U2 and their Village people
QUESTION
What is the history of the Lypton Village art collective that spawned the likes of U2 and the Virgin Prunes?
LYPTON Village was less an actual art collective than simply the quirky name a group of rebellious teenage friends in mid-1970s Dublin gave themselves.
Indeed, it would doubtless have been long forgotten had a number of those friends – including Fionán Hanvey, Derek Rowan and Paul Hewson – not gone on to have significant careers in the arts and entertainment.
That trio – who, as part of their ‘roles’ in Lypton Village, renamed themselves Gavin Friday, Guggi and Bono, respectively – were boys from strict religious backgrounds pushing back against that influence and against what they saw as overbearing fathers.
Others in the group of friends included future U2 guitarist David Evans, who was given the name The Edge, and future members of the avant-garde group Virgin Prunes: Pod (aka Anthony Murphy), Dave-iD Busaras (David Watson) and Strongman (Trevor Rowen, Guggi’s brother). Their names were generally given to them based on their looks.
In the book U2 By U2, Bono said: ‘We were inventing names, mythical places, even our own language. We just didn’t like the world we were living in so we started re-imagining it, and I’m sure it was very arrogant and exclusive.
‘We used to do these kind of art attacks, where we would go into Grafton Street, get on the number 19 bus, and bring stepladders, a drill, a few saws, a bunch of bananas. We would climb the stepladder, set up these little performances and try to get the crowd interested in us, and then run off. I don’t think there was much art involved – it was just the idea of art as a weapon.’
As for the name Lypton Village itself, Guggi explained in 2005: ‘I think Bono said at one point in time, “Lypton Village, is that where we come from?” And we all started cracking up laughing and said, “Yes!”’
Kathy Flanagan, Dublin 9.
QUESTION
Why was David Atchison US president for a day?
UNTIL the ratification of the Twentieth Amendment in 1933, the official day for presidential inaugurations was March 4. On
March 4, 1849, the terms of office for James Knox Polk, the 11th US president, and his vice-president George M Dallas had ended at noon. Zachary Taylor was scheduled to be sworn in, but it was a Sunday and he refused to work on the Sabbath.
As his vice-president was not available, the third in line was the Senate’s president pro tempore, who presides over Senate sessions in the vice-president’s absence. This was the pro-slavery Democrat David R Atchison, of Missouri. It was Atchison who loved to joke he was ‘president for the day’ and that he led ‘the honestest administration this country ever had’. He subsequently said: ‘I made no pretence to the office.’
Constitutional scholars refute the claim Atchison was president. His first term as senator ended on March 4 and he wasn’t sworn in again until March 5, so he wasn’t even a member of the Senate, let alone its president pro tempore, on that day. When March 4 later fell on a Sunday, in an election year, as it did in 1821, 1849, 1877 and 1917, the ceremonies were held over until the next day.
In 1886 a statue of Atchison was unveiled outside the Clinton County Courthouse in Plattsburg with a plaque that declared him ‘President of the United States for one day’. There is a similar inscription on his grave.
Olivia Crawley, Berkshire.
QUESTION
How many aircraft did Biggles shoot down in WWI?
I MAKE it 49. James Bigglesworth, known as Biggles, is a fictional character created by the author Captain W. E. Johns. He first appeared in Popular Flying magazine, edited by Johns, in April 1932. He had adventures between the wars before returning as a squadron leader in WWII. Later he was a flying policeman.
Johns wrote 101 books featuring Biggles. Eighteen had 191 short stories, so in addition to the 83 full-length books, there are 274 stories. Two books and 63 short stories take place in World War I.
I have spent a long time going through every story and making a note to work out how many aircraft Biggles shot down in World War I. The difficulty is: what do you count? When two planes collide, have they been shot down or brought down by Biggles? Do they add to his score? In a mass dogfight, do they count everyone?
Johns hits the nail on the head in Biggles’ Surprise Packet: ‘The huge dogfight lost height quickly... It was impossible for any pilot to know exactly what was happening; each man picked an opponent and stuck to him as long as he could. If he lost him, he turned to find another... it was utterly out of the question for him to see if he shot anyone down. If a machine at which he was shooting fell out of the fight, someone else was shooting at him before he could determine whether his Hun was really hit or merely shamming.’
I decided the best way to approach this was to list every story, and note when Biggles is involved in the destruction of an enemy plane in some way and then reason it out as to whether it counts or not. I concluded: Biggles has a score of 49 aircraft, three balloons and one submarine. But in Biggles In France, Johns had a court of inquiry deny Biggles credit for a plane he was certain he got. If that is added to his score, then it would be a nice round 50.
Roger Harris, Hereford.
QUESTION
What are the idioms we should never use in the US? And vice versa?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, during World War II, East Anglia had thousands of US airmen. As they alighted from the train at Norwich, they were greeted with a sign: ‘Welcome to Norwich, Gateway to the Broads.’ The Broads in Norfolk are low-lying wetlands and waterways popular with holidaymakers. Broads in America is a slang term for young women.
Paul Watkin, Bungay, Suffolk.
WHEN a colleague in the RAF was seconded to the USAF, he received a classified document from his boss who told him to ‘burn it’. So he did, along with other documents. However, ‘burn it’ turned out to be the American slang for photocopying.
Des Martin, Bristol.
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