h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In particular if said someone succeeds in building the - erm - thing we are all talking about

It's a panjandrum, Pierce. Not sure what the Danish equivalent is.

What, one of these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjandrum


Geggs

Another example, if it were needed, of why you shouldn't trust Wikipedia.

It doesn't even mention the abscissa.

Panjandrum? A panjandrum without abscissa and helioflex stabilizers? You must be joking!

I thought all that stopped after the Treaty of Rome?

re 442:

I found the Danish equivalent to your panjandrum, Icy:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Spandauer_med_creme.JPG

re 446:

It's been 56 years since the Treaty of Rome was signed. A lot of water has passed under the flanges since

One has to be careful about the flanges getting frazzled, after all, without routine upkeep and maintenance and regular replacement when excessively worn, the frazzle may perform less than optimally.

Hopefully in the future someone will have worked out how to defloss the thrumbles and recentre the hollisters which will make most of this thread irrelevant.

Oh, so that's the trick? Why didn't you say sooner?

...

Sorry to say, the tachymeter is still irregular here, and the pendulum is doing figures of eight, no matter how carefully I try to align i. Is that Focault's fault?

No. I believe it's San Andreas' fault. And he probably shares the blame with Fibonacci and Mandelbrot.

And 2legs, of course, but that rather goes without saying.

Ah San Andreas he of the split personality was once a background detail in a Renaissance masterpiece. If you look very closely, you'll see him juggling flanges!
Ah,the meaning, the meaning.
(Shuffles off for a cup of.

Ah yes, the Renaissance. When you could get flange ornaments of ivory, albeit for exorbitant prices. They say some of the oldest and finest were made from the tusks of Hannibal's elephants

But these days they would be both illegal and immoral, of course

I'm sorry I couldn't find a painting of San Andreas juggling his ivory-ornamented flanges, but here is one of a guinea pig:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/10255081/First-guinea-pig-portrait-discovered.html

I wanted a guinea pig as a pet when I was a child and my dad said he would buy me one when they went down to ten bob. They still haven't.

I used to think they(guinea pigs) cost one pound, one shilling, hence the name. Flanges in art have never been the same since Dali changed them out of all recognition.

Dali was a hazard to engineering! The trains he designed had wheels as wobbly as pudding!

And they kept terrible time.

that's what I was going to say, McKay
but you beat me to it