Oh, Britannica, Just the Facts!

Recent fund-raising efforts have downtowners hopeful that the long-awaited Walt Disney Concert Hall will be built. But Donna Beckage of L.A. points out that Encyclopaedia Britannica Online has gotten a bit carried away.

In its section on the L.A. Philharmonic, Britannica declared: “Since 1997, winter concerts have been held at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.”

But, no, the encyclopedia doesn’t have sections on L.A.’s bustling subway to the Valley or that beautiful new downtown sports arena.

THE WONDERS OF SCIENCE: Jack Berkus of Playa del Rey alerted this column to the latest high-tech weather station, located at Outlaws restaurant in that community (see photo). David Siegan of L.A., by the way, found a similar apparatus at Kern Valley Airport. I’d attempt to explain how this type of weather station works, but I hate to see the column get bogged down in scientific esoterica.

ANGELENOS ABROAD: Gary Freund of L.A. sent along a snapshot “for your file, ‘Angeleno Drivers Who Thought They’d Seen Every Road Sign’ ” (see photo). Freund says that the picture, which he took in Britain, “brings to mind the old song, ‘High Hopes,’ in which Frank Sinatra sang of ants moving rubber trees.”

THIS ITEM HAS IMPACT: You may recall the photo of the “BLANG” warning sign made at a Cal State Northridge construction site, illustrating the sound made by a brick striking a hard hat.

The sign was installed by C.W. Driver contractors. That company’s Steve Pellegren joked that the decision to use that term “was based on very extensive and expensive research performed by the federal government in the study of ‘Sounds of Construction Mishaps.’

“A layperson would not be expected to comprehend the highly technical nature of this research,” he added. “However, other sounds investigated include ‘bonk,’ a 3- to 5-pound wooden object hitting a non-protected head (‘boink,’ if protected), and ‘doink,’ a bolt or rivet falling from 2 to 12.7 meters on a protected head.”

While we’re on the subject, Paul Thiele called here to say, “Your column photo looks like it was taken after you had been blanged yourself.” That hurts.

SPLAT! The publisher of the song “October in Oxnard” points out that I erred when I said the immortal tune was written by Clark Maffitt and Brian Davies. As everyone knows, they sang the ditty but it was written by David Hungate.

Anyway, it gives me an excuse to break into the last stanza:

That sweet October in Oxnard

The sea gulls in the sky

Were dropping little bits of joy on you and me

And on our lovely little

Oxnard by the sea.

Let’s hope they were wearing hard hats.

miscelLAny

The Cedars-Sinai and UCLA medical centers have been running dueling radio ads, each claiming to be the top facility in Southern California. But neither made a “best” list in Location Update, a film-oriented publication. An ad named St. Mary’s Hospital in Long Beach, Norwalk Community Hospital and the former Queen of Angels Hospital in L.A. as Southern California’s “best hospital locations”--for the filming of commercial movies and TV programs. Lights! Camera! Bedpan!

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Steve Harvey can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by e-mail at [email protected] and by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, L.A. 90053.