Talk:Bergholt Stuttley Johnson

Whoa, I want to dissociate myself from the "Irish are stupid" remark added to my annotation - just a step too far, I think, it turns a general observation, about how people used to Imperial measures just cannot get their heads around the concept of metrification, into something hovering in the general area of racism. This line wasn't added by me, and I'd be sorry if anyone thought that. The general observation is valid and legitimate - that anti-Irish postscript isn't. --AgProv 12:40, 29 May 2007 (CEST)

If anything, the British are even LESS capable of accepting metric units. Although I like the generally pragmatic Northern European (ie, anywhere on a seacoast that trades with Britain) concept of "le libre metrique", ie an acceptance that an Imperial pound is only just less than 500g.--AgProv 12:41, 29 May 2007 (CEST)

As a brit I agree, until very recently it was up to the vendor if they specified imperial or metric units. Now everything has to be sold in metric units, leaving oddities like sheets of plywood being sold as 2440x1220mm rather than the traditional 8'x4'. Groceries are just as bad, rather than resize things to a sensible metric amount like 500g or 1kg, you end up with 440g tins of food and 2.777l of milk. Couple that with a country that uses miles, yards and feet on it's road network, yet sells fuel by the litre and suddenly working out your fuel economy in MPG gets a whole new level of interesting. It gets even better in industries that deal with both the EU and the USA...... --Megahurts 09:51, 23 October 2010 (CEST)

B.S. Johnson created absurdities for Lord Snapcase. He was therefore alive up to about Vetinari's accession. One might suspect that he didn't last very long after Lord V. took charge. Leonard can be kept in the attic to produce useful devices, occasionally, but Johnson was simply dangerous. --Old Dickens 00:44, 26 March 2008 (CET)

He was also alive during the reign of archchancellor Galder Weatherwax, creating the bathroom mentioned in Hogfather. That places him around the time of The Colour of Magic. --Sanity 18:00, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Roundworld Comparison

The (round)world's largest pipe organ seems to be in the Sydney Opera House. This device sounds dangerously close to Johnson's last effort and should definitely not be associated with the Australian Post Office in any way. There seems to be no equivalent in Bugarup. --Old Dickens 14:16, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The organ at the Sydney operahouse and the organ at Boardwalk Hall Auditorium in N. Jersey are the two organs credited as having true 64' registers. Iron Hippo 02:03, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

They've both sensibly stopped at 64'/17.6 Hz. Great care would have to be taken with Johnson's 128' stop: some of the notes in the middle of that (subsonic) range could cause great consternation in the audience, not to mention the damage to the upholstery. (The New Jersey organ apparently hasn't worked for some years.) --Old Dickens 16:01, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Digital electronic organ-builders (you know what I mean) are experimenting with 128' register, often with humorous names like "Vox Balaena" (whale voice) or "Self Destruct". Also the Boardwalk Hall organ, mentioned above, has a 42²/3' stop which can be drawn with the 64-footer to yield a 128' "resultant bass". So Johnson doesn't quite manage to be larger than life. Captain Pedant 22:33, 4 October 2011 (CEST)

First mention of BS Johnson

Does Bloddy Stupid appear for the first time in Men at arms as Vimes is getting married and the Librarian happily cranks the university Great organ into gear. The organ bears the initials BSJ which in reverse becomes JSB probably referring to Johann Sebastian Bach who was an actual genius when it came to organs. --Iron Hippo 23:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Probably. (Repeating yourself is a sign of senility.) --Old Dickens 23:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Repeating yourself is a sign Error 500 internal server failure and "#### I got to type it in again" --Iron Hippo 10:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)