the midnight bongs of big ben on the radio. it was a bonging success and the following year the first fully accessible time signal, the greenwich time signal, started to be broadcast every hour. pips. it hasn t stopped since. the pips, as they were known, were generated by a swinging pendulum fitted with electrical contacts. so now you could have accurate greenwich mean time literally anywhere you had a radio. the pips have become legendary, a symbol of bbc radio, and who better to tell us about them than another legend of bbc radio, tony blackburn? welcome to the tony blackburn show this morning on tuesday the 9th of december. my thanks tojohn forswinging us up. the pips have always been a favourite of mine since 1967 when ijoined the bbc and opened up radio 1. good morning, everyone. welcome to the exciting new sound of radio 1. everybody else finds it a bit weird that i like them but i do, i love them,
and the following year the first fully accessible time signal, the greenwich time signal, started to be broadcast every hour. pips. it hasn t stopped since. the pips, as they were known, were generated by a swinging pendulum fitted with electrical contacts. so now you could have accurate greenwich mean time literally anywhere you had a radio. the pips have become legendary, a symbol of bbc radio, and who better to tell us about them than another legend of bbc radio, tony blackburn? welcome to the tony blackburn show this morning on tuesday the 9th of december. my thanks tojohn forswinging us up. the pips have always been a favourite of mine since 1967 when ijoined the bbc and opened up radio 1. good morning, everyone. welcome to the exciting new sound of radio 1. everybody else finds it a bit weird that i like them
of bbc radio, tony blackburn? welcome to the tony blackburn show this morning on tuesday the 9th of december. my thanks tojohn forswinging us up. the pips have always been a favourite of mine since 1967 when ijoined the bbc and opened up radio 1. good morning, everyone. welcome to the exciting new sound of radio 1. everybody else finds it a bit weird that i like them but i do, i love them, and on my programmes i used to promote them, particularly as my favourite pip is always the last one because it s slightly extended. but they are very bbc but they were useful at one time because before all these smart watches and things like that, you just had an ordinary watch that used to probably lose a minute a day or something like that, so i used to set my watch by the pips. nowadays of course with smart watches and things like that, you don t need it quite as much, but it is still very bbc and i like it, i wouldn t like to see it disappear. and off we go with the next one.
welcome to the tony blackburn show this morning on tuesday the 9th of december. my thanks tojohn forswinging us up. the pips have always been a favourite of mine since 1967 when ijoined the bbc and opened up radio i. good morning, everyone. welcome to the exciting new sound of radio i. everybody else finds it a bit weird that i like them but i do, i love them, and on my programmes i used to promote them, particularly as my favourite pip is always the last one because it s slightly extended. but they are very bbc but they were useful at one time because before all these smart watches and things like that, you just had an ordinary watch that used to probably lose a minute a day or something like that, so i used to set my watch by the pips. nowadays of course with smart watches and things like that, you don t need it quite as much, but it is still very bbc and i like it, i wouldn t like to see it disappear. and off we go with the next one. what a lovely sound this is as well.
because of the virus. now it s understood several hospital chief executives in england are saying their trusts are under the greatest sustained pressure they ve seen. there are now more than 111,000 patients with covid in hospitals in england. that s up almost 70% in a week. i ve spoken to staff who do find treating unvaccinated patientsl who are seriously unwell, l they do find that upsetting, particularly if, as from time to time, the patient says, i actually i wish i d been vaccinated all along. i so, we re not here tojudge, - we re here to treat and we ll treat whoever comes and requires our care and our attention there are some early encouraging signs, though. i was talking to london chief execs last week. what they were saying is they were seeing some very concerning daily increases of the numbers of people coming into hospital 9%, 15%, 9% on the 27th, 28 and 29th of december. but interestingly, in the last two days, those numbers have dropped,