Feet of Clay

It's either feet of clay or laryngitis and I fear it's the former.

It is never good when you find out that one of the icons of the century may have sold out! There was a new Cillit Bang! advert shown on ITV last night presented as usual by the iconic Barry Scott.

At no point did he SHOUT!

Feet of Clay

It's either feet of clay or laryngitis and I fear it's the former.

It is never good when you find out that one of the icons of the century may have sold out! There was a new Cillit Bang! advert shown on ITV last night presented as usual by the iconic Barry Scott.

At no point did he SHOUT!

Star light, star bright

I think the sun has gone out.

It is not yet 12.45pm as I type this sentence and the light can only be described as crepuscular¹. This means that from about 500 feet up and all the way to the stratosphere must be cloud (which in itself suggests that the planet is turning into Venus), or the sun is much dimmer than it should be². I believe that the measure of daylight is the lumen³. I think there is a case for renaming them gloomens. Apparently, if you spread a lumen over a square meter, you get a lux, one of which is equivalent to 0.0929 foot-candle⁴. That doesn’t sound much, does it? I reckon that would ruin your eyesight if you tried to read a small print Tolstoy in that much light.

I am reminded of a particularly bleak lunchtime over 20 years ago when I first came to London and was living in a hostel off Gloucester Road, in South Kensington. We were queuing up for what was laughingly called food in the equally derisory refectory when I mentioned to one of my fellow inmates just how miserably gloomy the day was. An elderly gent emerged from the shadows by the doorway and boomed: “Stygian, Dear Boy; positively stygian”.

¹See how I continue to treat you to my impressive (hem, hem) vocabulary?

² At the moment, if we were on a cricket pitch, I venture to suggest that the umpires would need a torch to find the light meter.

³My dictionary, The Times English Dictionary defines lumen as “the derived SI unit of luminous flux; the flux emitted in a solid angle of 1 steradian by a point source having a uniform intensity of 1 candela.” Well, that's certainly clear enough. Is it only me who sees the irony in the definition of light intensity being so damned opaque?

⁴No, I don’t know what a foot-candle is, either. But in my imagination it is like a very low tech foot-lantern, or low-level torch.

Star light, star bright

I think the sun has gone out.

It is not yet 12.45pm as I type this sentence and the light can only be described as crepuscular¹. This means that from about 500 feet up and all the way to the stratosphere must be cloud (which in itself suggests that the planet is turning into Venus), or the sun is much dimmer than it should be². I believe that the measure of daylight is the lumen³. I think there is a case for renaming them gloomens. Apparently, if you spread a lumen over a square meter, you get a lux, one of which is equivalent to 0.0929 foot-candle⁴. That doesn’t sound much, does it? I reckon that would ruin your eyesight if you tried to read a small print Tolstoy in that much light.

I am reminded of a particularly bleak lunchtime over 20 years ago when I first came to London and was living in a hostel off Gloucester Road, in South Kensington. We were queuing up for what was laughingly called food in the equally derisory refectory when I mentioned to one of my fellow inmates just how miserably gloomy the day was. An elderly gent emerged from the shadows by the doorway and boomed: “Stygian, Dear Boy; positively stygian”.

¹See how I continue to treat you to my impressive (hem, hem) vocabulary?

² At the moment, if we were on a cricket pitch, I venture to suggest that the umpires would need a torch to find the light meter.

³My dictionary, The Times English Dictionary defines lumen as “the derived SI unit of luminous flux; the flux emitted in a solid angle of 1 steradian by a point source having a uniform intensity of 1 candela.” Well, that's certainly clear enough. Is it only me who sees the irony in the definition of light intensity being so damned opaque?

⁴No, I don’t know what a foot-candle is, either. But in my imagination it is like a very low tech foot-lantern, or low-level torch.