The Saturday briefing: knowledge is power


Christmas VacationSG

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Q - IN the 1989 film National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, starring Chevy Chase, there’s a scene where he is staring out of a window thinking of a beautiful girl while in the background Bing Crosby can be heard singing an Hawaiian song. As an avid collector of Bing’s music I’d love some information on this one which I had never heard before. Sid Grimwood, Harwich, Essex

A - THE song is called Mele Kalikimaka, which is the nearest you can get in the Hawaiian language to saying “Merry Christmas”. The song was written in 1949 by Robert Alex Anderson. Bing Crosby recorded it with The Andrews Sisters and it is heard both in the film you mention and in L.A. Confidential.

Q - My friend says Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles and Lennie Peters (of Peters And Lee) were all born blind. I am sure that Ray Charles could see until he was 17. Which of us is right? Vince Barker, Colchester, Essex

A - YOU’RE both wrong. Stevie Wonder was born six weeks prematurely and suffered from a condition that caused him to become blind shortly after birth. Lennie Peters was blinded in one eye in a car accident when he was five and lost his sight in the other eye when he was 16 after a brick was thrown at him. Ray Charles started to lose his sight when he was four or five years old and went completely blind at the age of seven.

Q - HOW does putting a teaspoon in a bottle of champagne keep its bubbles? Gilliam McInnery, Weymouth, Dorset

A - AROUND 20 years ago researchers from America conducted an experiment to see if this really worked. After uncorking several bottles they put them in a fridge for 26 hours, some with teaspoons in them, handle downwards, others without spoons. They then conducted a blind tasting to assess the fizz and flavour of all the bottles. Result: they could discern no difference between the bottles that had spoons in them and the others. So the answer to your question seems to be: it doesn’t. The way to make the bubbles last longer is simply to make sure the champagne is kept cold. Carbon dioxide, which is the gas forming the bubbles, is more soluble at low temperatures so cold liquids better retain their dissolved gas, whether you put a spoon in the bottle or not.

Q - IN a recent column Vanessa Feltz said she was going to leave her car at home and use Shanks’s pony. I know this means walking but who was Shanks? Edmund Perks, Ivybridge, Devon

A - THERE never was a Shanks. Think instead of a lamb shank and you’ll see how it came about. The shank is the part of the leg between knee and ankle. Originally it was applied mainly to horses but has been used, usually humorously, to refer to human legs at least since the 16th century. The use of Shanks’s pony to mean walking is first recorded in the 1770s.

Q - CAN you please tell me why Magdalen, as in the college which takes part in University Challenge, is now pronounced as “maudlin”. So do we now call Mary Magdalen, Mary Maudlin? Doreen Foster, by email

A - BOTH Magdalen College, Oxford and Magdalene College, Cambridge have always been pronounced as Maudlin. The Oxford College, when founded by William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester in 1458, had a decree saying that it be known as “Collegium Beatae Mariae Magdalenae” in Latin and “Maudelayne College” in English. The historic reason for this is the English adopted the name “Madeleine” from the French, who had dropped the “g” from the Latin name. In the Middle Ages even Mary Magdalene was usually referred to as “Maudelayne”. In Cambridge Magdalene College was founded by Lord Audley in 1542 with the name usually given as “Maudleyn”.

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