Cavalorn ([info]cavalorn) wrote,
@ 2007-10-22 00:56:00
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Bells on Sunday
BBC Radio 4 has this tradition called Bells on Sunday.

If it's a Sunday, then just before the shipping forecast they announce something like this:

'And now it's time for Bells on Sunday. Come with us to the little country church of St. Cheesemite's in the peaceful village of Sodomy-under-Eaves, where the St. Cheesemite's Guild of Diocesian Bell Ringers will be ringing Spliced Jollity Major.'

And there follows two minutes of saucepans falling down a well shaft.

And the next week, you'll be lying there in bed unable to sleep once again and the voice will announce:

'And now it's time for Bells on Sunday. Come with us to the little country church of St. Scrotum's in the peaceful village of Dawning Futility, where the St. Scrotum's Occasional Changeringing Club will be ringing Interval Anniversary Surprise.'

And there follows two minutes of knights in armour headbutting dustbins.

And here's the thing. IT SOUNDS EXACTLY THE SAME, EVERY BLOODY WEEK, whether the composition is called Spliced Escalating Delight or Maximus Surprise Royal or whatever title they've given it. I'm convinced it's the same loop of tape just being played over and over again while the announcers go for a fag and hope nobody will ever notice.

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[info]lucybond
2007-10-22 12:12 am UTC (link)
No, really, they ARE different.

Just not VERY different.

From my days as a Xtian, I remember the favourite one our bellringers used to practice for AGES, never mind two minutes, so I always recognize that when it crops up on the ol' playlist.

And, yes, I have swung on a bell-rope.

I was too small to ring the bell, tho.

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[info]arkady
2007-10-22 12:47 am UTC (link)


I think your issue is with change ringing, which does not produce a conventional melody (as opposed to carillon ringing, which does).

This is the clearest explanation of change ringing I can find. It takes a practiced ear to tell the differences between peals though. I can usually tell the differences (though I couldn't tell you the names of the peals), as growing up in St.Albans I could hear the bells being rung at the Abbey very clearly from my parents' home on a Sunday - and even clearer still when I lived in Prospect Road, which is only about 300 yards from the Abbey as the crow flies.

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[info]childofatlantis
2007-10-22 09:15 am UTC (link)
No, no, all you have to do is read "The Nine Tailors" by Dorothy L. Sayers and you will know EVERYTHING YOU NEVER WANTED TO KNOW about ringing changes. :D

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[info]pixel39
2007-10-22 03:29 pm UTC (link)
(Here from Metaquotes)

It's like a load of rubbish about railway timetables, except about ringing changes.

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[info]shaysdays
2007-10-22 04:02 pm UTC (link)
Haha! Ignore my last comment, I can not read today...

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[info]paulrhume
2007-10-22 05:32 pm UTC (link)
Am at work, so cannot lay my hands on Nine Tailors at the moment, but I particularly like Sayers' observation along the lines of: Give a Belgian or Frenchman a ring of bells and he will hang them in a carillon and play tunes on them. Give those bells to an Englishman and he will create massively complex mathematical formulae for ringing them in different sequences.

I myself grew up a few blocks from the National Cathedral in Wasington DC, which has a magnificant ring and typically obsessive ringers (got tours through the belltower a few times, due to close family connections with the Cathedral musical staff).

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[info]christeos_pir
2007-10-22 01:44 am UTC (link)
However it sounds, your description is, as always, Fucking Brilliant™.

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[info]micheinnz
2007-10-22 03:11 am UTC (link)
The description had me in stitches.

Must see if I can find Radio 4 online.

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Easily enough done.
[info]wemyss
2007-10-23 02:44 pm UTC (link)
Here you are:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Easily enough done.
[info]micheinnz
2007-10-23 05:50 pm UTC (link)
Thank you! :D

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[info]urwen_sakurafu
2007-10-22 07:04 am UTC (link)
You made me lol over my cornflakes sir.

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[info]hairyears
2007-10-22 07:21 am UTC (link)
There are reasons why I do not live by or near a church with an active changeringers' guild.

Traditionally, the bellringers were the parish pissheads; I cannot imagine a more terrible penance for a Sunday-morning hangover.

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[info]sushidog
2007-10-22 07:50 am UTC (link)
You make me want to listen to Radio 4.
In other news, have you read The Nine Tailors? It's a detective story with bell-ringing, but for all that, it's jolly good.

