Ancient law requires a bale of straw to hang from Charing Cross rail bridge
ianvisits.co.uk131 points by alexbilbie a day ago
131 points by alexbilbie a day ago
This is treated as a whimsical absurdity, but it has a practical purpose that’s hardly obviated by the antiquity of the law.
I’m a sailor myself - I’d certainly want a warning that a bridge is lower than its charted height. The signal is clearly listed in the relevant Port of London notice to mariners [0]. Moreover, the signal also shows the height of the restriction (and in a neat, safe way - nudge the straw and you’ll know you’re too tall):
“Where the headroom is reduced this will be signalled in accordance with the Port of London Authority Thames Byelaw 36.1 namely:
“By Day – A bundle of straw large enough to be easily visible and displayed at the height of restricted headroom”
This also means that this line is also inaccurate:
> For convenience, they’re actually hanging from the Jubilee footbridges, one on either side of the railway.
It's not for simple convenience: you can see in the photos that it's because the footbridges are taller then the rail bridge and come a bit before it, which allows them to install the straw hanging at the correct height to warn of the constriction before someone hits the bridge itself.
Maybe when this was invented, the bundle of straw was the best they could do, I don't know, but surely today you can produce a more visible, more robust, reusable and, ironically, cheaper sign than that.
Maybe, but this has a few advantages.
If there were some reusable item (whatever that may be) it would need to be stored somewhere accessible to the construction crews, would eventually need to be repaired or replaced, and depending on how it's made may need to be customized per installation.
Hay and rope are readily available and (depending on the rope) biodegrade so could fall into the river with pretty minimal pollution. I imagine back in the day they were both just borrowed from a local farm or stable.
Reminds me of the fact that for 500 years everyone graduating with a BA from Oxford had to swear that they would never agree to the reconciliation of Henry Symeonis, despite no one having any idea who he was for most of that time.
I was reading some stories and notes made by my grandfather, they where written sometime in the 1980s. He's recalling stories and people in the area where we lived, out in the country side. Apparently my family has feud with a priest from the late 1700 hundreds. The priest complained that people (my family included) wouldn't travel the 7 - 8 kilometers to the church during the fall and winter. The area is in between would flood and freeze, becoming dangerous to travel. The priests refusal to understand the danger (and long travel time, during the winter), caused the feud, which apparently lasted at least until the 1920s.
Yes! I was disappointed to learn when I graduated with my BA that this oath was no longer required. However, I continue refuse to reconcile with Henry Symeonis. It's only been 800 years, you never know when it might be important. After all, the Anglo-Portuguese is still in force 650 years on!
Clearly a case of Chesterton's Fence. Who knows what eldritch horrors might result from the removal of that oath!
Looks like it was removed in 1827. I don't actually remember having to say anything at any of my graduation ceremonies there (BA, MA, DPhil), just walking on to the stage. I do wonder if at matriculation we all had to make some oath together but I think I would have remembered if that had been the case. I have a strong feeling though I might have had to make an oath when I became a scholar - there was definitely a ceremony we had to go to - but that would have been college-dependent.
You'll have collectively said "do fidem". The rest is read by the official at the table, not the graduands.
The question as to whether this constitutes swearing an oath or making a simple promise was an interesting one for me as Quakers traditionally refuse to do the former.
"i give my trust". i believe that would be a promise or affirmation as it does not invoke a god. Unless it's the accusative of the goddess of faith (unlikely).
Had to look this one up. Apparently the answer is he was a rich *hole who murdered a student, got fined £80 (which might have been a lot of money, but he was rich), stayed away from Oxford a few years and then The Powers That Be told everyone to get over it.
I can kind of understand the statute, tbqh.
According to the Bank of England's inflation calculator, £80 in 1242 is worth £119,600 today.
The fine was against multiple men. That makes me speculate the death was part of a drunkin bar fight and the victim was comnected but the King was neutral and only banned him until the King returned. Ahew, what a nest of rabbit holes to follow.
