In an interview on the CBS program 60 Minutes, broadcast on 30 September 2018, Paul McCartney said that he could not read or write music. “None of us did in the Beatles,” he said. “We did some good stuff though. But none of it was written down by us.”
Now Form a Band
In January 1977, the first issue of the punk fanzine Sideburns printed a drawing of three chords. The caption read: “This is a chord. This is another. This is a third. NOW FORM A BAND.”
The drawing is credited to Tony Moon, who produced the fanzine. It is often wrongly credited to the better-known fanzine Sniffin’ Glue.
A Hidden Intention
In 1975, the musician Brian Eno and the painter Peter Schmidt published Oblique Strategies, a deck of cards meant to promote creativity. The first edition had 500 copies. Each card gives a short instruction. One of the best known reads: “Honour thy error as a hidden intention.”
Garagistes
Enzo Ferrari used to call the British Formula One teams, somewhat dismissively, garagistes: people who work in garages.
Cooper’s first racing cars were built when a garage owner in Surbiton helped his son John and a school friend make their first single-seaters. In 1959, the rear-engined Cooper T51 won both Formula One world championship titles.
The Technical Challenge
The Great British Bake Off has a round called the technical challenge. Each week, the bakers must produce an item they have not been told about in advance, with only a short recipe and little guidance.
In Dessert Week in 2022, the judge Prue Leith asked the bakers to make her favorite dessert, a lemon meringue pie. She gave them no instructions at all.
The Scout Method
The Scout movement was founded in Britain by Robert Baden-Powell. Learning by doing is one of the elements of its Scout Method. The Scout Association’s training material for its volunteers states: “Learning by doing is great fun for the young people and the volunteers.”
Screw It, Let’s Do It
In April 2006, Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin, published a book called Screw It, Let’s Do It. On the Virgin website, he says: “My motto really is: ‘Screw it – just do it!'”
Suck It and See
Suck it and see is an informal British phrase. It means to try something in order to find out whether it works.
The Vote on Syria
On 29 August 2013, the House of Commons voted against military action in Syria. David Cameron, the prime minister, told the House: “It is clear to me that the British Parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that, and the government will act accordingly.”
No law required the government to ask Parliament. In 2011, the government had acknowledged that “a convention exists that Parliament will be given the opportunity to debate the decision to commit troops.” The House of Commons Library describes the vote on Iraq on 18 March 2003 as the first example in modern times of prior approval being sought and granted.
The Ponsonby Rule
On 1 April 1924, Arthur Ponsonby told the House of Commons that the government would lay treaties before Parliament for 21 days before ratifying them. The practice became known as the Ponsonby Rule.
For 86 years it was a convention, not a law. Part 2 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 finally put it into statute, with a period of “21 sitting days.”