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You've been to London and you've heard Big Ben — but you've never seen Big Ben. What you have seen is St. Stephen's Tower, the 400-foot-high, four-sided clock tower rising above Britains's Houses of Parliament, on the banks of the Thames. But Big Ben is inside the tower—it's a 13 ton bell, designed by the Baron Grimthorpe, cast in 1856, and named in honor of Sir Benjamin "Big Ben" Hall, the Chief Commissioner of Works at the time. Londoners set their watches by the tower's glowing clock faces by day and by night-and until recently, some poor soul frequently had to climb all 340 steps to the top with replacement bulbs, to keep those clock faces glowing. But that's all over now.
Since the last day of 1994, they have been illuminated by means of 112 bulbs (28 per clock face), courtesy of Philips QL's induction lighting system. Each 55 watt lamp is guaranteed for an unmatched lifetime of 60, 000 hours. That's 15 years of normal usage—reducing maintenance and energy costs by an estimated 60 per cent.
These QL lights offer not only economy, durability and high luminous efficiency—but, since they are "solid state" and contain no filaments or electrodes, they are also resistant to the mighty vibrations of Ben's Big Bongs!
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