[HN Gopher] Chairs, Chairs, Chairs
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Chairs, Chairs, Chairs
Author : riprippity
Score : 60 points
Date : 2025-05-25 11:14 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.parliament.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.parliament.uk)
| cjs_ac wrote:
| > The Woolsack is where the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords
| sits and resembles a large square cushion covered in red cloth.
| In 1938 it was re-stuffed with a blend of wool from Britain and
| the other wool producing nations of the Commonwealth. The
| woolsack is thought to have been introduced in the 14th century
| to reflect the economic importance of the wool trade in England.
|
| During the restuffing in 1938, it was discovered that the
| original stuffing was largely horsehair.
| ggm wrote:
| Call by name, call by value, call by reference.
|
| Also c/f "lord privy seal" which is not a lord, nor a privy,
| nor a seal.
| cjs_ac wrote:
| 'Lord Privy Seal' is actually an abbreviation for the 'Lord
| Keeper of the Privy Seal', i.e., the person who (nominally)
| looks after the seal used to authenticate _personal_
| documents 'signed' by the monarch before written signatures
| came into use. The post of Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal is
| now usually given to the governing party's leader in the
| House of Lords, and the monarch's personal seals (which no
| longer serve any official purpose) are held by the Lord
| Chamberlain, who is part of the Royal Household and not the
| Government.
| ggm wrote:
| My comment is a quote, from Angus Calder's book "the
| peoples war" -he took it from a comment made by a labour
| minister of the time.
| Rygian wrote:
| For a great pun on the by name/by value:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38858443
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| Wool had probably too much economic importance to be used in
| such fashion.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Even "down" cushions in high-end couches today are usually a PU
| foam core wrapped in down batting. It's impractical, expensive
| and unnecessary to do otherwise.
|
| And "down" pillows are often 95% feathers 5% down, unless
| advertised as 100% down (and will hundreds more)
|
| Not that down is wool, obviously.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I have to disagree, PU foam has been the most useless cushion
| padding I've ever experienced in my life. It goes from firm +
| comfortable to useless in under a year for me in most cases.
| I've even tried replacing with the firmest PU foam available,
| and those attempts last maybe 2 years.
|
| So I deem it as all those words you use, impractical,
| expensive, unnecessary to use PU.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Have you tried a horsehair core? That would last longer
| bbarnett wrote:
| I honestly didn't know that was a thing. I tried goose
| feathers, but I wasn't happy with the outcome. I'll see
| about the horsehair, thanks.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| It was until the mid-20th century, when PU foam became a
| thing
| mauvehaus wrote:
| An upholster can also usually wash and reuse horsehair
| when reupholstering a piece of furniture upholstered with
| horsehair. It's very resilient stuff(ing). You can also
| get horsehair fabric for upholstery purposes; it
| apparently wears like cast iron.
|
| Am not an upholsterer, but I work with one somewhat
| regularly when a client wants an upholstered piece.
| a3w wrote:
| Was Scott Chair the chair of Scott Blair?
| eszed wrote:
| > All but one of these chairs are in use
|
| Which one isn't?
| jxjnskkzxxhx wrote:
| If know nothing about the subject, but if I had to guess I
| would guess that the sovereign's throne isn't used casually
| even by the sovereign.
|
| Edit: it's stated that the throne is used during only the
| "state opening of the parliament" so that means it's not used
| "day to day".
| dghf wrote:
| The same is stated for the Chair of State, so the sole unused
| chair can't be either of those.
| idw wrote:
| The robing room chair of state
| RegW wrote:
| Apparently not - provided for the king to use when he's
| putting his crown on before the state opening of parliament.
|
| https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-
| heritage/building/pal...
| RegW wrote:
| Copilot says: "This chair, located directly to the left of the
| Speaker's chair, remains vacant as a symbolic reminder of the
| time when the monarch's messenger or royal representative would
| sit there."
|
| ... but I can't find a link to support this.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I think Copilot made that up.
|
| Notice the seating behind the table in these two images, one
| of a session with John Berkow prosiding as speaker, I think
| it is under Cameron's government (noughties [1]); the other
| of Pitt the Younger addressing the House [2]. Neither shows a
| vacant seat. Perhaps it is confusing it with the opening of
| parliament when the Queen wasn't able to attend (2022 [3])
| and her throne was left vacant?
|
| The mace represents the king's authority in parliament, you
| can see it at the front edge of the table in both images
| ([1], [2]).
|
| The monarch's messenger is Black Rod, they're the one who
| knocks on the door to call the MPs to go and listen to the
| "King's" Speech.
|
| [1] https://cdn.britannica.com/25/99525-050-DCC15F00/Chamber-
| Hou... [2]
| https://cdn.britannica.com/03/129303-050-05283CEF/William-
| Pi... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/2022/may/09/queen-to-mis...
| RegW wrote:
| > I think Copilot made that up.
|
| Hmm, I guess I was suspicious. It's like the old bloke at
| the end of the bar, who always wants to have something
| interesting to say.
| fouronnes3 wrote:
| One of the rare bare .uk TLD? (not .co.uk)
| cnity wrote:
| Easy to come by though. I own one. My main concern was when
| giving email addresses over the phone that people would
| automatically put .co.uk, but so far that hasn't actually
| happened!
