| I'm still not sure but I know it's pink.
| eadmund wrote:
| > At least it's not dead yet.
|
| It's pining for the fjords!
| alnwlsn wrote:
| Interesting, at least 10 years ago, everyone in my school
| knew Monty Python. Maybe that's because it was on Youtube
| at the time. Not really the case anymore; some is still
| there but a lot has been removed - you're not going to
| find 'Holy Grail part 1/11' these days.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| That's sad. It's not like when I was watching Holy Grail
| in the late 80s it was in theaters, and the "effects"
| weren't good enough when it was made to become dated. We
| watched it and lots of other stuff on VHS because it was
| good, regardless of when it was made.
|
| I suppose some of the jokes depend on cultural things
| that might not be taught as well anymore, like the Trojan
| Horse. But most of it is about human nature, so it seems
| like that should hold up.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| That's common in both European courts (look at e.g. the
| history of homosexual marriages in the EU) and in the US
| ("Citizens United").
|
| The core issue is that no Constitution, in fact no law or
| decree at all can account for all possibilities that real
| life offers, and so all the bodies of law are up for
| interpretation all the time.
| teamonkey wrote:
| This is also the case in the UK. Where things are not
| crystal clear they are interpreted by judges and can become
| precedent (see the recent "definition of a woman"
| interpretation).
|
| The issue highlighted by, say, the Owens vs Owens example,
| is that the law as it stood was clear and not open to
| interpretation, though obviously unfair. The law needed to
| be _changed_ , which required parliament.
| wisty wrote:
| The US.
|
| There are vague rights in the constitution.
|
| It could be a disaster for the courts to interpret them too
| literally (Is literally any weapon OK in the 2nd? Does free
| speech include a mob boss ordering a hit?) and constitutions
| are really hard to amend, so heavy interpretation is a
| nessessary evil.
| wirrbel wrote:
| That is an interesting example because the second amendment
| is I think a primary example of a law that is very
| creatively read by folks that consider themselves
| literalists.
|
| if the 2nd amendmend was literally interpreted it would be
| (quoting from memory) "in order to form a well-ordered
| militia the right to bear arms shall not be infringed"
|
| As in you cannot infringe the right to bear arms in a well
| ordered militia, but gun ownership might be regulated for
| example by the militia organization owning the arms.
| Nothing would speak against codifying in law what
| constitutes a well-ordered militia, etc.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| That's... how the 2nd amendment used to be treated,
| actually: state laws against conceit carry have lo-o-ong
| history, and they've been held to be perfectly
| constitutionally until recently. Oh, and "well-regulated"
| used to mean "well trained and supplied" back in those
| day.
|
| And the 2nd actually reads (if you fix its grammar since
| it's ungrammatical by the standards of the modern English
| language) "since the well-regulated militia is necessary
| to the security of a free state, the right of the people
| to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" -- now
| notice that it's a conditional rule, and its premise in
| "since..." is no longer true, militias are not necessary
| for the security of a country; and so the conclusion
| _should_ lose its power. And arguably it 's what the
| Founders intended: if they meant it as an absolute rule,
| they would've omitted the first part of it and would have
| simply stated that "the right of the people to keep and
| bear arms shall not be infringed", period.
| treis wrote:
| Your memory is a bit off. The text is:
|
| >A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the
| security of a free State, the right of the people to keep
| and bear Arms, shall not be infringed
|
| It's the only amendment that comes with a justification
| so it's unusual but there's nothing in the text that
| limits the right to the listed justification.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > if the 2nd amendmend was literally interpreted it would
| be (quoting from memory) "in order to form a well-ordered
| militia the right to bear arms shall not be infringed"
|
| I don't agree at all that this is a case of creative
| reading. The actual text of the amendment is "A well
| regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a
| free State, the right of the people to keep and bear
| Arms, shall not be infringed."
