Big Ben Bong Off

The U.K. Parliament's Great Clock, better known as Big Ben, will go onto a reduced chiming schedule for about a month while one of its bells is repaired.

At 8 a.m. today, the ``quarter bells,'' which play a tune every 15 minutes, were silenced. The 13.8 ton hour bell, from which the tower gets its nickname Big Ben, will continue to chime, though without an introduction until the repair is done. A specific date hasn't been set.

``It'll just be a bong,'' said Mike McCann, Keeper of the Great Clock. ``It's going to be quite strange.''

Big Ben first chimed across London on May 31, 1859. While one of the clock's four faces was shattered during a 1941 bombing raid that destroyed the chamber of the House of Commons, the mechanism and bells survived World War II.

The tune of the quarter bells was originally written in 1793 for a new clock in St. Mary the Great, the University Church in Cambridge. After it was adopted for the great clock, the composition became known as ``The Westminster Quarters'' and was used by clockmakers worldwide.

The four-note tune is a set of variations on a theme from Handel's ``Messiah.'' According to tradition, the words to it are: ``O Lord our God/Be thou our guide/That by thy help/No foot may slide.''

The BBC has a microphone installed in the belfry and uses the live chimes to open some of its radio news bulletins. ``If the clock's more than two seconds late they phone us up and complain,'' said McCann.