Chairs, Chairs, Chairs
73 comments
·May 25, 2025cjs_ac
ggm
Call by name, call by value, call by reference.
Also c/f "lord privy seal" which is not a lord, nor a privy, nor a seal.
cjs_ac
'Lord Privy Seal' is actually an abbreviation for the 'Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal', i.e., the person who (nominally) looks after the seal used to authenticate personal documents 'signed' by the monarch before written signatures came into use. The post of Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal is now usually given to the governing party's leader in the House of Lords, and the monarch's personal seals (which no longer serve any official purpose) are held by the Lord Chamberlain, who is part of the Royal Household and not the Government.
ggm
My comment is a quote, from Angus Calder's book "the peoples war" -he took it from a comment made by a labour minister of the time.
tmiku
I like letter-slash-letter abbreviations but I've never run into c/f before. What does it mean? Do you remember where you first picked it up?
ggm
It's a misuse. CF no slash "compare" in backpieces, references &c. C/F appears to mean something in pre spreadsheet accounting but I did not study accounting at uni, so where I got the idea it needs a slash is beyond me.
Rygian
For a great pun on the by name/by value: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38858443
CGMthrowaway
Even "down" cushions in high-end couches today are usually a PU foam core wrapped in down batting. It's impractical, expensive and unnecessary to do otherwise.
And "down" pillows are often 95% feathers 5% down, unless advertised as 100% down (and will hundreds more)
Not that down is wool, obviously.
bbarnett
I have to disagree, PU foam has been the most useless cushion padding I've ever experienced in my life. It goes from firm + comfortable to useless in under a year for me in most cases. I've even tried replacing with the firmest PU foam available, and those attempts last maybe 2 years.
So I deem it as all those words you use, impractical, expensive, unnecessary to use PU.
CGMthrowaway
Have you tried a horsehair core? That would last longer
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postepowanieadm
Wool had probably too much economic importance to be used in such fashion.
pbhjpbhj
I agree with a comment, which appears now to be deleted, effectively that monarch's have no place in democracy.
The presence of Charles Windsor in the HoL is an affront to democracy that we should do away with. These chairs represent a fraction of the baggage of tradition that IMO should be carefully unpicked and dispensed with; parliament really needs to continue the slow progression towards sovereignty of the demos and away from the trappings of imperial oppulence and monarchic power. The mace should be smashed, melted down and used to fund a memorial to the Crown.
Even if, as some argue, it is "only symbolic", the kowtowing of the demos to a person of inherited title is a symbolism that we should be rid of.
Anon4Now
Nice site, but where's the 'Add to Cart' buttons?
robin_reala
madaxe_again
I picked up a pair of these for £5 at Winchester dump about 20 years ago. Needed scrubbing with wire wool, rewaxing, a few mortises needing packing, and reupholstering, as they had evidently been in someone’s garden for some time.
Similar to the thread from yesterday - amazing what some people just throw away.
CGMthrowaway
Nice find. Were they period?
eszed
> All but one of these chairs are in use
Which one isn't?
jxjnskkzxxhx
If know nothing about the subject, but if I had to guess I would guess that the sovereign's throne isn't used casually even by the sovereign.
Edit: it's stated that the throne is used during only the "state opening of the parliament" so that means it's not used "day to day".
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dghf
The same is stated for the Chair of State, so the sole unused chair can't be either of those.
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idw
The robing room chair of state
RegW
Apparently not - provided for the king to use when he's putting his crown on before the state opening of parliament.
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/pal...
RegW
Copilot says: "This chair, located directly to the left of the Speaker’s chair, remains vacant as a symbolic reminder of the time when the monarch’s messenger or royal representative would sit there."
... but I can't find a link to support this.
pbhjpbhj
I think Copilot made that up.
Notice the seating behind the table in these two images, one of a session with John Berkow prosiding as speaker, I think it is under Cameron's government (noughties [1]); the other of Pitt the Younger addressing the House [2]. Neither shows a vacant seat. Perhaps it is confusing it with the opening of parliament when the Queen wasn't able to attend (2022 [3]) and her throne was left vacant?
The mace represents the king's authority in parliament, you can see it at the front edge of the table in both images ([1], [2]).
The monarch's messenger is Black Rod, they're the one who knocks on the door to call the MPs to go and listen to the "King's" Speech.