|
| Note that the text _does not say_ "in order to" or
| anything like that, which is why interpretation of this
| amendment gets controversial. Was the intent that bearing
| arms is only a right insofar as people are part of a
| local militia? Was the intent that people must have the
| right to bear arms and the militia was simply cited as
| one example of why? It is genuinely unclear from the
| text, which means that no matter what we do we have to
| layer our own interpretation on top. That doesn't mean
| anyone is reading the law creatively, that's just the
| unfortunate facts of having to deal with an unclear text.
| eadmund wrote:
| > In what places do courts ignore or modify law to deliver
| the result they prefer?
|
| The United States. E.g. 'the switch in time that saved nine,'
| Wickard v. Filburn, Obergefell v. Hodges, Gonzales v. Raich
| and so forth.
| rustcleaner wrote:
| >If there's a law, no matter how ancient, the British should
| comply. If a law needs to be changed, that's the Parliament's
| job.
|
| If that's not religion, I don't know what is...
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Religion is notably harder to change than country laws.
| shakna wrote:
| The hundreds of Protestant sects all cried out in anguish.
| The Hindu cults just rolled their eyes.
|
| Most religions are relatively flexible around beliefs. It
| tends to be particular sects that aren't... But they don't
| speak for the rest.
| prewett wrote:
| I think you're conflating religious beliefs with ethics.
| You can't have a religion that is flexible on beliefs,
| otherwise it is not a religion, but the actual core
| religious beliefs are fairly limited. In Christianity,
| Jesus dying to reconcile the world to God is the whole
| point; without that it is something else. The whole point
| of Buddhism is that all emotions are pain, and that
| realizing that everything really nothing (since all
| composable things are impermanent and everything is
| composed) is the path to nirvana. All the other beliefs
| and ethics come out of this.
|
| But even "submarine" religions (ones that people do not
| think of as a religion) follow the pattern. Communists
| worship the State (or perhaps the Party), because the
| problem with society is the structure of society, so only
| the State can bring the salvation of equity. American
| Progressives worship sexual identity. Progressives are
| flexible--except if you don't accept a particular
| identity, think that gender is not malleable, refuse to
| use pronouns, etc.
|
| However, I think even "most religions" are not very
| flexible. 50% of the world's population are either
| Christian or Islam, and both are pretty prescriptive in
| the ethics.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Religions is just one incarnation of a more fundamental trait
| of human psychology that allows us to build complex society.
|
| Belief in other shared made up things like law and even money
| works that way, and most of the world -isms too
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| It's representative democracy.
|
| Religion is what it replaced. Where one person, with a clique
| of courtiers who personally relied on him for power, enacted
| whatever took their fancy. Their word was power, whether it
| was starting wars or forging alliances with unsavoury
| countries - and woebetide you if you challenged it.
| zeristor wrote:
| There's a word for that sort of thing, it just happens to be:
|
| antidisestablishmentarianism
|
| That is for the removal of the Church of England as the
| religion of England, but it's along those lines.
| TRiG_Ireland wrote:
| You have one too many negative prefixes there. The Church
| of England is already established. Those who want to remove
| that status are proposing disestablishment.
| Antidisestablishmentarianism is the desire to maintain the
| status quo.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > Even the British courts, in sharp contrast to many other
| places, "deliver the law as it is, and not as we wish it to be"
|
| The English practically invented the idea of common law. Even
| today there are still important legal principles based entirely
| on the decisions of earlier courts.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| A formal UK Constitution doesn't exist and is a striking
| example of this
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_K.
| ..
|
| The constitution of the United Kingdom comprises the written
| and unwritten arrangements that establish the United Kingdom
| of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a political body.
| Unlike in most countries, no official attempt has been made
| to codify such arrangements into a single document, thus it
| is known as an uncodified constitution. This enables the
| constitution to be easily changed as no provisions are
| formally entrenched.
| pessimizer wrote:
| In the US we only have a remnant of that in the Senate, in
| what has been popularly marketed as "the Nuclear Option." A
| Senator just makes a point of order that a Senate rule is
| the opposite of what it actually, verifiably is. The chair
| denies it, the Senator appeals the decision, and a majority
| of the Senate then overrules the chair.
