For whom the bell no longer tolls...

[fragment]

Complaint Silences Church Bell (http://www.stuff.co.nz/4111528a11.html)

Bizarrely that's top story in Google News NZ right now. Such an unimportant news story that it's hard to believe it's of such import as to get within loudhailing distance of the top spot.

Except that that's the local church (Anglican) of the neighbourhood I grew up in. I didn't go to church there - we were a non-religious household - although for a while I attended the kindergarten run on the church grounds. Just about the only thing I remember from that time is the day I realised that by joining up all the other kids' sandpit trenches and filling them with water I could make a humungous moat. That earned me a few cool points.

I cycled past St Christopher's on my way to primary school for 5-odd years, where I was in the same class as the vicar's son. A fun boy to be around, in the sense that suddenly you find out that you're in trouble. The vicar himself - not the guy in that picture, the one I remember must have moved on - was a pleasant, gentle man. He kept three sheep on a small field. This paddock was all that remained from a couple of decades earlier, when the expanding city claimed the area. When I was about 11, that field, too, was subdivided.

When her father died, my mother took us kids to the church for a private memorial service, just the three of us. He, like the rest of my extended family, had lived overseas in the country my parents had chosen to leave behind. As I was just a baby when my parents had made that decision, I'd barely known my grandfather - maybe for three months in total over the years, and as a disembodied voice on the old rotary dial telephone.

I don't recall ever hearing that church bell, though.

Obviously the paranoid view - that google has collected far more personal information about me than seems feasible and is now targeting me with news that triggers childhood recollections, for some nefarious purpose - is the only reasonable explanation for this spooky coincidence.

:bong:

[Stormlight]

Well, I find this a bit silly, really. Reminds me of those people here who build a house next to Luxembourg International Airport and then complain about the noise.

[fragment]

Oh yeah, that bit about the church being under the flight path is completely true. Hardly a busy airport, but still a reasonable number of planes flying over. They also used to do engine testing at that airport some nights too, at two in the morning or something, that you could hear pretty loud sometimes. Dunno if they still do.

You can go up to the roof of the terminal building. As a kid I liked doing that when we were meeting someone on a flight - not only did you get a good view of the planes, but the engines were thrillingly loud. No other sound was half as exciting until I discovered rock'n'roll.

When I flew into that airport last year after being away three years, it seemed like a small and quiet backwater. There's a part of my memory where it still retains the grandiosity of my childhood impressions, though.

[viscousmemories]

I don't know, Stormlight. It's possible that someone moved into the neighborhood from elsewhere and bought the house unaware that they'd be awakened by a ringing bell at an ungodly hour every Sunday morning. I probably wouldn't have considered the possibility myself. (Although I'm usually up at that hour anyway, so it probably wouldn't bother me.)

[fragment]

A church bell ringing at an ungodly hour? Say it ain't so!

[Stormlight]

:chuckle:

[viscousmemories]

I thought that particular adjective might ring true for y'all. :rimshot:

[livius drusus]

I love church bells! Noon in Rome is a great thing. I think the deacon should get some hens and a nice, proud rooster. Crowing wouldn't reach the decibel limit so the church couldn't get in trouble, but I betcha the neighbors would beg to have the bell back.

[Watser?]

Church bells are ok, but the carillon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carillon) (I was looking for the English word and just now found out it is a typically Dutch thing) is hell sometimes. An office where I used to work was pretty close to a church where they would play it for an hour every MONDAY morning :madrant:

But usually mosques are worse than churches. They have an infernal racket coming from the minarets at unchristian hours.
Jerusalem is hell that way, sometimes they have mosques and churches all competing for attention! Good thing the synagogues are silent at least.

[Stormlight]

But usually mosques are worse than churches. They have an infernal racket coming from the minarets at unchristian hours.

Tell me about it. When I was in Turkey we stayed in a hotel next to a mosque ... Good god, I didn't sleep all night. It's not only the damn racket from the minarets, but it's all the dogs that won't calm down for the rest of the night. :dog:

[Watser?]

a hotel next to a mosque

I don't think there are hotels in Muslim countries that are not next to mosques. It is probably a law...

[Stormlight]

:LOL:

[Stormlight]

a hotel next to a mosque

I don't think there are hotels in Muslim countries that are not next to mosques. It is probably a law...

I expected this, of course. What I didn't expect was that they played it over a (very bad) speaker system. Loud. :tooloud:

[Kyuss Apollo]

When I lived in Providence, Providence College was right across the street and St. Pius Catholic Church was 2 blocks over to the north. Between the two of them church bells were constantly ringing. But I enjoyed the bells ubiquitously remarking upon the daily cycle, kind of relaxing, reassuring. At certain times of the day the college or the church played extended melodies on their bells--a hazy rhythmic chiming that would from time time go from unnoticed in the background to awareness back to background again, kind of like a sonic daydream.

Far more pleasant than the throbbing bass from the passing Honda Civics stopped at the nearby traffic light or the occasional pop of handguns in the projects about 6 blocks over to our south...

[JoeP]

Well, I find this a bit silly, really. Reminds me of those people here who build a house next to Luxembourg International Airport and then complain about the noise.
But it's Luxembourg. There must be, what, one 10-seater flight a day?
:P

[fragment]

You can all rest assured that the bell will ring out across the land once more (http://www.stuff.co.nz/4118316a11.html)...

[Stormlight]

Well, I find this a bit silly, really. Reminds me of those people here who build a house next to Luxembourg International Airport and then complain about the noise.
But it's Luxembourg. There must be, what, one 10-seater flight a day?
:P

:glare:

[Angakuk]

You can all rest assured that the bell will ring out across the land once more (http://www.stuff.co.nz/4118316a11.html)...
I am glad to see that the city council has backed off of its previous position. When I read the first article it immediately occurred to me that it was likely that the bell ringing was grandfathered in some manner.

However, it also occurs to me that it ought to be possible for the church to bring the bell into compliance with existing law. They could install some sound baffles in the bell tower or wrap the clapper in something that would mute the bell enough to bring it into compliance. Reducing the bell's output by 11.3 decibels doesn't strike me as presenting an insurmountable technical challenge.

[Shake]

Well, I find this a bit silly, really. Reminds me of those people here who build a house next to Luxembourg International Airport and then complain about the noise.
But it's Luxembourg. There must be, what, one 10-seater flight a day?
:P

:glare:
OK, two then? :P

[godfry n. glad]

Well, I find this a bit silly, really. Reminds me of those people here who build a house next to Luxembourg International Airport and then complain about the noise.
But it's Luxembourg. There must be, what, one 10-seater flight a day?
:P

:glare:
OK, two then? :P

If there's an airport in Luxembourg, everybody in Luxembourg must live under a flight path.

Of both 10-seaters.

Any airport in Luxembourg would have to be an "International" airport. Hell, by the time you're off the end of the runway, you're in another country's airspace.

I'll bet they just close a couple of streets to create the "Luxembourg International Airport".

[Stormlight]

:cryhome:

[JoeP]

Luxembourg used to be bigger, you know.

Of course, they didn't have air flight back then.