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.
AMY Winehouse sang a song called Love Is A Losing Game but I am sure I heard that title long ago, perhaps performed by a jazz singer in the 1960s. After the opening lines, the words differ, so I’m not saying Amy Winehouse copied the lyrics but I’d love to know if my memory is right and if so, who sang the song I think I remember?
Mrs J Clarkson, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear I HAVE found at least two songs from the era you refer to with that title. Ric Randall recorded Love Is A Losing Game in 1966 but even earlier than that, Ann Jones And Her Western Sweethearts, which was a group formed in 1955, recorded a song of the same title.
SEEING pictures in the Daily Express of London Bridge in 1625, when it was the only bridge across the Thames, and the same bridge now, I am led to ask how many bridges are there across the Thames today in London?
G Roe, Penzance, Cornwall INCLUDING railway bridges and pedestrian bridges, there are 33 bridges across the Thames in London. Along the entire length of the Thames, from the Cotswolds to the sea, there are 215 bridges, which is exactly one bridge per mile of its length.
In 1911 Rudyard Kipling wrote his poem The River’s Tale, beginning, “Twenty bridges from Tower to Kew – Wanted to know what the River knew, Twenty Bridges or twenty-two …”.
As the Kipling Society has commented, “It is difficult to see how exactly Kipling reached a total of 20 bridges on his selected stretch of the Thames,” and they suggest that he added the line “twenty bridges or twenty-two” to emphasise his poetic vagueness when it was pointed out that there were only 17 when he wrote the poem.
DID the wonderful soprano Montserrat Caballé ever sing a duet with tenor Luciano Pavarotti? If so, when and where?
Michael Parker, Evesham, Worcestershire SHE sure did. Decca released recordings of six operas in which they appeared together, and they gave sensational stage performances of Puccini’s La Bohème in Barcelona in 1971, Verdi’s Luisa Miller at La Scala, Milan, in 1976 and Puccini’s Turandot in 1977 at the San Francisco Opera.
The Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé also sang a duet with Freddie Mercury for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
Mercury died in 1991 but their recording was played at the opening of the Olympics. She may well be the only person to have sung duets with both Luciano Pavarotti and Freddie Mercury. Pavarotti died in 2007 but Caballé is still with us, now aged 85. SOUNDALIKES: Amy Winehouse, above, and Ann Jones And Her Western Sweethearts, right
IN the British Army, and possibly in other walks of life, why are people who have the surname of Smith referred to as “Smudge”?
Steven Roberts, Alanbrooke Barracks, North Yorkshire THE nickname Smudge, or Smudger, has been associated with people named Smith since at least the 19th century. There is no clearly agreed reason for the origin of this but the most likely explanation is a mixture of two things: first, that the first Smiths were blacksmiths, for whom
LIONEL Richie sings the song Hello to a supposedly blind girl. My family and I would love to know whether the actress in the video for this song is really blind. My guess is that she is not acting. Am I right?
SORRY but you’re wrong. The part of the blind girl is played by smudges of soot on their faces were an occupational hazard, and also the similar sounding starts to the words smith and smudge led to the nickname sticking. P Pope, Isle of Wight by Laura Carrington, a New York actress best remembered for playing Dr Simone Hardy in the TV series General Hospital in the late 1980s.
WHILE reading the cricket scores in the Daily Express recently I noticed a Gloucestershire player by the name of M Hammond. Is he, by any chance, related to the great Wally Hammond of Gloucestershire and England?
Mike Kitching, Old Malton, North Yorkshire AS you say, both Hammonds played for Gloucestershire, but they are not related. Remarkably, when Miles Hammond scored 103 for Gloucestershire against Sussex last July, it was the first time the Cheltenham College ground had seen a Hammond score a century for the county since Wally scored 178 against Worcestershire in 1937.
WHY are words such as batch, catch and crutch spelt with the letter T before the CH when it is not pronounced and would therefore not be missed if it wasn’t used as, is the case, for example, in words like such, much and rich?
John Hill, Battle, East Sussex IT is always difficult answering questions about English spelling because our language comes from so many sources and there are so many inconsistencies but there are two reasons behind the problem you mention.
Several historical accounts of English spelling suggest that words from Germanic languages tend to adopt the -tch ending, while words with their origins in French are more likely to have -ch without the T.
That may be true, but our English spellings of such words are more consistent than they may seem.
As Oxford Dictionaries tell us, the ending tends to be simply -ch if the final “ch” sound comes after a consonant or two-letter vowel, but we use -tch after a one-letter vowel.
So it is search, branch, church (after a consonant), beach, touch, speech (double-vowel), catch, fetch, watch (after a single vowel).
But they also list exceptions including your much, rich and such as well as attach, sandwich, which, detach, ostrich, spinach and enrich. CAN you tell me what a Lazy Susan is and how did it get its name? David Garbutt, by email A LAZY Susan is a revolving stand on a table, usually holding salt, pepper, oil or similar condiments, or sometimes cakes or muffins, so that diners may turn it round and help themselves.
The name Susan has been linked to the daughters of Jefferson and Edison. And the term Lazy Susan does seem to date from America in the early 20th century, though a link to any specific person named Susan has never been established.
The earliest known reference to a Lazy Susan by that name was in the Boston Journal in 1903, which read: “She can be seen, but not heard, nor can she hear, she simply minds her business and carries out your orders in a jiffy.”