|
| After this has happened, the rule just changes and whatever
| was not in order in the past is in order in the future (or
| vice versa.) In the Senate as in Parliament; the majority
| of Parliament _is_ the law, it can 't break the law.
| pessimizer wrote:
| There are still important legal principles in the US and
| other places around the world based entirely on the decisions
| of earlier _English_ courts. The first local decisions will
| reference English cases, and English legal experts often
| would have been consulted.
|
| Same thing with most of the world's parliaments and
| congresses having to reference English Parliamentary
| precedent in order to figure out how to operate themselves.
| The UK Parliament and courts may be terrible, but they
| invented the thing and we're forks.
| irdc wrote:
| The Romans would like to have a word...
| bb123 wrote:
| Reminds me of the fact that for 500 years everyone graduating
| with a BA from Oxford had to swear that they would never agree to
| the reconciliation of Henry Symeonis, despite no one having any
| idea who he was for most of that time.
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Yes! I was disappointed to learn when I graduated with my BA
| that this oath was no longer required. However, I continue
| refuse to reconcile with Henry Symeonis. It's only been 800
| years, you never know when it might be important. After all,
| the Anglo-Portuguese is still in force 650 years on!
| avhception wrote:
| Clearly a case of Chesterton's Fence. Who knows what eldritch
| horrors might result from the removal of that oath!
| throwup238 wrote:
| Someone outside of Eton might get elected.
| zeristor wrote:
| But then we wouldn't be in a Mess.
| jvvw wrote:
| Looks like it was removed in 1827. I don't actually remember
| having to say anything at any of my graduation ceremonies
| there (BA, MA, DPhil), just walking on to the stage. I do
| wonder if at matriculation we all had to make some oath
| together but I think I would have remembered if that had been
| the case. I have a strong feeling though I might have had to
| make an oath when I became a scholar - there was definitely a
| ceremony we had to go to - but that would have been college-
| dependent.
| pmyteh wrote:
| You'll have collectively said "do fidem". The rest is read
| by the official at the table, not the graduands.
|
| The question as to whether this constitutes swearing an
| oath or making a simple promise was an interesting one for
| me as Quakers traditionally refuse to do the former.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| "i give my trust". i believe that would be a promise or
| affirmation as it does not invoke a god. Unless it's the
| accusative of the goddess of faith (unlikely).
| eleveriven wrote:
| Bureaucratic tradition at its finest
| fsckboy wrote:
| Chesterton's fence
| dijit wrote:
| The man cannot be living, ergo there can be no
| reconciliation, ergo the promise/oath can only exist
| because nobody bothers to remove it; not because we don't
| know the reasons for its existence.
|
| Though largely it wouldn't matter in this case.
| moomin wrote:
| Had to look this one up. Apparently the answer is he was a rich
| *hole who murdered a student, got fined PS80 (which might have
| been a lot of money, but he was rich), stayed away from Oxford
| a few years and then The Powers That Be told everyone to get
| over it.
|
| I can kind of understand the statute, tbqh.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| According to the Bank of England's inflation calculator, PS80
| in 1242 is worth PS119,600 today.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| The fine was against multiple men. That makes me speculate
| the death was part of a drunkin bar fight and the victim
| was comnected but the King was neutral and only banned him
| until the King returned. Ahew, what a nest of rabbit holes
| to follow.
| mrweasel wrote:
| I was reading some stories and notes made by my grandfather,
| they where written sometime in the 1980s. He's recalling
| stories and people in the area where we lived, out in the
| country side. Apparently my family has feud with a priest from
| the late 1700 hundreds. The priest complained that people (my
| family included) wouldn't travel the 7 - 8 kilometers to the
| church during the fall and winter. The area is in between would
| flood and freeze, becoming dangerous to travel. The priests
| refusal to understand the danger (and long travel time, during
| the winter), caused the feud, which apparently lasted at least
| until the 1920s.