[1] https://cdn.britannica.com/25/99525-050-DCC15F00/Chamber-Hou... [2] https://cdn.britannica.com/03/129303-050-05283CEF/William-Pi... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/09/queen-to-mis...
RegW
> I think Copilot made that up.
Hmm, I guess I was suspicious. It's like the old bloke at the end of the bar, who always wants to have something interesting to say.
CGMthrowaway
All of these chairs are upholstered. I've found it interesting that chairs were exclusively hard-surfaced for nearly all of human history, even among royalty who could afford a cushion. Hard chairs were seen as promoting discipline and moral uprightness while comfortable seating would have signalled weakness, decadence (in the archaic sense) or laziness.
Chairs themselves were a status symbol. Commoners would use stools or benches.
alabastervlog
We must still not think cushioned chairs are that important, or we wouldn't make kids spend 13 years straight sitting 5+ hours a day in hard chairs.
kelseydh
I recently learned that the King is the only person in the UK that doesn't require a passport to travel.
tuetuopay
Passports are delivered "in the name of the king", thus from this point of view it makes sense to skip the "I hand myself my own passport" step. So british.
Of course, I wonder what the rest of the world thinks about this, an individual with no passport. Surely there are some edge cases where it does not fit in procedures.
kelseydh
I assume when the British King travels to other countries, he is greeted by those countries with a state welcome.
I imagine Trump isn't accumulating passport stamps or lining up for customs when he flies to other countries in Air Force One.
tialaramex
In principle International Law says that all heads of state get all the same affordances as Diplomats, which certainly makes sense if you imagine the Diplomats as just messengers - if Bill Smith can be here because Bill is King Steve's messenger, obviously King Steve himself could come instead and isn't subject to your normal rules, makes sense.
In practice however... power matters. Eswatini isn't going to pretend it has the power to arrest Putin, but I can certainly imagine if Russia wanted to arrest the King of Eswatini they'd just do it - what's Eswatini going to do about it? If they've got a halfway plausible rationale, nobody wants to start a war over that, at least nobody who might win.
Likewise under the same legal theory neither Ireland nor South Africa could currently arrest Benjamin Netanyahu, despite the warrant for his arrest on a charge of crimes against humanity. But in practice I'm sure Natanyahu would rather not find out the hard way whether that theory holds up, in either Dublin or Cape Town. Israel has a substantial military force, and the Americans might back them, but, neither Ireland nor South Africa are defenceless and this sounds like a bad way to find out for sure.
fouronnes3
One of the rare bare .uk TLD? (not .co.uk)
quacksilver
It used to be much harder to get a bare UK domain. Restrictions were loosened in the early 2010s, with priority given to those who already owned a domain that was second level .co.uk etc.
cnity
Easy to come by though. I own one. My main concern was when giving email addresses over the phone that people would automatically put .co.uk, but so far that hasn't actually happened!
Xophmeister
I have a similar problem: For purely vanity reasons, I have a .co e-mail. Whenever giving it over the phone, I say something like "blah blah blah, dot co; no UK, just dot co". So far this has worked, but -- along with my difficult to spell domain -- I somewhat regret my decision!
chippiewill
Anyone can register `.uk` domains these days, although they're not super common for historical reasons.
throw0101b
Given the title, as good an excuse as any to point people to the Vsauce video "Do Chairs Exist?":
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXW-QjBsruE
(Can't believe a half-hour video on ontology has >13M views.)
comrade1234
[flagged]
tialaramex
Humans really like having a figurehead, a living symbol of their country. A monarch provides this living symbol without giving them any apparent democratic legitimacy - it's obvious that the King wasn't chosen by the people, he's just luck of the draw and so if he tried to seize power that's obviously illegitimate.
In contrast, an elected President has democratic legitimacy and we see over, and over, and over what happens is that a President takes the opportunity to try to seize power. It used to happen that I'd explain this and then Americans, who apparently don't study history, would object that obviously this would never happen with their President ...
bregma
> A monarch provides this living symbol without giving them any apparent democratic legitimacy - it's obvious that the King wasn't chosen by the people, he's just luck of the draw and so if he tried to seize power that's obviously illegitimate.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you. I mean, if I went around saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away.
tialaramex
Emperor Norton's story is pretty cool.