Thanks for that, looked it up and was a interesting rabbit hole: Basically, that oath was Oxford University saying "fuck you" to a request of the King (1200s England) officially after he effectively tried to order them to break their collective line and accept a rich fuck who murdered a scholar in the past. Feels kinda like a proto-union-action to me https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/2023/...
Which reminds me of The Cagots were a persecuted minority who lived in the west of France and northern Spain [0]
The origins of the Cagots remain uncertain . . . . Despite the varied and
often mythical explanations for their origins, the only consistent aspect of
the Cagots was their societal exclusion and the lack of any distinct physical
or cultural traits differentiating them from the general population.
Bureaucratic tradition at its finest
Chesterton's fence
The man cannot be living, ergo there can be no reconciliation, ergo the promise/oath can only exist because nobody bothers to remove it; not because we don’t know the reasons for its existence.
Though largely it wouldn’t matter in this case.
That's the British system working as designed. If there's a law, no matter how ancient, the British should comply. If a law needs to be changed, that's the Parliament's job.
Even the British courts, in sharp contrast to many other places, "deliver the law as it is, and not as we wish it to be" -- see for example [0] or [1].
So, the full clause reads:
"When the headroom of an arch or span of a bridge is reduced from its usual limits but that arch or span is not closed to navigation, the person in control of the bridge must suspend from the centre of that arch or span by day a bundle of straw large enough to be conspicuous and by night a white light."
Does that mean the law is not being complied with, in this case, since the bales are hanging from adjacent bridges, not the "centre of that arch or span" itself?
Delays due to trucks striking bridges are a worldwide problem, at least in countries with railroads. Despite yellow black striped reflective panels and height warning signs and sometimes height detectors that trigger flashing red lights.
Perhaps we should try a bale of straw next.
The London Blackwall tunnel has a more modern take on checking height: https://maps.app.goo.gl/b5P5Td1hsuSjLU3w8 traffic signals, barriers like at a railroad crossing, giant panels across the road at height, and a police car on standby to pull out and fine anyone that doesn't read the signs - I presume this happens often enough that they can justify the cost.
But then the bale of straw applied to ships not vehicles and bridges not tunnels.
In Germany even this wasn't enough, in a couple of bridges they had to constrain the road leading to the bridge in a way that only small cars would still be able to reach the bridge under repairs.
I also imagine it wasn't cheap doing this, but apparently as long as people can get away with something there is always those that will try, regardless of how it impacts others.
Your link shows the Dartford Crossing, an M25 bridge miles downstream of the City. The Blackwall Tunnel runs under the Thames at Greenwich and afaik just has the old school hanging metal blocks at height https://maps.app.goo.gl/N5xSF148ggLVTDtS8
It doesn't surprise me too much that police are on standby, a closure of either tunnel or bridge has a major effect on traffic all over London
There are additional traffic lights on the blackwall tunnel further in and a slip road out that can be used for overheight vehicles. I do remember having a 10-15 minute wait once while they sorted things out when a lorry driver got caught.
I'd have a feeling there are automated signs prior to the tunnel (or at least used to be) but I've not been through the tunnel for a year or so and things will have changed with the Silvertown tunnel opening.
I have seen someone not paying attention at the Rotherhithe tunnel and the roof of their van was a mess (and they're going to pick up a fine probably due to restrictions, the 2 tonnes gross weight limit is lower than a lot of van drivers expect)
Edit there were: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MP7fkhS394DJPQaZ9 If you zoom in you can see the overheight vehicle warning.
I presume the Blackwall one is that unlit LED sign just at the start of the off-ramp. Then there's another set of height detectors on the same post to catch out anyone who's still not paying attention.
I question who approved that the main lanes ahead of your link have 2.8m/9ft limits but the police warning says vehicles over 4m/13ft will be stopped. Can I take my 10ft truck through or not?
I'm starting to feel a tiny bit of sympathy for drivers that get confused by this.
You're right of course.
