Tuesday, September the 7th, 2004

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Musing About Sheds

For a few days now I have found myself preoccupied with sheds, or more particularly the kind of sheds Madame Blavatsky had in mind when she wrote those lines that appeared as our quote of the day last Thursday (see 2nd September). “A few wooden sheds being constructed,” you will recall the wily old Theosophist wrote, “for meteorological, astronomical and magnetic purposes…” The first two don't bother me particularly, but I have been wondering how to build a wooden shed for “magnetic purposes”. Does that mean simply a shed with a magnet in it? Or a shed built out of planks in which magnets have somehow been embedded, perhaps by banging them into the weave of the wood with a hammer? Or should that be the weft of the wood? Ought I consult the dictionary regarding weft and rewrite the preceding sentences? Is “a shed for magnetic purposes” the same thing as “a magnetic shed”? Whether it is or not, and assuming I have managed to build it, how does it work? Given that Madame Blavatsky was writing, if you remember, From The Polar Lands, are we just talking about compasses here? Wouldn't it be easier to use a compass than to build a wooden shed for magnetic purposes? Or is it all a lot more complicated and beyond my poor puny pea-sized brain? Does it matter what kind of wood I use? Should I concern myself with the size of the shed, and its proportion in relation to the size and/or power of the magnet or magnets? This whole business is driving me crackers. It's not easy being the editor of Hooting Yard sometimes. “Christ, you know it ain't easy,” as that John Lennon used to wail, even though he'd already met Yoko Ono by then, so he really should have known better.