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[info]woodavens
2007-10-22 08:38 am UTC (link)
I'll second that. It gave me a whole new appreciation of bell-ringing.

Nonethemore for that, your description's brilliant! Then again, some of us LIKE the sound of helmets against finely-tuned dustbins ...

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[info]paulrhume
2007-10-22 05:33 pm UTC (link)
He sitteth amongst the Cherubim.

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[info]brewhexe
2007-10-22 09:04 am UTC (link)
Sorry hun, I had to put this in [info]metaquotes. Seriously the funniest thing I have read so far today. :)

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[info]hotclaws
2007-10-22 09:38 am UTC (link)
I always listen to this and the shipping forcast,lols.

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[info]cavalorn
2007-10-22 09:44 am UTC (link)
My wife and I have a tradition of listening to 'Sailing By' while snuggled up under the duvet together.

She actually wanted it for our wedding music, but I baulked.

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[info]hotclaws
2007-10-22 12:22 pm UTC (link)
So cool! Radio 4 is the new Rock 'n' Roll.

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[info]mr_tom
2007-10-22 09:56 am UTC (link)
IT SOUNDS EXACTLY THE SAME, EVERY BLOODY WEEK

And how exactly is this different to "Thought for the Day", Moneybox, "Just a Minute"[1], "You and Yours", et al?






[1] If only it was.

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[info]jon_the_id
2007-10-22 01:37 pm UTC (link)
They also make a point of always mentioning something along the lines of 'the largest bell was cast in 1789 from iron recovered from the melting of hundreds of rusty gibbets. It weighs several thousand megatons and is tuned to D#.'

I mean this really is important information to have in advance. I can listen to the sound of anvil-shaped meteorites colliding with planet biscuit-tin all day. Just not in D# - no way. That's the Devil's key.

Oh btw it has always sounded exactly the same to me, except once when it sounded far worse, can you believe. Bells on Sunday went 'on tour' either to a Russian or Greek orthodox church or something. Christ that was one hell of a manky clank. I believe the largest bell was tuned to the key of 'spontaneous projectile vomiting'.

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[info]roninspoon
2007-10-22 03:25 pm UTC (link)
I would live in Sodomy-under-Eaves just to have it on my postal address.

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[info]makarov
2007-10-22 04:19 pm UTC (link)
well, here in the US, there's a town in Pennsylvania called Intercourse

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Would you consider Dauntsey, Chippenham, Wilts SN15?
[info]wemyss
2007-10-23 02:46 pm UTC (link)
You've your choice of Sodom Lane and Old Sodom Lane.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Would you consider Dauntsey, Chippenham, Wilts SN15?
[info]roninspoon
2007-10-23 02:50 pm UTC (link)
I don't know, that's awfully close to Wales.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
From Metaquotes
[info]hellminxmel
2007-10-26 08:36 pm UTC (link)
I just hate the music from the Shipping Forecast.

'HA HA YOU HAVE WORK TOMORROW BEGINNING AT EI-GHT :D'

It's mocking me.

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[info]darkelady
2007-10-29 06:00 pm UTC (link)
Hi a lurker here but I just had to comment. I am an American, we do not have much bellringing around here but the city I live in puts on a funny show at noon. I live just upwind from the Catholic church which rings its bells at noon, followed by tinny music for a couple of minutes. Also at noon the fire station blows its signal which is a cousin to a foghorn and the city hall clock chimes the hour. I don't know whether they got together to do it by design or if their clocks are out of whack but the things that are supposed to go off all together are spaced. First the fire station goes off at about a minute to, the the church at noon, then about 4 past the clock chimes. And I am sitting up here chuckling.

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[info]caprine
2007-10-30 11:49 pm UTC (link)
Bwahahaaa! You, sir, are made of win.

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[info]marnanel
2007-11-02 03:29 am UTC (link)
One of the lovely things about being a ringer is that only ringers can understand what makes ringing good or bad. You can be hired to ring for a wedding, completely bugger it up, and the happy couple will be none the wiser. Similarly, people who aren't ringers are unlikely to have learned the difference between Grandsire and, say, Neverthelessness Surprise Major. What I want to know is how they pick the names for the methods. I swear I saw a composition in the Ringing World once called Linux Is The Best Operating System Surprise Triples, but I can't find it now.

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[info]kest
2007-11-05 02:42 am UTC (link)
[info]mattp, who I met at the last whitby I was at, occasionally talks about bell ringing in his lj. Previously I was under the mistaken impression he meant handbells. Now I know better.

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