How Volare flew to No.1
QUESTION Has a losing entry in the Eurovision Song Contest gone on to be a hit?
ARGUABLY one of the best, and certainly one of the most successful, songs in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest was the Italian entry Volare, performed by Domenico Modugno.
In the 1958 contest, it came third out of ten songs, but was a worldwide hit, and was even covered by Dean Martin.
When you consider how many winning Eurovision songs have disappeared without a trace, including the 1958 French winner, Dors, Mon Amour, the success of Volare is outstanding.
Likewise, L’amour Est Bleu (Love Is Blue) came fourth out of 17 songs in 1967’s Eurovision, which was won by the UK’s Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.
Greek singer Vicky Leandros sang L’amour Est Bleu in the contest while representing Luxembourg, but an instrumental version by Frenchman Paul Mauriat topped the Billboard 100 chart.
T. A. Cox, Malvern, Worcestershire. IN THE days of the UK’s Song For Europe, it was the done thing for the British entry to make the singles chart, even if it flopped at Eurovision itself.
The Allisons’ Are You Sure? was the Eurovision runner-up in 1961 and hit No.2 in the UK charts, while the bookmakers’ 1982 favourite, Bardo’s One Step Further, only came seventh, though it reached No. 2 in the UK charts.
Other Top Ten songs include the 1970 Eurovision runner-up ,Mary Hopkin’s Knock, Knock, Who’s There?, which hit No. 2 in the charts, and Cliff Richard’s Power To All Our Friends, which came third in 1973 at Eurovision and was a No. 1 around the world.
Richard did even better in 1968 with Congratulations, a UK No.1 and worldwide hit, although he was defeated at Eurovision by Spanish singer Massiel. Tim Mickleburgh, Grimsby,
Lincolnshire. THE winner of the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest was Abba’s Waterloo, which was also an Irish chart-topper. But the runner-up from Italy was a sumptuous ballad by Gigliola Cinquetti, who had won the contest a decade earlier.
Si, which was released in English as Go (Before You Break My Heart), reached No.8 in the UK charts and would surely have won the contest in any other year.
The third-placed Dutch entry, Mouth and MacNeal’s I See A Star, also reached No. 1 in the Irish charts. Even the UK entry, Long Live Love by Olivia Newton-John, which finished fourth at Eurovision, reached No. 9 in Ireland.
Steve Trump, via email.
QUESTION Which language has the world’s longest alphabet?
THE official language of Cambodia, Khmer, is spoken by 16million people and is recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as having the longest alphabet, with 74 letters. Modern Khmer speakers only use 68 characters, made up of 33 consonants, 23 vowels and 12 independent vowels.
Khmer does not work in the same way as our alphabet. The script is neither syllabic nor strictly alphabetic, but sits somewhere in between.
Its sequences of consonants and vowels are written as a unit. The vowels are secondary to the consonants and complementary consonants are used for foreign words. To add to the difficulty, there are no spaces between words in written Khmer, but they do write from left to right.
Hindi is the most widely used language in India, with half a billion speakers. Its alphabet consists of 13 vowels, 33 consonants and up to seven compound characters, depending on the region.
Technically, the Chinese do not have an alphabet, but instead use an ideographic writing system. Thousands of pictographs represent different words, syllables and concepts. Japanese is another ideographic language, with Kanji being the best known form, but there are also two phonetic alphabets, which each have 46 letters.
At the other end of the spectrum is Rotokas, spoken by 4,300 people on the island of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. It has a mere 12 characters.
Pamela Highsmith, St Andrews, Fife.
QUESTION Has anyone later discovered they’ve been introduced to a famous person without realising it?
FURTHER to previous answers, I was working on contract in Pakistan in 1998, I was on an internal flight from Lahore to Islamabad with a group of work colleagues.
I hadn’t realised that I was seated beside a famous person until one of my co-workers reached across the aisle of the plane and told me the man beside me was Imran Khan – the well-known cricketer who married British producer Jemima Goldsmith in 1995.
As we were leaving the airplane at Islamabad, I asked Imran if I might have my photograph taken with him.
He agreed immediately. By the time we were ready to go to the terminal, the passenger bus had departed, leaving me still on the tarmac. However, Imran kindly offered to give me a lift in his own private limousine.
At that time Imran was struggling in local politics, and his political party (he leads Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf – or PTI) didn’t even have one seat in the Pakistani parliament.
I said to Imran: ‘Keep knocking on that political door and some day it will open for you.’ Twenty years later, in 2018, he became prime minister of Pakistan.
Tom Baldwin, Midleton, Co. Cork.
QUESTION What is the best response to a truly daft question by a reporter?
FURTHER to earlier answers, my favourite was by jockey Lester Piggott. In 1968, the Vincent O’Brien-trained Derby winner Sir Ivor was invited to run in the Washington DC International.
In American racing they go flat out from the start, so punters were aghast that Lester kept Sir Ivor at the back of the field until almost the end of the race, when he pulled him out and flew past the rest to win easily.
Just for good measure, he came back the following year and won the title again on Karabas.
Post-race, outraged journalists surrounded Piggott and he was asked: ‘At what point did you think you would win the race?’
A man of few words at the best of times, he replied in his nasal tones: ‘About two weeks ago!’
Tony Davies, Doncaster, Yorkshire. MORECAMBE and Wise were once asked what they would be if they weren’t comedians.
Eric replied: ‘Mike and Bernie Winters.’
Ian Johnstone, Epsom, Surrey. WHEN The Rolling Stones played the Knebworth Festival in Hertfordshire in 1976, Mick Jagger perused the list of prestigious would-be interviewers. ‘Yeah, New York Times, Melody Maker and... the Stevenage Gazette.’
According to a photographer who was there, the nervous young local newspaper reporter asked: ‘What do you think of Stevenage, Mr Jagger?’
Jagger replied: ‘Naah! You don’t wanna do it like that! Ask me about Bianca...’ John Ash, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.
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