| Xophmeister wrote:
| I have a similar problem: For purely vanity reasons, I have a
| .co e-mail. Whenever giving it over the phone, I say
| something like "blah blah blah, dot co; no UK, just dot co".
| So far this has worked, but -- along with my difficult to
| spell domain -- I somewhat regret my decision!
| quacksilver wrote:
| It used to be much harder to get a bare UK domain. Restrictions
| were loosened in the early 2010s, with priority given to those
| who already owned a domain that was second level .co.uk etc.
| chippiewill wrote:
| Anyone can register `.uk` domains these days, although they're
| not super common for historical reasons.
| Anon4Now wrote:
| Nice site, but where's the 'Add to Cart' buttons?
| yapyap wrote:
| You'll have to invade for that -- and then display it in your
| museum --
| yard2010 wrote:
| It doesn't end well though. Or does it?
| Anon4Now wrote:
| I'm not going to milk this joke any further, but that would
| be a good Veo 3 prompt.
| robin_reala wrote:
| https://www.drewpritchard.co.uk/products/set-of-four-leather...
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I picked up a pair of these for PS5 at Winchester dump about
| 20 years ago. Needed scrubbing with wire wool, rewaxing, a
| few mortises needing packing, and reupholstering, as they had
| evidently been in someone's garden for some time.
|
| Similar to the thread from yesterday - amazing what some
| people just throw away.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Nice find. Were they period?
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Seemed to have been - horsehair and shoddy stuffed and
| hessian webbing, oak, brass tacks, and very perished
| leather. I recognised them immediately as there were a
| few at the debating chamber at my university which had
| been gifted by some MP back in the day.
|
| I've no idea if that dump is still the gold mine it once
| was - I ended up with several very nice club chairs, some
| Victorian wingback armchairs, and an absolutely enormous
| camelhair Persian rug - chairs all needed reupholstering
| (I became quite good at this quite quickly), and the rug
| just needed a damned good clean and lasted me a decade
| before it finally actually disintegrated. Oh, and a few
| 30's valve radios which needed nothing other than new
| capacitors. I'd assume it was always the kids cleaning
| out dead mum's place or what have you to refurnish with
| ikea.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| That sounds amazing. Doubt there is a place anything like
| that near me
| kelseydh wrote:
| I recently learned that the King is the only person in the UK
| that doesn't require a passport to travel.
| tuetuopay wrote:
| Passports are delivered "in the name of the king", thus from
| this point of view it makes sense to skip the "I hand myself my
| own passport" step. So british.
|
| Of course, I wonder what the rest of the world thinks about
| this, an individual with no passport. Surely there are some
| edge cases where it does not fit in procedures.
| kelseydh wrote:
| I assume when the British King travels to other countries, he
| is greeted by those countries with a state welcome.
|
| I imagine Trump isn't accumulating passport stamps or lining
| up for customs when he flies to other countries in Air Force
| One.
| tialaramex wrote:
| In principle International Law says that all heads of state
| get all the same affordances as Diplomats, which certainly
| makes sense if you imagine the Diplomats as just messengers
| - if Bill Smith can be here because Bill is King Steve's
| messenger, obviously King Steve himself could come instead
| and isn't subject to your normal rules, makes sense.
|
| In practice however... power matters. Eswatini isn't going
| to pretend it has the power to arrest Putin, but I can
| certainly imagine if Russia wanted to arrest the King of
| Eswatini they'd just do it - what's Eswatini going to do
| about it? If they've got a halfway plausible rationale,
| nobody wants to start a war over that, at least nobody who
| might win.
|
| Likewise under the same legal theory neither Ireland nor
| South Africa could currently arrest Benjamin Netanyahu,
| despite the warrant for his arrest on a charge of crimes
| against humanity. But in practice I'm sure Natanyahu would
| rather not find out the hard way whether that theory holds
| up, in either Dublin or Cape Town. Israel has a substantial
| military force, and the Americans might back them, but,
| neither Ireland nor South Africa are defenceless and this
| sounds like a bad way to find out for sure.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| All of these chairs are upholstered. I've found it interesting
| that chairs were exclusively hard-surfaced for nearly all of
| human history, even among royalty who could afford a cushion.
| Hard chairs were seen as promoting discipline and moral
| uprightness while comfortable seating would have signalled
| weakness, decadence (in the archaic sense) or laziness.
|
| Chairs themselves were a status symbol. Commoners would use
| stools or benches.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| We must still not think cushioned chairs are _that_ important,
| or we wouldn 't make kids spend 13 years straight sitting 5+
| hours a day in hard chairs.
| throw0101b wrote:
| Given the title, as good an excuse as any to point people to the
| _Vsauce_ video "Do Chairs Exist?":
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXW-QjBsruE
|
| (Can't believe a half-hour video on ontology has >13M views.)
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I agree with a comment, which appears now to be deleted,
| effectively that monarch's have no place in democracy.
|
| The presence of Charles Windsor in the HoL is an affront to
| democracy that we should do away with. These chairs represent a
| fraction of the baggage of tradition that IMO should be carefully
| unpicked and dispensed with; parliament really needs to continue
| the slow progression towards sovereignty of the _demos_ and away
| from the trappings of imperial oppulence and monarchic power. The
| mace should be smashed, melted down and used to fund a memorial
| to the Crown.
|
| Even if, as some argue, it is "only symbolic", the kowtowing of
| the _demos_ to a person of inherited title is a symbolism that we
| should be rid of.
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