User:Norman nicolson/sandbox

I may be described as a pedant, but when a TV company like the BBC puts out a nonsense like the one on a possible Van Meegeren forgery ,I feel I must protest. It was farcical, they kept shouting Bakelite, every time a phenolic resin was mentioned, even with a flashing image. The padded out the programme by going to see a chemist, who supposedly showed them how to make a phenolic resin, with dire warnings of course. What they got was a water white solution, not a phenolic at all, but probably an acrylic resin. In the course of the investigation, the manufacture of white lead came up, we were told it used stale urine. it actually used vinegar. In the end, they did what was obviously the correct thing to do, they checked the film for phenolic resin and found it. This was a maverick programme, not up to their usual standards. I suppose as an experienced paint Chemist, I could spot these errors, but it annoyed me all the same