| Author |
Message |
iotar
| | Posted on Friday, May 26, 2006 - 12:08 pm: | |
Don't know if many of you are as obsessed with the Met Orifice web site as I am, but after many years of visiting the South-East page several times a day ("look! It was saying brilliant sunshine two minutes ago, now it shows two rains and a black cloud! That's so not fair!") I am left with one big resounding question:
Where the fuck is Benson?
Go on, look at the South-East map:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/europe/uk/sout heast.html
London, Dover, Oxford, Guildford... and a few lesser places that we know about such as Brize Norton and Bracknell. But the list is headed by Benson.
Fucking Benson!
I Googled it and it turns out that Benson is a leetle town, practically a village on the Thames. They have a waterside cafe and a couple of pubs and I expect that their weather is as shite as everywhere else. So why tell the country, and indeed the world, what the weather is like in Benson everyday?
It's not a sneaky reference to the Darkstar theme music, is it?
Altogether now:
Benson Arizona, the warm wind in your hair,
My body flies the galaxy, my heart longs to be there! |
Alex
| | Posted on Friday, May 26, 2006 - 12:40 pm: | |
I don't know how accurate the met office is for you people down in that London, but it's hardly ever accurate for our neck of the woods. Can't help checking it though. It's like horoscopes Ð you believe them when they're good news, but when they're bad they are a load of crap. |
iotar
| | Posted on Friday, May 26, 2006 - 12:53 pm: | |
It's both inaccurate and it infuriates me that they revise their errors out of existence. What if Nostradamus had rewritten his Prophecies on an hourly basis? How impressive would that have been?
As for newspaper horoscopes: I'll read them and then forget what they were so I can never remember whether they were accurate or not. But from the amount of times they've advised me to leap into some steamy liason you'd think I was a right old slapper. |
iotar
| | Posted on Friday, May 26, 2006 - 2:25 pm: | |
Oh, here's a clue to the Benson enigma from Wikipedia:
"The village is also a well-known frost-pocket, sometimes recording the lowest night-time temperatures in the UK." |
Martin
| | Posted on Friday, May 26, 2006 - 3:42 pm: | |
Benson, hard to find? Of course! It's usually hidden by hedges.
I am sorry. Really I am. But there's nothing the doctors can do. |
iotar
| | Posted on Friday, May 26, 2006 - 4:18 pm: | |
And interestingly exactly the same joke that Dan cracked about this same question on my Myspazz page!
Have you been to Benson? It's in yr neck of the woods, innit? |
Alex
| | Posted on Friday, May 26, 2006 - 4:23 pm: | |
This will run and run.
Benson has an RAF base, which used to be the home of the RAF's Photographic Reconnaissance Unit during WWII, but it's mostly helicopters these days.
But, I've just discovered, Benson has a weather station. Number 03658 to be precise, so there you go. |
iotar
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 - 9:19 am: | |
But why do they want the general public to know the weather in Benson? |
Martin
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 - 9:57 am: | |
No, never been there. But perhaps it's like this:
1785639%2C00.html,http://www.guardian.co.uk/britai n/article/0,,1785639,00.html
That Joke: unconscious plagiarism of the bleedin' obvious, innit? Cor luvvaduck. It's a fair cop, etc. |
iotar
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 - 11:07 am: | |
>>But perhaps it's like this:
"Where am I?"
"In the village."
"What do you want?"
... |
Martin
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 - 11:55 am: | |
It's got a church:
http://www.accommodation.com/frewin/messages/679.h tm
- Not sure why this shot is filed under "accommodation," though.
"They're a funny lot in Wasp Green," as someone once said: or words to that effect. |
arturo
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 30, 2006 - 9:16 pm: | |
Io, that would be telling. |
martin
Username: martin
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 1:47 pm: | |
... but not forgotten. BBC weather news today:
"By early afternoon Heathrow, Northolt, Middle Wallop in Hampshire and Benson in Oxfordshire were all passing 33C." |
iotar
Username: iotar
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 2:04 pm: | |
But will they have the lowest night-time temperatures nonetheless? |
martin
Username: martin
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 2:57 pm: | |
I'd love to say I've just spotted a polar bear trudging past the window - but the only thing worth noting is an eviscerated pigeon, feathers twitching in the summer breeze while bluebottles circle its headless pulped remains.
City of dreaming spires, and all that. |
arturo
Username: arturo
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 5:25 pm: | |
hey!
You have the same temperature that we have ... on a regular basis. |
iotar
Username: iotar
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Friday, July 21, 2006 - 8:33 am: | |
It seems like we're getting it increasingly regularly too. It's just not British! |
martin
Username: martin
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, February 22, 2007 - 2:14 pm: | |
Forgot to say: I went through Benson last week! Bad case of jet lag, but I did notice - er, they've got a McDonald's.
Knew you'd like to hear about it.
That is all. |
iotar
Username: iotar
Registered: 6-2006
| | Posted on Monday, February 26, 2007 - 10:56 am: | |
Did you get any pictures? |
martin
Username: martin
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Monday, February 26, 2007 - 11:38 am: | |
Sadly, I'd used up my film here:
http://www.arasca.net/places/n_america/new_york/ne w_york/images/centralpark_alice.jpg
Alfred Bester fans may remember it from "They Don't Make Life Like They Used To." |