The Saturday briefing
IS THERE anything you are desperately yearning to know? Are there any pressing factual disputes you would like us to help resolve? This is the page where we shall do our best to answer any questions you throw at us, whatever the subject.
I HAVE been told that the actor Errol Flynn once competed in the Olympic Games. Is this true and if so when did it happen and in which event?
John Chadderton, Hyde, Cheshire IT’S complete fiction dreamt up by publicists at Warner Brothers to promote the films The Perfect Specimen (1937) and Gentleman Jim (1942).
Errol Flynn did some boxing in the first and portrayed the role of an Irish-American boxer “Gentleman” Jim Corbett in the second. They claimed that Flynn represented Australia in the boxing at the 1928 Olympics.
The only very slight connection Flynn had with the Olympics was that in one scene of the 1955 film The Dark Avenger he was too ill to take part in a sword fight and his part was doubled by Raymond Paul, who had been a British fencer at the 1952 and 1956 Olympics.
COULD you please tell me when, where and by whom Bingo was invented?
Joan Tomkins, Western Australia BINGO had its origins in Italy in 1530 where they played a lottery called Lo Giuoco de Lotto d’Italia (The Game Of Italian Lotto). It was taken to France as Le Lotto in the late 1770s and reached Germany in the 1800s.
It first appeared in England in 1916 under the name “HouseyHousey” (so called because a player would cry “House” when they had a winning card).
The Americans called it Beano when it arrived there in 1929. New York toy salesman Edwin S Lowe renamed it “Bingo” shortly after when he shouted “Bingo!” in excitement instead of “Beano!”
His ES Lowe company marketed Bingo, produced thousands of Bingo cards and made a small fortune from the game. The name of the original inventor is lost in Italian history. THE word “taxi” is known worldwide as being connected with transport. Can you explain how the word entered so many languages and what its origins were? AT McCarthy, Harrogate, North Yorkshire ORIGINALLY, in the 1890s, the word was “taxameter” or “taximeter” and referred to the device attached to cabs to measure the distance travelled and calculate the fare.
The taxameter was patented by a company in Hamburg then spread to Berlin and Paris. London cabs got theirs from Berlin and soon the vehicles began to be called “taxi-cabs”.
The abbreviation “taxi” was first seen in 1907. Its derivation is ultimately from the Latin “Taxa” Castelnaud wicker picnic basket, £135. 01376 321100/ amara.com A grey-striped wicker basket includes four ceramic plates and a 12-piece cutlery set consisting of four place settings and everything you need, with salt and pepper pots plus a corkscrew and a large insulated section. THE Daily Express is a founding member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation, and we observe the Editor’s Code of Practice it enforces. You can write to IPSO at Gate House, 1 Farringdon Street, London EC4M 7LG or e-mail them at complaints@ipso.co.uk.
If we have published anything which you believe to be factually meaning a tariff which gave us the word “tax” and the French “taxe”.
IN SEPTEMBER a new £10 note showing Jane Austen goes into circulation. When was the first time paper money was printed?
JD Borrett, Sunderland, Tyne and Wear PROMISSORY notes made of leather were known in China in 118BC and Carthage may have had them even earlier on leather or parchment. China issued paper banknotes in the seventh century but Europe waited until 1661 when they were introduced in Sweden. The first British banknotes were issued by the Bank of England in 1694.
I HAVE several DVD copies of the film They Met In The Dark starring James Mason. On the list of credits at the start and the end the great actor George Robey is included but there is no sign of him in it. He is said to have played the part of the pawnbroker and we see a
LeapFrog Shapes and sharing picnic basket, £23.99. 0345 6402020/ argos.co.uk A colourful plastic hamper toy that will keep young children happy for hours as they explore shapes, colours and sounds with this lovely 14-piece set which boasts 30 sounds and responses, easy-to-use volume control and an amusing voice. by pawnbroker’s shop half an hour into the film but Robey does not appear. If his role was cut, why didn’t they remove his name from the credits? Jim Brice, Hammersmith, West London THE print of the film used for the DVD was not the original but was a reissue made in 1948 in which the running time was reduced from 104 minutes to 94.
The 10 minutes they cut included Robey’s contribution but removing his name from the credits would have posed insuperable problems.
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