Blackwall seems also to have two sets of lights and barriers, and an off-ramp in between. That's probably for fire safety too to close and evacuate the tunnel and get the emergency services in, but I imagine it's used for height detection too if a loud CLUNK on your truck cabin isn't enough.
As an aside, the person who signed the original heights as (13ft)(4m)(9ft)(2.8m) needs to learn a bit about UI design. Yes, two lanes, but the gap between the central two signs is far smaller than to the other sign for the same lane. Also 4m is just over 13 ft 1 inch, which there'd be space to include as there's already a 0 on the leftmost sign (and from the rightmost we see that decimals are allowed on signs). Guess we're going to rely on the CLUNK after all.
Thanks, I was annoyed that the article didn't cite the actual law in question, but the BBC comes in with "Port of London Thames Byelaws, clause 36.2"
The BBC also didn't call it "ancient," which would be questionable considering that the law is from 2012.
Its an ancient practise, codified into law in 2012 when the regulatory framework was re-codified from multiple laws like Port of London Act 1908 as well as time immemorial acts like this.
Fun fact: in English law "time immemorial" has a very specific meaning: it means "any time before 1189". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_immemorial for more.
According to the article the original practice is medieval, not ancient. It's colloquial usage of "ancient" as in "my car is ancient" is a bit odd.
> Even the British courts, in sharp contrast to many other places, "deliver the law as it is, and not as we wish it to be"
The English practically invented the idea of common law. Even today there are still important legal principles based entirely on the decisions of earlier courts.
A formal UK Constitution doesn't exist and is a striking example of this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_K...
The constitution of the United Kingdom comprises the written and unwritten arrangements that establish the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a political body. Unlike in most countries, no official attempt has been made to codify such arrangements into a single document, thus it is known as an uncodified constitution. This enables the constitution to be easily changed as no provisions are formally entrenched.
In the US we only have a remnant of that in the Senate, in what has been popularly marketed as "the Nuclear Option." A Senator just makes a point of order that a Senate rule is the opposite of what it actually, verifiably is. The chair denies it, the Senator appeals the decision, and a majority of the Senate then overrules the chair.
After this has happened, the rule just changes and whatever was not in order in the past is in order in the future (or vice versa.) In the Senate as in Parliament; the majority of Parliament is the law, it can't break the law.
There are still important legal principles in the US and other places around the world based entirely on the decisions of earlier English courts. The first local decisions will reference English cases, and English legal experts often would have been consulted.
Same thing with most of the world's parliaments and congresses having to reference English Parliamentary precedent in order to figure out how to operate themselves. The UK Parliament and courts may be terrible, but they invented the thing and we're forks.
In what places do courts ignore or modify law to deliver the result they prefer?
(To be precise: where is that accepted practice, rather than aberrant behaviour by some judges?)
Usually the judges do not "ignore or modify" the law, but rather "interpret" it in a creative manner. You might use, as an example, the question of "does the US Constitution guarantee the women a right to abortion." Some judges decided that it does, later some other judges decided that it does not. Considering the opposing outcomes to the same question, it's clear some of these were wrong.
In the US, it's usually enforcement that's ignored.
That is why everything is illegal 3x over. If they don't like you, you get farked. If they like you, they just ignore it.
Letter of the law vs. spirit of the law.
One could argue that 'a corporation has personhood' is a technical contrivance that tries to manipulate the letter of the law into achieving a particular outcome. Going with the spirit of the law instead, that argument would never hold water.
The US.
There are vague rights in the constitution.
It could be a disaster for the courts to interpret them too literally (Is literally any weapon OK in the 2nd? Does free speech include a mob boss ordering a hit?) and constitutions are really hard to amend, so heavy interpretation is a nessessary evil.
That is an interesting example because the second amendment is I think a primary example of a law that is very creatively read by folks that consider themselves literalists.
if the 2nd amendmend was literally interpreted it would be (quoting from memory) “in order to form a well-ordered militia the right to bear arms shall not be infringed”
As in you cannot infringe the right to bear arms in a well ordered militia, but gun ownership might be regulated for example by the militia organization owning the arms. Nothing would speak against codifying in law what constitutes a well-ordered militia, etc.
