Making a fool of De Gaulle
QUESTION
Does anyone else recall the old Flanders and Swann song about Charles de Gaulle which had a chorus of something like: ‘With a cognac, armagnac, burgundy and beaune, this old man thinks he’s St Joan’? Michael Flanders and donald Swann met at school in Westminster in 1936 and worked together for the first time in 1939, when donald (born to russian parents in llanelli in 1923) provided piano music for a review called Go For It, in which michael (born in london in 1923) was performing.
after school, both went on to oxford but had little contact there, meeting up again only after World War II.
By that time, michael had not only survived the ship in which he was serving being torpedoed, but had also contracted polio, meaning he was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. They wrote songs together for stage reviews, donald providing the music, with michael writing the lyrics.
In 1956, they were asked to give a lecture at dartington School of music on their renowned talents and michael introduced each song with a short narrative, which went down as well with the audience as the songs themselves, after which these introductions were integrated into the duo’s performances.
Their first review of their own, at The drop of a hat, was performed in 1959 at the new lindsay Theatre in notting hill Gate, West london, moving after three weeks to the Fortune Theatre in the West end, where it ran for 759 performances, including tours of the U.S. and Switzerland.
In 1963, their second review, at The drop of another hat, opened at the haymarket Theatre in the West end. It was from this review that some of their most entertaining songs appeared, including The Gas man Cometh, Slow Train and all Gall.
This number, sending up French president Charles de Gaulle, was penned after de Gaulle’s veto of the UK’s first application to join the european economic Community. Sung to the tune of the nursery rhyme ‘ This Old Man, he played one, he played knickknack on my thumb’, it was recorded by Parlophone EMI records on the EP at The drop of another hat. The lyrics began: This old man, he played one, He played knick-knack at Verdun. Cognac, Armagnac, Burgundy and Beaune, This old man came rolling home. Charles de Gaulle was wounded and captured by the Germans at Verdun in 1916. The song continued: This old man, World War II He told Churchill what to do This referred to de Gaulle’s government in exile in london and his adversarial relationship with Winston Churchill, which de Gaulle explained thus: ‘When I am right, I get angry. Churchill gets angry when he is wrong. We are angry at each other much of the time.’
a little later in the song, Flanders and Swann referred to de Gaulle’s veto of Britain’s EEC application, with these lyrics: This old man, he played six, France and England, they don’t mix. Eytie, Benelux, Germany, and Me: That’s my market recipe. and the final line ‘ This old man thinks he’s St Joan’ reflected the view of de Gaulle as an arrogant man who, according to Flanders and Swann, thought himself as important as Joan of arc.
Kevin Williams, North Hykeham, Lincoln.
QUESTION
Why are MRI scanners so horrendously noisy? Magnetic resonance imaging makes use of powerful magnetic fields and radio waves to perform an internal examination without the need for surgery or X-rays.
MRI uses the body’s natural magnetic properties to produce detailed images of the body. For imaging purposes, the hydrogen nucleus (a single proton) is used because of its abundance in water and fat. Protons have an inherent property called nuclear spin; they spin like a top. Because the protons also have an electrical charge, the spin makes them act like magnets.
Under a powerful magnetic field, the protons orientate in the same direction. Short bursts of radio waves are then sent to targeted areas of the body, knocking the protons out of alignment. When the radio waves are turned off, the protons realign. In doing so, they send out radio signals, which are picked up by receivers.
These signals provide information about the location of the protons in the body. They also help distinguish between the various types of tissue in the body, because protons in different types of tissue realign at different speeds and produce distinct signals. most diseases manifest themselves by an increase in water content, so MRI is a sensitive test for disease detection. The main magnet of an MRI scanner can produce fields 60,000 times the strength of the earth’s magnetic field.
The field is created by running electrical current through a coiled wire — an electromagnet. When the current is switched on, there is an outward force along the coil. and because the field is so strong, the force is very large.
The force goes from zero to high in milliseconds, causing the coil to expand a little but rapidly, which makes a loud click or bang. Within a powerful MRI scanner, these sounds may be as loud as 125 decibels — equivalent to a rock concert or a balloon popping near the ear.
When the MRI is making an image, the current is switched on and off rapidly. The result is a rapid-fire banging, which is amplified by the enclosed space in which the patient lies.
J. P. Elland, Exeter.
QUESTION
Christina Rossetti’s poem In The Bleak Midwinter was written around 1870-71. Was there a harsh winter at the time when ‘earth was like iron, water like stone’? Further to the earlier answer, it was Gustav holst’s 1906 musical setting to this poem that brought it to public attention.
holst didn’t call his tune In The Bleak midwinter, instead he invoked his knowledge of the Gloucestershire countryside around Birdlip, leckhampton and Slad. holst attended Sir richard Pate’s Grammar School in Cheltenham (as did I). There was a great beech wood at the nearby village of Cranham, called Cranham Woods, and this was his name for the tune. If you stand in these woods ‘in the bleak midwinter’ you can hear trees creaking in the heavy frosts, and bitter winds that sound through the branches.
as a boy, I would take the bus from Cheltenham to Cranham and enjoy the woods throughout the seasons. But dear God, it was cold in winter!
D. W. S. Fletcher, Wymondham, Norfolk.