No scimitars lobbed by moistened bints though, he was just a bit mad in an era before they put people away.
dghf
With an executive president, sure: but when the president is largely ceremonial and/or a constitutional backstop (much like a constitutional monarch, in fact, except elected), I think the risk is much less.
And it's not like constitutional monarchs are risk-free, either: see, for example, the Shah of Iran in 1953.
account42
Do Humans like it or do they simply not have a choice in the matter?
tialaramex
Celebrity is this same instinct. There are a whole bunch of people who are famous for being famous. How else would you explain that?
brenainn
Yeah America is crazy right now
gtr
That's quite a lot of European countries to be fair.
account42
Not at all, only a few backwards holdouts.
LeonB
The parliament can (and has previously) kick out the king and put in another king.
The king has very limited power.
CamouflagedKiwi
That's not really true. The king conceptually has a lot of power - he appoints the Prime Minister (which can be anyone he wants it to be) and can effectively dissolve Parliament whenever he wants. He is also the head of the armed forces, who all swear allegiance to the King, not to Parliament or whatever.
In practice, this power exists on the understanding that the King won't actually use it, but they are powers that he does have.
chippiewill
That's not true these days, the King doesn't actually have those powers themselves - even on paper.
The power actually sits with "The Crown" not the King personally. "The Crown" is a legal entity that is represented by the King but not actually wielded by them. The Prime Minister advises the King on use of those powers which is what actually creates the legal conditions where they're effected by The Crown.
A good example of this is when Boris Johnson unlawfully prorogued parliament in 2019. The Supreme Court ruled that his advice to Queen Elizabeth to prorogue parliament was unlawful, and therefore "The Crown" could not have prorogued parliament and parliament was never prorogued. This would not be the case if it were a power that the Queen exercised themselves.
If the King were to attempt to dissolve parliament without advice from the PM by generating an order in council and sending it to Parliament then the supreme court would simply rule that he hadn't dissolved parliament.
LeonB
If the King — without the support of the general populace or of the parliament, but acting in his own interests, like a king of old — dissolved the Parliament, he could and very swiftly would be ousted, legally.
The line of succession would be followed until an individual was found who was willing to support the democracy. This was proven in 1685.
They swear allegiance to the King (or Queen) — but it’s understood that a new King or Queen can be swapped in. The extremely stilted and socially restrained manner in which Queen Elizabeth (for example) behaves is because they entirely know that their family does not hold the nation hostage, it’s quite the opposite.
econ
It would seem that way but per person, I pay 5 euro for the European parlement, 5 for our king, 3 euro for weapon research in genocidal Israël and 20 euro for some pointless meat grinder in Ukraine.
Our king (Netherlands) has 65% approval rating. In political leadership only Modi scores higher. King of Denmark has 94%. Norway 80-90%
Are you suggesting we get rid of kings day and work in stead? It would be worse than canceling easter. Imagine in 2025 we celebrate resurrection? Pretty funny if you think about it.
crote
> Are you suggesting we get rid of kings day and work in stead?
Why not just replace it with Labour Day? Or some kind of Independence Day - I bet we can come up with a reasonable start-of-country date.
The concept of a decorative politically-neutral head-of-state is solid, but we could just as well replace the king with an elected figure, like Germany has. Meanwhile, it would get rid of a filthy rich family constantly using their "god-given" connections to break the law and further enrich themselves.
actionfromafar
Would you rather spend on a pointless meat grinder closer to your border?
bregma
At least that would have greater perceived value.
rvz
Just like parts of Europe still have kings / queens.
Japan (which almost all anime lovers and software engineers on this site love going to) still has an emperor as their monarch.
They don't seem to have a problem with that and yet they still love it...for some reason.
arrowsmith
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
ljm
That's a disappointingly narrow minded perspective to take on the world.
I'm not responding to the obvious bait, as others have.
a3w
Was Scott Chair the chair of Scott Blair?
> The Woolsack is where the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords sits and resembles a large square cushion covered in red cloth. In 1938 it was re-stuffed with a blend of wool from Britain and the other wool producing nations of the Commonwealth. The woolsack is thought to have been introduced in the 14th century to reflect the economic importance of the wool trade in England.
During the restuffing in 1938, it was discovered that the original stuffing was largely horsehair.