Answers to Corrispondance

Last week I challenged the lads to throw me a few teasers and get some of those questions answered that they had always pondered about.

JB in his usual enthusiastic vigour sent enough to keep me, and the staff of several universities busy until June.

But as today is his birthday, I have selected a few of the best to which I shall attempt to answer.


Please would you fix it for me to know where the phrase "thinking cap" comes from? i.e. "Best get your thinking cap on".

This rule was brought in by the health & safety people who were concerned our heads might be singed by the spontanious appearance of a floating lightbulb.


How many people would have to die before I became king?

I’ll hope by this that you are referring to succeeding naturally,rather than through anything more treasonous!

Now taking into account that there are 60 Million people living in the United Kingdom,then I would put you in at 59,432,998th in line to the throne - one behind the cat from the opening titles to Coronation Street.


When will they invent spectacles that can see through clothing. Only female clothing mind. And why would that work? Surely you'd also see through the flesh and therefore only be presented with a view of the internal organs and tendons?

You mean you havn’t got a pair yet? You’ll be telling me next you don’t have a jetpack!


Why do I have bad hair days?

Because when you are sleeping Tracy uses your head as a potter’s wheel.


Who decided that we should work 5 days a week and only have 2 fora weekend? And more importantly can I make them change their mind?

Well Edward Heath did try and introduce a three-day working week, But everybody shouted at him until he went away.


Could the internet ever be turned off?

Yes, there is a big red button hidden in a field in Shropshire. For security reasons they have painted it with white dots to look like a toadstool.


When did it become popular to use toilet roll instead of a leaf on a stick?

After the great stinging nettle invasion of 1854


When will my feet stop growing?

When you forget about feet and start using the metric system like the rest of us!


If the earth were the size of Richard Branson's balloon thing, how big would the moon be and how far away would it be? Could I reach it on a standard household ladder? What about if I then also had a stick in my hand?

No, because if the earth was the size of a balloon then everything in it would be scaled down to the same ratio. Therefore the moon would be exactly where it is now and ladders would still only be high enough to get you into the loft.

If someone were ran over by a steam roller from their feet upwards, when would they die?

I would guess that the cause of death would come with the crushing of the chest cavity and all the internal organs. However in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Judge Doom survived the process entirely, and only died when he was later exposed to the deadly dip.

Thank’s JB… Hope that enlightened you on your birthday!


Some of the other's have also been getting in on the act. Ads has posted a question below.

Tom submitted one question, to which I’d have to say… no, have you looked in the last place you had them?

I would also like to take time to thank Chi-Chi for his question, which I will get around to answering once I have found a rugby team drunk enough to explain all the innuendos.

Ask Nige

I have a question that perhaps R Nige may be able to enlighten me about, since I can't think of anything decent to post under normal circumstances. So here goes:

Q: If Darwin's theory of evolution is to be believed, and that we did in fact evolve from apes, and that giraffes' neck only got longer so as to aid it in eating from the tallest of trees, why of why in the barren wastelands of the desert do zebras still stick out like sore thumbs dressed in their black and white Nike shellsuits, whereas their predators, namely lions and cheetahs etc have been able to blend into the background.

Why not make those crafty cheetahs work for their meal - give their fur a common Burberry look to redress the balance a little. Perhaps some ostentatious spoilers on their tails, or some neon eyes. Or maybe the inability to move quickly without squealing uncontrollably, alerting all and sundry within a five mile radius...

It's over to you...

Educashun, Edukation, Edducation

So, according to a UN report Britain is the worse place in the developed world to be a child with regards to schooling, health and general happiness.

Still it's nice to win something every once in a while!

"Come on Tim!!"

Slings and Arrows

2007 will mark the 10th anniversary of one of the great “Nearly” moments in motor racing. Few had given Damon Hill any chance of success when he was faced with the prospect of defending his World Championship from the cockpit of an uncompetitive Arrows Yamaha.

The year couldn’t have got off to a worse start as Damon’s car expired right at the start with throttle problems. Twelve months earlier he had won the race.

When a World Championship finally point came his way after a stunning drive at Silverstone, the season was half over. No one then had any inkling of what was about to come.

I was on holiday in America that weekend, and had been stunned to hear in a telephone conversation with a mate back home that Damon had put his car into P3 for the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix. At all costs I had to find coverage of the race on Television.

Now back in 1997 I was yet to get hooked up to even the basic sky package, and so was used only to the terrestrial British television consisting of 4 channels. I was now desperately searching hundreds as the clock ticked down. Eventually I heard the unmistakable tones of John Watson and I was just in time for the start.

Damon of course would go off on the drive of his life – famously passing the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher for the lead which he would hold until the very last lap. It was of course not to be. A combination of a Transmission problem and a charging Jacques Villeneuve would deny the sport the greatest unexpected win since Olivier Panis had taken the Monaco GP 12 months earlier.

Of the teams that started that race in 1997, only Williams, McLaren, Ferrari & Sauber still remain. Of those only one is not now linked to a global Manufactuer.

The next few weeks would seem to be critical in determining the direction of the next decade of the sport. The fight between the Privateers and the Manufactuers seems to be heading for its high noon moment in the Melbourne paddock as arguments persist about the legalities of customer chassis and B-Teams.

10 years from now will we have lost forever at this level, those true privateer teams that are the last link between our modern world and the Brooklands spirit?

All I know is that there is no major corporation who could ever stir in me the spectrum of emotions that I felt watching that little Arrows team reach for the stars, and so nearly pulling it off!

The end of Big Brother? You 'aint seen nothing yet!

On Wednesday, in a move that has made me feel more than a little old, Oasis will be presented with a lifetime achievement award at the Brits.

Has it really been a decade since the landmark Be Here Now, an album that still provides mixed opinions in everybody I talk to!

I’ve always liked for it’s shear overblown excess. Yes, so there are several songs that run on a bit to long, one in particular can be timed on a calendar and still had the nerve to come back as a two-minute reprise.

That was a good summer for me, I was just out of school and my only cares in the world involved girls, passing my driving test, and wearing the right shoes (and occationally the left ones as well)

It was a simpler time when a carbon footprint was something Neil Armstrong left on the moon, and our armies were too busy keeping the peace to go fighting a war. At nights we slept soundly in our beds with our TV’s on standby, unaware that a thousand miles away some polar bears were feeling unseasonably warm.

Believe it or not we used to put plastic bottles into bins without the worry that the in built bugging device will inform a nearby SWAT team. There used to be streets in this country that you could walk down without the unblinking eyes of CCTV cameras recording you for posterity. These days I make it onto so many TV screens whilst going about my daily life that I am applying to join Equity.

Of course the next development of our ever encroaching state is road pricing. A satellite system which tracks your every move and sends it back to a man with pound signs in his eyes waiting you send you a very large bill.

One day soon anyone with the right kit will be able to go to a computer and discover exactly what I was doing at 2pm last Saturday. I'll save him the expense; I was watching the rugby at Twickenham.

It’s strange that in the decade since Oasis ruled the world - and our leash has been slowly reigned in - the only national debate we have had about the rights and wrongs of Big Brother involved the televised rantings of Jade Goody