Your memory is a bit off. The text is:
>A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed
It's the only amendment that comes with a justification so it's unusual but there's nothing in the text that limits the right to the listed justification.
> if the 2nd amendmend was literally interpreted it would be (quoting from memory) “in order to form a well-ordered militia the right to bear arms shall not be infringed”
I don't agree at all that this is a case of creative reading. The actual text of the amendment is "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Note that the text does not say "in order to" or anything like that, which is why interpretation of this amendment gets controversial. Was the intent that bearing arms is only a right insofar as people are part of a local militia? Was the intent that people must have the right to bear arms and the militia was simply cited as one example of why? It is genuinely unclear from the text, which means that no matter what we do we have to layer our own interpretation on top. That doesn't mean anyone is reading the law creatively, that's just the unfortunate facts of having to deal with an unclear text.
That's... how the 2nd amendment used to be treated, actually: state laws against conceit carry have lo-o-ong history, and they've been held to be perfectly constitutionally until recently. Oh, and "well-regulated" used to mean "well trained and supplied" back in those day.
And the 2nd actually reads (if you fix its grammar since it's ungrammatical by the standards of the modern English language) "since the well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" — now notice that it's a conditional rule, and its premise in "since..." is no longer true, militias are not necessary for the security of a country; and so the conclusion should lose its power. And arguably it's what the Founders intended: if they meant it as an absolute rule, they would've omitted the first part of it and would have simply stated that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", period.
The Supreme Court in the United States has been playing a looooot of "Calvinball" recently. They've never been completely immune from it, but it has gotten a lot more nakedly political.
Off topic but I am now old enough that more than once Calvinball references were lost with my co-workers.
I was surprised (and then sad) at the realization that Bill Watterson is fading from the cultural ethos as I age.
Gone are the days when everyone was spammed with Monty Python references. The Gen-Zs in my office haven't even heard of, let alone viewed, the Holy Grail so half the references our boss lays out are lost on them. At least it's not dead yet.
On the other hand, I had to ask them what a Kirby was. I'm still not sure but I know it's pink.
That's sad. It's not like when I was watching Holy Grail in the late 80s it was in theaters, and the "effects" weren't good enough when it was made to become dated. We watched it and lots of other stuff on VHS because it was good, regardless of when it was made.
I suppose some of the jokes depend on cultural things that might not be taught as well anymore, like the Trojan Horse. But most of it is about human nature, so it seems like that should hold up.
Interesting, at least 10 years ago, everyone in my school knew Monty Python. Maybe that's because it was on Youtube at the time. Not really the case anymore; some is still there but a lot has been removed - you're not going to find 'Holy Grail part 1/11' these days.
I've noticed similar. I quote lots of movies, usually one liners as appropriate. Between age and less uniform media exposure, my references more often than not fall flat. And I feel less connected.
If you talk to anyone under 30, there's a vague sense of 'the past' with a few landmark events - mostly Star Wars, Pokemon, Miyazaki. Beyond that it's all recent comics, superhero movies, video games, and anime, with a big subculture stanning book trends like romantasy.
Most of what happened before 2000 doesn't seem to exist in cultural memory.
It's not quite true that nothing that happened before 1950 exists at all. But you're not going to find many people who are interested in the art, music, literature, design, or architecture of earlier decades - never mind centuries.
It's as a big a break as there was in the 60s. For that generation the 50s were still an influence, but anything earlier pretty much just disappeared.
I guess the sense of a rubicon at the end of the 40s was due to WW2, but why at the year 2000? Because phones? Or big round number effect, perhaps? The year 2000 was built up in our minds as when the future was expected to begin. (Every new gadget produced around 1990 was the Something2000. CarVacuum2000, Ionizer2000, SuperShoehorn2000, etc.)
> And I feel less connected.
Watch whatever today's kids watch.
