Why country is mole-free
QUESTION Why are there no moles in Ireland?
WHEN the last Ice Age ended 11,700 years ago, warm-blooded animals migrated north, following the retreating ice as new grass grew. The first to arrive would have been grazing animals such as bison, deer, wild sheep and cattle.
They were followed by predators such as bears and wolves. The mole, being a burrowing animal, took longer to migrate. Moles had to wait for their food, cold-blooded earthworms, to move with them, and burrowing made their northwards progress much slower.
Worms rely on the temperature of the soil to warm them up and provide them with the energy to move. It would have taken several hundred years after the end of the Ice Age for the soil to reach the right temperature for worms to survive all year.
As the ice receded, the Irish Sea was formed by the breaking of the land bridge that connected Northern Ireland to Scotland.
At the same time, the Isle of Man was formed from what would have been a mountain range before the flooding. There are no moles on the Isle of Man, the Isles of Scilly and the Scottish islands for the same reasons.
Once the land bridge between Britain and France was broken in 6,000 BC, no new animals arrived in Ireland or the British Isles unless they swam or came in boats. The rabbit, which was bred for its meat, was introduced in the 12th century. Wild rabbits are descended from animals that escaped from captivity.
When DIY chain B&Q opened its first store in Dublin, it stocked mole traps, attracting widespread mockery.
Bob Cubitt, via email.
QUESTION What invention was so perfect it has never been improved upon?
THE wheel is often described as the most important invention of all time – it has had a fundamental impact on transport, agriculture and industry. It was invented around 4500 BC – and while the materials have changed, the design has not been improved.
Barbed wire has been used to build secure fences since Joseph Glidden of DeKalb, Illinois, received a patent in 1874 after he modified previous versions. His design has yet to be improved.
In the late Fifties in Hawthorne, New Jersey, inventor Alfred Fielding and Swiss-born engineer Marc Chavannes had a bizarre idea for a new wallpaper. They sealed two shower curtains together, creating air bubbles, which they tried to sell as a plastic, three-dimensional, tactile wall covering.
By 1960, they had realised their product’s possibilities and patented a ‘method for making laminated cushioning material’.
They formed the Sealed Air Corporation and bubble wrap became the ultimate packing material... and the cheapest form of therapy. In 1903, John Mast made improvements to William C Hooker’s spring-loaded mousetrap of 1894 by making it safer to load. We still use this design today.
C. W. Hooper, Leicestershire.
QUESTION When London Bridge was demolished and sent to the US, only a quarter of the granite blocks were shipped. What happened to the rest?
THE 19th-century incarnation of London Bridge was designed by John Rennie and opened in 1831. The granite blocks came from Dartmoor’s Swell Tor quarry.
The increasing weight of motorised vehicles meant the bridge had to be replaced in 1967.
On the recommendation of Common Council of London member Ivan Luckin, it was decided to auction it off.
At the time, Luckin remarked: ‘They all thought I was completely crazy when I suggested we should sell London Bridge when it needed replacing.’
The bridge was sold to US oil tycoon Robert P. McCulloch for just over £1million to link an island in the Colorado River with Lake Havasu City in Arizona.
After the bridge was dismantled, it was transported to Merrivale Quarry near in Devon, where 6in to 8in segments were sliced from more than a thousand stones to be used as cladding. These were reconstructed in the US around a concrete frame. The rest of the stones were stacked in the quarry and forgotten.
The quarry, known for gravestones and agricultural rollers, stopped producing its own stone in 1970.
For the next 25 years, it imported stone from Norway and Italy to be polished and dressed – the surfacing and shaping of the blocks.
Merrivale was abandoned and flooded in 2003 along with the remaining stones from London Bridge.
A remnant of London Bridge can be found on a track leading to Swell Tor Quarry. These partially finished corbels, structural pieces of stone, were carved in 1901 when the bridge was widened, but were never used.
Alan Cross, by email.
QUESTION When she appeared on BBC’s Desert Island Discs, the soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf famously chose seven of her own recordings. Have any other guests done the same?
SOPRANO Elisabeth Schwarzkopf made her famous appearance on the radio show Desert Island Discs on July 28, 1958. She told presenter Roy Plomley: ‘I will stick to my own records. I’d like to relive my life.’
Her final disc was the prelude to Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra and conducted by Herbert von Karajan.
Though she did not feature in that part of the opera, she played the noblewoman Marschallin, and took centre stage for much of the recording.
Schwarzkopf was outdone by the virtuoso pianist Moura Lympany, who, in July 1979, chose her own recordings for all eight discs.
This was her second appearance on the show – to celebrate 50 years since her debut concert – having appeared for the first time in 1957. She explained that when she considered her choices, they were the same as the ones she had made 22 years earlier, so she decided to use the show to reminisce about her life.
When comedian Norman Wisdom appeared on the show in 2010, he was asked by Sue Lawley why he’d chosen five of his own recordings, including the appropriately titled Narcissus.
He answered spiritedly, saying: ‘It’s because my records are damned good.’
Crooner Engelbert Humperdinck chose just one of his own records, All This World And The Seven Seas, when he appeared in 2004.
In 1999, the now-disgraced Australian-born entertainer Rolf Harris chose three of his own songs – Ego Sum Pauper (I Give You My Heart), Two Little Boys and Offenbach’s The Gendarmes Quartet in a live duet with his father, Cromwell.
Ellen Lehmann, Brighton.