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

'I think Thomas Wall's company is worth a mention, as it's one of the biggest food brands in the UK.'

I don't think so, because it's got nothing to do with walls. Would you mention Jack London in the London entry?

Seriously, I'm happy to add anything you guys are prepared to write

That's fine, Rich. Just shout if you change your mind.

Icy

"Nothing to add, did it's dues in the EGWW as far as I can tell"

I'm going to have to agree with Matt. Nice to see this make it's way to PR.

Actually, just rereading this bit I wrote:

Wattle and daub is the name given to a method of wall construction widely used northern Europe in the medieval period and earlier. The wall (often the wall of a house or building) was begun using pieces of wood to form a frame. Between these, a sort of woven panel was made using smaller sticks. This is the wattle. A mixture of mud or manure and straw or similar - the straw was important to bind the mud together - was made and spread over the wattle on both sides. This is the daub.

I think you need to add at the end something like "When the mud dried, it formed a solid surface."

Archi- butting in...

The bricks in a wall aren't always offset by a half-brick - other patterns require slightly different overlaps. Maybe change to "usually"? The measures for different bricks varied greatly throughout history, but they're usually made a handspan long, to make them easier to build with. The big, light blocks now usually have holes, both for additional insulation and as a handhold.

Bricks aren't always fired, either - the Sumerians, for example, built their ziggurats out of sun-dried mud bricks.

Maybe a mention of "curtain walls", which aren't walls at all, really, because they don't bear loads - sometimes not even their own weight - but are secondary facades attached to a primary frame. They're very common now, but only evolved in the middle of the 18th Century. "Normal" walls bear the weight of the roof, the floors, the wind loads, etc.

The rubble in the wall in medieval castles is also a defence system, since anyone breaching the wall will have it all rain down on them. The Romans used a similar system, but poured the gap full of mortar mixed with small stones - a kind of early reinforced concrete. Nero ordered the city of Rome rebuilt with brick-faced concrete after it burned down, to prevent that happening again.

Concrete walls, plain or reinforced, are now usually made by casting the concrete in moulds. The formwork is either left in place to form the outer layer of the facade, or removed after the concrete has set. It will even set under water, a property the Romans made extensive use of and which enables us to build wide-spanning bridges now.

Metal walls aren't merely defensive - corrugated iron sheets are a quick and inexpensive way to close off not just the roof but the walls of outbuildings like stables and barns.

Fire walls also exist between houses, terraced houses, for example. They make it less likely that a fire will burn the entire row down.


And can "the writing on the wall" really be seen as a metaphor? It refers to a (supposedly) true, not metaphorical, incident in the Bible. Ah, found it, Book of Daniel. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=daniel%205:1-5:31&version=48

While we're being religious, isn't the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem worth a mention?

Sorry if that's too much at once

*Now* the architecture student turns up...

I was writing that during the lecture, too

This is good

"a method of wall construction widely used northern Europe"
- spot the missing word...

Mental Block (such as Writer's Block ).
- you need to remove that space after the second Block.

>

So why HAVE you left it in the Entry?
I think it'd be worth explaining that this is an urban myth

'So why HAVE you left it in the Entry?'

Because addressing the comments on this thread is a long way down my list of priorities at the moment.

You have 'other' priorities?

*nudge*

*nudge nudge *

I think it would be worth including the source of the phrase "the writing is on the wall". It happened at Belshazzar's feast.

I'm looking forward to the completed version of this entering the Guide. I could've lined to it recently

"... let him hold his fingers thus ..."

Acted to great comic effect at the production I saw. A9935300.




The Writing's on the Wall.

Mene Mene Tekil Parsin.

TRiG.

That's the one. Couldn't remember the exact words.

Do we have to wait for the Despot... ummm Skankyrich to come back?

Yes, because I've run out of steam. I may never finish this, in fact, and given the lack of entries in review I'm submitting it to FM in the hope that someone else will give it a bit of spit and a rub.

It looks nearly ready to me - are you sure you want to go FM with it?

Else I could give it a bit of a polish, when I get the time...