The "less uniform media exposure" phrase invokes the (paranoid?) fear that we might lose common cultural reference points. In short, today's kids watch whatever. Though I'm sure we'd just find a new social script to work around the inability to quote Python.
> In what places do courts ignore or modify law to deliver the result they prefer?
The United States. E.g. ‘the switch in time that saved nine,’ Wickard v. Filburn, Obergefell v. Hodges, Gonzales v. Raich and so forth.
That's common in both European courts (look at e.g. the history of homosexual marriages in the EU) and in the US ("Citizens United").
The core issue is that no Constitution, in fact no law or decree at all can account for all possibilities that real life offers, and so all the bodies of law are up for interpretation all the time.
This is also the case in the UK. Where things are not crystal clear they are interpreted by judges and can become precedent (see the recent “definition of a woman” interpretation).
The issue highlighted by, say, the Owens vs Owens example, is that the law as it stood was clear and not open to interpretation, though obviously unfair. The law needed to be changed, which required parliament.
>If there's a law, no matter how ancient, the British should comply. If a law needs to be changed, that's the Parliament's job.
If that's not religion, I don't know what is...
It's representative democracy.
Religion is what it replaced. Where one person, with a clique of courtiers who personally relied on him for power, enacted whatever took their fancy. Their word was power, whether it was starting wars or forging alliances with unsavoury countries - and woebetide you if you challenged it.
Religion is notably harder to change than country laws.
The hundreds of Protestant sects all cried out in anguish. The Hindu cults just rolled their eyes.
Most religions are relatively flexible around beliefs. It tends to be particular sects that aren't... But they don't speak for the rest.
I think you're conflating religious beliefs with ethics. You can't have a religion that is flexible on beliefs, otherwise it is not a religion, but the actual core religious beliefs are fairly limited. In Christianity, Jesus dying to reconcile the world to God is the whole point; without that it is something else. The whole point of Buddhism is that all emotions are pain, and that realizing that everything really nothing (since all composable things are impermanent and everything is composed) is the path to nirvana. All the other beliefs and ethics come out of this.
But even "submarine" religions (ones that people do not think of as a religion) follow the pattern. Communists worship the State (or perhaps the Party), because the problem with society is the structure of society, so only the State can bring the salvation of equity. American Progressives worship sexual identity. Progressives are flexible--except if you don't accept a particular identity, think that gender is not malleable, refuse to use pronouns, etc.
However, I think even "most religions" are not very flexible. 50% of the world's population are either Christian or Islam, and both are pretty prescriptive in the ethics.
Religions is just one incarnation of a more fundamental trait of human psychology that allows us to build complex society.
Belief in other shared made up things like law and even money works that way, and most of the world -isms too
There’s a word for that sort of thing, it just happens to be:
antidisestablishmentarianism
That is for the removal of the Church of England as the religion of England, but it’s along those lines.
You have one too many negative prefixes there. The Church of England is already established. Those who want to remove that status are proposing disestablishment. Antidisestablishmentarianism is the desire to maintain the status quo.
It seems like the original idea here would be to hang the hay at slightly below the height of the next bridge. That way it serves as a physical indication that your vessel's too tall.
But, in the picture it seems to be a) hung higher than the scaffolding and b) too close to it to actually give vessels a chance to turn around.
Like a bit of medieval cosplay sneaking into modern infrastructure work. A tiny reminder that history isn’t just in museums... it's literally hanging off our bridges.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topping_out#History
the practice of "topping out" a new building can be traced to the ancient Scandinavian religious rite of placing a tree atop a new building to appease the tree-dwelling spirits displaced in its construction... The practice remains common in the United Kingdom and assorted Commonwealth countries such as Australia[7] and Canada,[8] as well as Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Iceland, Chile, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and the Baltic States. In the United States the last beam of a skyscraper is often painted white and signed by all the workers involved.[7] In New Zealand, completion of the roof to a water-proof state is celebrated through a "roof shout", where workers are treated to cake and beer.[9]
> to appease the tree-dwelling spirits displaced in its construction.
