To:      999 & Neil Parry              
  From:    K6X (Cluke)                   
  Subject: Primates vs Pachyderms        
                                         
  If there is one thing I find hard to   
  believe, it is that a grown man can    
  not accept defeat gracefully! As you   
  are very well aware Neil, I was far    
  more accurate with my timing method    
  than you were; on each occasion I was  
  accurate to within +/- 2, that's  TWO  
  seconds, whereas your best effort was  
  more than 15, ho!ho!  FIFTEEN  seconds 
  out, something you forgot to mention   
  when you sent in your pathetic message 
  asking the membership to support your  
  lost cause. To sit there and say that  
  just because you cannot make it work   
  does not mean you are wrong, smacks of 
  King Canute trying to turn back the    
  rising tide! Whilst still in Sheffield 
  at Jonathan's, you said that you would 
  send in a message for the next issue   
  and open up the topic for discussion   
  amongst the membership, but I did not  
  expect your message to take the form   
  of a whinge! Did you honestly expect   
  to drum up much support? There is only 
  ONE message in your support on this    
  disc but that is from Yorkshire, which 
  as an independant nation with their    
  own language, has a different view of  
  almost everything to the rest of the   
  known world anyway. I am sure 8BS has  
  better things to publish than sad      
  messages from bad losers! I know you   
  live 20-odd miles North of Watford,    
  but I expected better of an Essex Boy! 
   The plain truth is that my method has 
  official Government approval! I served 
  my telecommunications apprenticeship   
  in The Post Office. At that time it    
  was a Government-run organisation, and 
  was regarded as part of the Civil      
  Service. Therefore, it follows that    
  methods practised by The Post Office   
  were Government-approved. Telephones   
  in those days had dials on them, and   
  in order for the exchange equipment to 
  function correctly those dials had to  
  rotate at the correct speed in order   
  to produce ten loop-disconnect-pulses  
  per second (thats 10 Hz to you kids).  
  Dials were factory-set to this speed,  
  but over a period of usage would tend  
  to either speed up or slow down, thus  
  giving rise to wrong numbers, or other 
  problems in the exchange. Along with   
  thousands of others, I was trained to  
  adjust the dials to the correct speed, 
  and guess how we were taught to count  
  seconds accurately? What a surprise-   
  one-chimpanzee! This effective and     
  Government-approved method kept the    
  nation's telephones working on the old 
  Strowger system for over sixty years   
  until the advent of the modern digital 
  exchanges, so I don't think you can    
  argue with it's pedigree!              
   Should you still feel that there is a 
  remote vestige of validity in your     
  claim for elephants to be used as a    
  basis for measuring elapsed time, let  
  me give you this final blow. A friend  
  of mine worked at London Zoo for many  
  years, as keeper to Guy the Gorilla.   
  He assures me that elephants cannot    
  count, and if anybody should know, he  
  should. It logically follows from this 
  that as they cannot count, there is no 
  way that an elephant would be able to  
  tell the time. I rest my case!         
                                         
  EDITOR.... Come on lads, calm it down