| adolph wrote:
| Which reminds me of _The Cagots were a persecuted minority who
| lived in the west of France and northern Spain_ [0]
| The origins of the Cagots remain uncertain . . . . Despite the
| varied and often mythical explanations for their
| origins, the only consistent aspect of the Cagots was
| their societal exclusion and the lack of any distinct physical
| or cultural traits differentiating them from the general
| population.
|
| 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagot
| triclops200 wrote:
| Thanks for that, looked it up and was a interesting rabbit
| hole: Basically, that oath was Oxford University saying "fuck
| you" to a request of the King (1200s England) officially after
| he effectively tried to order them to break their collective
| line and accept a rich fuck who murdered a scholar in the past.
| Feels kinda like a proto-union-action to me
| https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/2023/...
| radiorental wrote:
| Why a bail of straw? Reminds me of the forgotten reason why the
| onion was thrown into the varnish
|
| "Primo Levi was working in a varnish factory. He was a chemist,
| and he was fascinated by the fact that the varnish recipe
| included a raw onion. What could it be for? No one knew; it was
| just part of the recipe. So he investigated, and eventually
| discovered that they had started throwing the onion in years ago
| to test the temperature of the varnish: if it was hot enough, the
| onion would fry."
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Often, these things are utilitarian, not mystical. So my
| educated guess: Back in the day, the main problem was river
| mariners getting hurt by bridge arches that were lower than
| expected, and the bale of straw was a 'soft buffer' - better to
| get your head hit by a swinging bale of straw than a rock-solid
| bridge.
| radiorental wrote:
| I was wondering about that but it would only work for the
| sailor standing in the right place on a boat sailing dead
| center of the river where there is typically two way traffic.
|
| This doesn't seem like a utilitarian solution, more of a
| signal with a symbolic intention?
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Hm, I guess arches were lower back then, and a lot of the
| riverboats were actually the staked kind (think: Venetian
| gondolieri)? With different arches for different
| directions?
|
| Honestly, this is all guesswork. But I can imagine
| something like that to be the case.
| CJefferson wrote:
| The law explictly requires "large enough to be conspicuous
| and by night a white light", which suggests it's about
| visibility, particularly at night. That makes sense, there
| is a black metal bridge near where I live, and when it is
| cloudly I've noticed it's suprisingly difficult to see,
| even when you know where it is.
| Sharlin wrote:
| More likely that a bale of hay was simply a conspicuous but
| lightweight thing that was easy to get your hands on back in
| the day.
| tdeck wrote:
| Also if it comes undone and falls in the river, it's not
| likely to do any harm.
|
| Aside: Although the article makes the same mistake, hay and
| straw are not the same thing. Hay is dead green grass-like
| plants. Straw is dead brown grass-like plant matter that
| has finished it's lifecycle and used up all the sugars and
| things in it. Hay gets moldy more easily but has nutrients
| for animals while straw does not decompose as quickly.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Yes, I realized that after the edit grace period.
| Specifically, straw is the dried stalks of cereal that
| have very little nutritional value to begin with, whereas
| hay is reaped grass, legumes, whatever herbaceous plants
| that grazing livestock normally eat.
| oniony wrote:
| Indeed. Cheap, readily available, heavy enough to hang,
| soft enough to bump out of the way. Honestly, it's a
| mystery to me why it's a mystery. What else would they use,
| a dead sheep?
| JimDabell wrote:
| Reminds me of grandma's cooking secret:
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/grandmas-cooking-secret/
| leeoniya wrote:
| we have a bridge near where i live that can use such a warning
| crash barrier. you'd think they'd install one after 65 bridge
| strikes in the last few years. their solution was to build a a
| stronger bridge, rofl.
|
| i guess at this point it's a cherished tradition :D. there's
| probably a youtube mashup of all the phone-recorded strikes.
|
| https://www.lakemchenryscanner.com/2025/05/20/box-truck-hits...