It seems not:
> A Scandinavian tradition of hoisting a pine tree to the top of framed out buildings had a more functional purpose: when the pine needles fell off, the builders knew the wood frame below had cured/dried out so they could enclose the building.[2]
Why a bail of straw? Reminds me of the forgotten reason why the onion was thrown into the varnish
"Primo Levi was working in a varnish factory. He was a chemist, and he was fascinated by the fact that the varnish recipe included a raw onion. What could it be for? No one knew; it was just part of the recipe. So he investigated, and eventually discovered that they had started throwing the onion in years ago to test the temperature of the varnish: if it was hot enough, the onion would fry."
Often, these things are utilitarian, not mystical. So my educated guess: Back in the day, the main problem was river mariners getting hurt by bridge arches that were lower than expected, and the bale of straw was a 'soft buffer' - better to get your head hit by a swinging bale of straw than a rock-solid bridge.
More likely that a bale of hay was simply a conspicuous but lightweight thing that was easy to get your hands on back in the day.
Also if it comes undone and falls in the river, it's not likely to do any harm.
Aside: Although the article makes the same mistake, hay and straw are not the same thing. Hay is dead green grass-like plants. Straw is dead brown grass-like plant matter that has finished it's lifecycle and used up all the sugars and things in it. Hay gets moldy more easily but has nutrients for animals while straw does not decompose as quickly.
Yes, I realized that after the edit grace period. Specifically, straw is the dried stalks of cereal that have very little nutritional value to begin with, whereas hay is reaped grass, legumes, whatever herbaceous plants that grazing livestock normally eat.
Indeed. Cheap, readily available, heavy enough to hang, soft enough to bump out of the way. Honestly, it's a mystery to me why it's a mystery. What else would they use, a dead sheep?
I was wondering about that but it would only work for the sailor standing in the right place on a boat sailing dead center of the river where there is typically two way traffic.
This doesn't seem like a utilitarian solution, more of a signal with a symbolic intention?
The law explictly requires "large enough to be conspicuous and by night a white light", which suggests it's about visibility, particularly at night. That makes sense, there is a black metal bridge near where I live, and when it is cloudly I've noticed it's suprisingly difficult to see, even when you know where it is.
This is a good reminder of how law is actualy created and works, and the what our legal foundations are, including the laws governing our rights and responsibilitys. The real thing to understand is that all law is arbitrary, and whatever possible balance and measure is included in existing law, and discussions about change and reform are always predicated on some imagined "justice" to be had, but no matter how "just" or logical a law, someone still has to impliment and administer it, and there in lies the trap, so sticking to an ancient precident speaks volumes about the form that those laws will follow, and how to function inside that legal system. Another recent hint, was an article, here?, about ancient water pumps scattered about greater London, digging there will likely reveal that those pumps have and represent a primary right to water that can not be removed......or ignored...much like the many scattered temples and shrines in Japan where fantastic acomodations in modern building and construction have been made in order to build around, but not over, these structures that have precidence.
My wife, reading this: "I see Westminster's PR department are doing their job."
A scarecrow for ships! That's interesting!
we have a bridge near where i live that can use such a warning crash barrier. you'd think they'd install one after 65 bridge strikes in the last few years. their solution was to build a a stronger bridge, rofl.
i guess at this point it's a cherished tradition :D. there's probably a youtube mashup of all the phone-recorded strikes.
https://www.lakemchenryscanner.com/2025/05/20/box-truck-hits...
Half the fun of renting a Penske truck is learning what that bridge height sign was designed for.
I thought it'd be about this infamous bridge: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23587190
I should patent my tennis ball-on-string solution for the same thing.
The article states that the purpose of this is "lost to time". I can image that by now its function is equivalent to a "brown M&M clause".
I'm a bit bemused at that "lost to time", as immediately before that it says:
The law requires a bale of straw to be hung from a bridge as a warning to mariners whenever the height between the river and the bridge’s arches is reduced, as it is at Charing Cross at the moment.
