Big Ben’s bell ends

BONG! Oh, right - sorry.

For whom the bell tolls? Well, it’s definitely not me or thee, or anyone else wanting to hear the sonorous chiming of London’s Big Ben, counting the hours away. At least, not for the next 4 years.

The iconic bongs will be absent until 2021, as the 13.7-tonne Great Bell gets a spruce-up along with the Great Clock that makes it all happen, and their instantly recognisable home, the Elizabeth Tower. Health and Safety is the main reason for the chime-drought, as the need to protect workers’ hearing will be behind the longest quiet spell in the clock’s 157 year history.

It won’t be total silence though – the bell will ring out on special occasions, such as Remembrance Sunday and New Year’s Eve. I’m presuming there will be a shed-load of AA batteries on standby for those occasions, just in case they haven’t had time to put it all back together temporarily and wind it up.

So far, so quiet. It needs an overhaul, and no-one has invented ridiculously efficient ear-muffs yet, so it has to be switched off during the works. It seems some people don’t agree, though, with even Prime Minister Theresa May saying “it can’t be right” that it will be out of action that long.

The House of Commons has stated that they will be looking into it, following complaints from MPs that they were not informed how long the bong would be gone. The hope seems to be that the bells could ring out more frequently during the repair period, although with the process of starting or stopping the clock taking half a day, and the cost for the work at £29m, increasing a bill that’s already ding-dong-big doesn’t sound too a-peal-ing.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said “It’s not a national disaster or catastrophe”, but MP Stephen Pound described it as “Desperately sad” and was hoping to be joined by “like-minded traditionalists” as the final chime sounded at midday on Monday.

Visitors to our capital do flock to the clock to take a photo, and of course hear the bells, but this work is needed to make sure that future generations can enjoy the same experience. True, it will take a while, but we’ve been waiting for England to win the World Cup again since 1966 and no-one died because of that, so I think we’ll be OK.

And look – there are a hell of lot of other things we should be focussing on that are actually important. Terror attacks at home and across Europe; Donald Trump’s increasingly baffling running of the USA; What effect Brexit will have; Sentient robots taking over the planet; Where do you have to put your hands under a train toilet hand dryer to make it stay on for more than two seconds – these are difficult times. Some bells not ringing for a bit in London? Meh.

Stiff upper lip everyone – we’ll just have to complain a bit more than usual about the weather to block out the pain of being dong-less.

This post first appeared as my "Thank Grumpy it's Friday" column, in The Mail, on the 25th of August 2017. Unsurprisingly, the online version was re-titled as "Bong! But not forgotten". Good title, and obviously less sneakily rude than my original. I haven't seen the print edition yet, but I'm guessing that will have similarly succumbed to the rules of decency.

Honestly. What a bloody fuss about a bell not bonging for a few years. Get a sodding grip, people!

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