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.
HAS there ever been a Saturday in the English football’s top four divisions where every single team playing has scored at least one goal?
Alan Gelling, by email SINCE several league matches now take place on Sundays, may I slightly change that question to cover entire weekends? If so, the answer is that I very much doubt it.
Since the Premier League began 25 years ago there have been only three occasions on which all Premier League teams have scored over the course of one weekend’s matches. These were February 21-22, 2004, November 27-28, 2010, and May 8-9, 2011.
If that only happened three times in 1,000 Premier League weekends, the chances of it happening in all four divisions at once must be astronomical.
We might mention, though, that every team in the Football League did score in the first round of matches in 1890-91 but there were only 10 teams playing then.
IF YOU put meat into brine it is salty but fish out of the sea is ready to eat. Why?
Margaret Duberley, by email THE simplest reason is that meat is put into brine after it is dead, so the salt seeps into the meat. But fish in the sea are alive and their metabolic processes are responsible for excreting the salt they take in from seawater.
The full answer is more complex and includes the difference between the enzymes of saltwater fish (which equip them with the means to expel salt) and freshwater fish which have a different set of enzymes. Fish that can live in either fresh or saltwater have both systems and can switch from one to the other.
WHICH way should a toilet roll be put on a holder: to pull from the top or pull from the bottom?
Paul Gillespie, Isle of Seil, Scotland THIS matter has been hugely debated without reaching any definitive answer. Many surveys have reached different conclusions about which is the preferred way but the general result is that by a ratio of about two to one, people favour placing their rolls of toilet paper so that the paper comes over the top. Surveys have also failed to establish a sex-difference in toilet roll preferences, though it has often been maintained that women prefer over and men prefer under.
Surveys have also reported that about 25 per cent of people get angry if they find toilet roll orientation not conforming to their own prejudices.
For the record, the first patent awarded for a toilet paper roll on a holder in 1891 showed the paper unmistakably rolling over the top. COULD you please tell me why three oak trees in my area which appeared to be perfectly healthy last summer are completely dead this year? Mrs M Dade, Reading, Berkshire IT SOUNDS to me very much like a case of Phytophthora ramorum, also known as sudden oak death.
This is a parasitic fungus that has been killing larch, horse-chestnut and ash trees in the US as well as rhododendron bushes for several decades. It was first seen in the UK in 2003 but has been spreading in recent years. It is passed on 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 by wind-carried spores but if caught early enough may be treatable by quickly removing and destroying patches of infected wood from affected trees. WHEN stored in a Tupperware container both curry and tomato sauce tend to stain the container. Why does this happen and why does it not happen to a standard plastic carry-out container?
George Anderson, by email THERE is a molecule called lycopene in tomatoes which can seep into the pores of many plastics. That is why they sell tomato sauce in glass containers, or at least in stain-proof, non-porous plastics. I’m told that rubbing the container with a solution of baking powder may get rid of the stain.
Alternatively, you can try rubbing the container with butter or cooking oil before using it.
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