That seems clear enough! OK, the reason why it specifically has to be a bale of straw isn't obvious, but apart from that it seems very reasonable, just outdated.
Edit to add: straw does make sense as a makeshift crash barrier -- you'll notice if you hit it, but hopefully won't actually damage your ship. It seems like you would always just plough through and hit the actual bridge, though.
Yeah it's amazing (in a bad sense) how those bridge too low warnings are ignored most of the time
Well of course when you get stuck then it's too late.
Similar to how people will read a temporary hand written sign on a door, but filter out a (newly placed) professionally made sign, because the latter looks too permanent.
If something has changed, using something out of place or temporary in appearance seems to be the most effective way of getting human attention... A bale of straw feels like it fits the bill.
They get ignored because there's a fudge factor built into them.
Some states (IL in particular) have absurd fudge factors, so you have 14ft spaces signed as 12.xx and 13'6" trucks drive under them all day every day like it's nothing which basically trains them to ignore the signs.
And that's before you consider all the drivers who can't read english at road speeds so anything that isn't the standardized yellow sign right on/beside the object is going to go unnoticed to them a large amount of the time.
In case anyone else forgot what that means.
> The "brown M&M clause" was a specific contract requirement by Van Halen that demanded all brown M&Ms be removed from a bowl of M&Ms provided backstage before their performances. This clause was not a frivolous demand but a way to test if the concert promoters had read the entire contract carefully. If brown M&Ms were found, it indicated that other important technical details might have been overlooked, which could pose safety risks for the band and the audience.
And an additional note: The Van Halen show wasn't a few dudes with guitars and a set of drums going around in a van.
It was a massive display of pyrotechnics and staging - the requirements in the rider weren't there for fun, it was for actual safety.
Didn't they also specify something like a 20 ampere widget plugged into a 10 ampere cable or something? If no-one questioned that, they'd hire or bring their own electrician to check absolutely everything with a cable near it. (That might have been another band, it was a long time ago I read this.)
There's a further aspect (supposedly): the brown M&Ms was listed in the pre-check conditions, and the contract stated that if any of them were found to not be in compliance then the Van Halen team had the right to force checks on any/all of them for compliance. So if they found the brown M&Ms it gave them the contractual right to demand that other, more impactful, requirements be (re)checked for compliance.
You know I’ve seen this explanation a million times for decades and it’s always just a tiny bit wrong.
It’s a small distinction, but actually if the band showed up and found all the brown M&Ms still there the plan would have already been a failure.
The reason it was in the contract was to make sure the promoter had read the contract before signing it and understood what they were getting into.
Band riders are almost invariably redlined. Bands ask for all sorts of crazy shit and you cross out stuff you can’t provide or give a substitute brand name (like if the venue has an exclusive vendor relationship with Coke instead of Pepsi stuff like that) and then you work out any kinks and finalize it.
The reason to put the M&M clause in there is to get the promoter to strike the clause during the contracting process because any competent promoter will read every line carefully and strike something like that.
So when they do you know they read it and know what they are doing are comfortable signing a deal with them.
You would never want to be arriving at the venue with the clause still in force, that’s a sign you have a larger problem.
Source: I was a concert promoter in the 90’s
Roth's own statements in his autobiography ( as quoted on https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brown-out/ ) contradict that; they were playing in universities and the like that weren't used to hosting big technical band shows and probably didn't have dedicated band promoters in that era.
Removing the brown ones from a bowl of M&Ms is a 5 minute job that can be handled by anyone. I would expect a lot of people would go "well that's a bit eccentric, but if it makes the band happy, why not".
I doubt the band would say "you didn't redline this weird but inconsequential request, we can't work together.
If they wanted to be sure the redlining process worked, they should have put in something like "remove all fire extinguishers from backstage".
It's rarely a brand issue with M&Ms though? I'd expect a competent promoter would read it and charge a reasonable amount for that line item. Band asks for crazy shit, you quote an almost-crazy price for it.
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This is why laws should have sunset clauses
The law does say that the bale of straw is to be replaced or supplemented by a white light at sunset.
