SOS One Hundred Years Old
Jul 1st, 2008 by Eats Wombats
I discovered today that Samuel Morse is yet another famous person who lived within walking distance of our home in London. Coincidentally, I walked past his former home, marked with a blue plaque, then, a little later, I read in the The Times that the SOS signal was 100 years old today.
That’s . . . - - - . . . in case you couldn’t remember whether it was dot dot dot or dash dash dash.
I had no idea that he was in favour of slavery (that’s him off the dinner party list). I shall think of SOS as Save Our Slaves from now on.
Today was the hottest day of the year so far. It’s one reason I was on foot. The London underground is grim on a hot day. It’s the world’s oldest underground system by far (started in 1863) and I suspect it suffers most from overheating trains and passengers.
In favor of slavery?!?!?!?! Thank goddie no one told me this when I was a wee’un just a raising. I was obsessed with telegraphs which my friend and I used to make in her father’s workshop.. spending days of our young lives winding copper wire to make electromagnets. Then we would wire the house, the yard (we always planned the world… but went on to more mundane pursuits)– the excitement when the telegraphs actually worked was always great… although the fun of fixing them when they didn’t was almost better — and so we would morse code our little fingers off, though I can’t remember a single word of a single message but I can still remember “M” - - and “P” . - - .