The Saturday briefing
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Is there anything you’re yearning to know? Send your questions, on any subject, to the contacts given below, and we will do our best to answer them...
Q
I was watching Murder On The Orient Express and wondered why do we use the phrase “red herrings”?
APeter Mason, Leicester
Red herrings are a plot device used by scriptwriters and authors to trick and distract viewers and readers. One example in Murder On The Orient Express is Poirot seeing a woman on the train rushing past in a scarlet silk kimono, just after Ratchett has been stabbed.We never find out the woman’s identity, and the kimono turns up later in Poirot’s luggage. But it keeps you guessing and adds to the suspense.
Herrings used to be a staple part of our diets and in the absence of fridges, they were preserved by salting and smoking, which gave them a red colour, and a particularly pungent smell.
The phrase “red herring” as a means of distraction first appeared in a British gentlemen’s magazine in 1686, relating to fox hunting. It stated one way to prolong a hunt involved dragging a dead cat across the ground, masking the fox’s scent, creating a false trail to confuse the hounds. Alternatively, it suggested using a red herring. It is claimed fugitives also used this trick to throw bloodhounds off their scent.
Back in the 19th century, the term was being used to mean a false clue in a whodunnit. Q How many teams have never been out of football’s top division? I can only think of Arsenal and
Everton.
Derek Gardner, Hampton Park, Australia
AThe Premier League was founded in 1992 after clubs in England’s top tier, the First Division, broke away from the Football League, which had been around since 1888. So since the Premier League’s inception, only a handful of clubs have been a constant presence: Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, Everton and Chelsea. Brighton have not been relegated since being promoted for the 2017-18 season.
But they have all suffered relegation from the old First Division at some point.
It could be argued that Arsenal have never been relegated, but the team has, just under a different name. The club was founded in 1886 by workers from the Woolwich Arsenal armament factory, and named Dial Square – a reference to the sundial on top of the factory. They were renamed Royal Arsenal, then Woolwich Arsenal.They were last relegated in the
1912-13 season, but the First World War meant the league was suspended and teams took part in regional competitions.
The Gunners were controversially elected back to the First Division in 1919 under the new name of Arsenal. They did not actually earn that promotion on the pitch – going on past performance, the place should have gone to Tottenham. Q
Why does the £10 note have the letter G in Braille on the top left corner? Why is there no Braille on the £5 note?
AEileen Skelton, Wildwood Ringway, Staffs
The new polymer notes are easier for people with visual impairments to identify thanks to the raised dots in the corner.
The £10 note has two clusters of four raised dots, the £20 has three clusters of raised dots and the £50 has four.The £5 note is smooth, without any dots, and that in itself is the indicator.
The dots are tactile features but it is not Braille, although four dots is the same shape as the letter G.
Braille as a system of writing has been around since the early 19th century, created by Frenchman Louis Braille, who lost
his sight in one eye when he was three after accidentally stabbing himself in the eye with his father’s awl, a sharp tool.The eye got infected, which spread to his other eye, leaving him completely blind by the age of five.
At the time there was a basic reading system for blind people, using raised letters. Louis developed Braille based on a military code called night writing, a system of embossed dots and dashes used by French soldiers to read on the battlefield in the dark.
Louis created his new system as a teenager using an awl – the same tool that led to his blindness.
Louis died in 1852 aged 43, as Braille was being adopted across France. He was reburied at the Paris Pantheon in honour of his work, but his home town insisted on keeping his hands in a tomb.
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