> should have sunset clauses
That would be the extra lights that have to be turned on at night.
They can just change the law?
I suspect the reason it's not in this case is because it's kind of an endearing tradition that people like. I don't think you can say much about "the law" in general based on this case.
Sunset? So that after a few years people can do work on bridges without having to put up warnings? In a modern context, we wouldn't sunset a law saying that traffic lights be green and red, even though maybe in a few years we might want orange and pink. You dont mess around with safety warning standards.
We absolutely should sunset those laws.
If they are needed they can be voted upon again by parliament, and will no doubt pass.
In fact I would say not only should all laws have built in expiration dates, such expiration dates should be shorter the lower the percentage of votes in parliament it too to pass them!
If you can only get a 51% majority in parliament to pass a law, that law should not exist beyond that election.
I see you've never played Nomic. Laws that automatically self-destruct are a very clever way to create the conditions needed to win the game. You should try it some time.
You do not remove them. But you should change them when environment changes. Straw bale was decent indicator back in the day. But I think there should be some more modern and even global standard that law could be changed to. And this should be done with reasonable planning, schedule and communication.
Decent indicator of what?
It could be, to the contrary, that the legislators have come up with "straw bale" as something that simply does not belong under the bridge, in order to raise the brows of the people navigating the river, and make them wonder what's going on, all that in order to draw their attention. If so, it serves its purpose even more as straw bales are getting less common.
If the law is actually valuable and there is political capital for its continuation then surely the legislative body can vote to extend it with minimal fuss.
If the law is useless and there is political capital then surely the legislative body can vote to abolish it with minimal fuss.
A bit tongue in cheek, of course - but I can't image the amount of unnecessary work regular continuation of _every_ law would cause. Time limits on laws are already a thing, but it shouldn't be a default.
What you're suggesting is that if the government is dysfunctional, useful safety standards get abolished. That seems counterproductive.
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Nowhere was it implied that all laws should have sunset clauses. Obviously something like “you can’t murder someone” should not be sunset.
Including sunset clauses in many laws requires legislators to review if those laws are still relevant and modify them accordingly. The law in question here is a perfect example. A bale of straw is not the best way to signal to boats that the bridge height is lower.
Anarchy is not a desired state, but neither is a state where outdated rules hamper activity for no reason other than “we are too lazy to assess the relevance of existing rules”
I think you've unintentionally created a great example of how and why public discourse and lawmaking are so broken.
You invoke "safety" in the same manner that peddlers of all sorts of evil invoke terrorism or think of the children and then you cap it off with a straw man, as if there's serious money to be made with or without this mundane and niche law or comparable ones.
Bridge height postings more or less stand on their own merit and probably don't need laws to continue to exist. The fact that they are legislated at all is mostly a reflection of the fact that the state was the only entity positioned to deal with such an issue when they first became of enough value to be worth doing basically all the time.
I think you'll find that this law does not originally come from the state. It comes from local river authorities, perhaps under the Port of London Authority.
Criticizing rationally acting rational actors on hn is discouraged because it is "low value" or "uncivil".
When the rationally acting rational actors are pressed for answers about how their vision of the world would work they tend to reply with either examples from science fiction space fantasy novels or something that is just a simple dictatorship.
In order to add to the conversation you should sprinkle some effusive praise about the AI/Crypto/Fintech/Quantum scam du jour (or criticism of Apple) into your comments to throw them off the scent.
Something like:
"Oh boy I really get what you're saying! Here at my quantum fintech startup we're using LLMs to turboencabulate novertrunnions. By the way did you know that safety regulations are written in blood and after years of working effectively the public may forget why they were implemented in the first place but the underlying issue will just return absent the regulation and a newer generation will just have to rediscover why the regulation was created and that's something we should avoid?"
The initial tease excites the techbro-- they start daydreaming about being a billionaire dictator of a mars colony and that floods their brain with pleasure hormones which lower their defenses.
This leaves a small, but existent, chance that you can hammer some reality into their antisocial brains.
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