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Half the fun of renting a Penske truck is learning what that
| bridge height sign was designed for.
| userbinator wrote:
| I thought it'd be about this infamous bridge:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23587190
| saravanan2661 wrote:
| A scarecrow for ships! That's interesting!
| eleveriven wrote:
| Like a bit of medieval cosplay sneaking into modern
| infrastructure work. A tiny reminder that history isn't just in
| museums... it's literally hanging off our bridges.
| fsckboy wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topping_out#History
|
| the practice of "topping out" a new building can be traced to
| the ancient Scandinavian religious rite of placing a tree atop
| a new building to appease the tree-dwelling spirits displaced
| in its construction... The practice remains common in the
| United Kingdom and assorted Commonwealth countries such as
| Australia[7] and Canada,[8] as well as Germany, Austria,
| Slovenia, Iceland, Chile, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland,
| Hungary and the Baltic States. In the United States the last
| beam of a skyscraper is often painted white and signed by all
| the workers involved.[7] In New Zealand, completion of the roof
| to a water-proof state is celebrated through a "roof shout",
| where workers are treated to cake and beer.[9]
| guerrilla wrote:
| > to appease the tree-dwelling spirits displaced in its
| construction.
|
| It seems not:
|
| > A Scandinavian tradition of hoisting a pine tree to the top
| of framed out buildings had a more functional purpose: when
| the pine needles fell off, the builders knew the wood frame
| below had cured/dried out so they could enclose the
| building.[2]
| bjackman wrote:
| It seems like the original idea here would be to hang the hay at
| slightly below the height of the next bridge. That way it serves
| as a physical indication that your vessel's too tall.
|
| But, in the picture it seems to be a) hung higher than the
| scaffolding and b) too close to it to actually give vessels a
| chance to turn around.
| fsckboy wrote:
| could be the hay was for a softer landing if you hit it
| moomin wrote:
| My wife, reading this: "I see Westminster's PR department are
| doing their job."
| w0de0 wrote:
| This is treated as a whimsical absurdity, but it has a practical
| purpose that's hardly obviated by the antiquity of the law.
|
| I'm a sailor myself - I'd certainly want a warning that a bridge
| is lower than its charted height. The signal is clearly listed in
| the relevant Port of London notice to mariners [0]. Moreover, the
| signal also shows the height of the restriction (and in a neat,
| safe way - nudge the straw and you'll know you're too tall):
|
| "Where the headroom is reduced this will be signalled in
| accordance with the Port of London Authority Thames Byelaw 36.1
| namely:
|
| "By Day - A bundle of straw large enough to be easily visible and
| displayed at the height of restricted headroom"
|
| 0 - https://pla.co.uk/notices/M63-25
| lolinder wrote:
| This also means that this line is also inaccurate:
|
| > For convenience, they're actually hanging from the Jubilee
| footbridges, one on either side of the railway.
|
| It's not for simple convenience: you can see in the photos that
| it's because the footbridges are taller then the rail bridge
| and come a bit before it, which allows them to install the
| straw hanging at the correct height to warn of the constriction
| _before_ someone hits the bridge itself.
| fsckboy wrote:
| i find being warned in advance a most convenient way to avoid
| hitting the bridge, and if the walkways are already installed
| in the right place to put the bales, why that's a very
| convenient place to put them. if the walkways were the same
| height as the bridge, it would not afford that convenience
| because then the footbridges would themselves be the
| obstruction you're in danger of hitting, which would be most
| inconvenient.
| krick wrote:
| Maybe when this was invented, the bundle of straw was the best
| they could do, I don't know, but surely today you can produce a
| more visible, more robust, reusable and, ironically, cheaper
| sign than that.
| tass wrote:
| Maybe, but this has a few advantages.
|
| If there were some reusable item (whatever that may be) it
| would need to be stored somewhere accessible to the
| construction crews, would eventually need to be repaired or
| replaced, and depending on how it's made may need to be
| customized per installation.
|
| Hay and rope are readily available and (depending on the
| rope) biodegrade so could fall into the river with pretty
| minimal pollution. I imagine back in the day they were both
| just borrowed from a local farm or stable.
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