Fiery Fred’s ashes fame
QUESTION The late great footballer Johan Cruyff was reportedly a heavy smoker throughout his playing career. Which other notable sports people were known to smoke? Before it became clear that cigarettes were bad for health, it was perfectly acceptable for sportsmen to smoke.
Golfer Arnold Palmer was famous on the fairways for smoking L&Ms, an American brand. Boxers Joe Louis and ‘Sugar’ ray robinson promoted Chesterfields, the latter with the tagline: ‘Stick with the cigarette that’s good for you!’
Camel had a long-running advertising campaign led by Wimbledon champion Bill Tilden, baseball player Lou Gehrig, golfer Gene Sarazen, decathlete Jim Bausch and U.S. olympic swimmer Jane fauntz.
fast bowler ‘fiery’ fred Trueman smoked small cigars and later a pipe. He was named Pipe Smoker of the Year in 1974 and Ian Botham achieved that accolade in 1988. england spinner Phil Tufnell was often seen having a cigarette.
Perhaps the most recent example was Shane Warne, a heavy smoker throughout his career, who became a spokesman for a company selling nicotine patches.
It paid him £84,000 to quit smoking, but he was snapped having a cigarette during Australia’s 1999 West Indies tour. Warne admitted: ‘It had been quite a stressful ten-week period and, unfortunately, I had a night out with the lads. It was quite late at night and I gave into temptation once.’
russian tennis star Anna Kournikova was also a smoker: ‘Smoking is one of my bad habits, but I don’t smoke too much.’
German tennis player Karsten Braasch reached No 38 in the world and would smoke between games. ‘A man whose training regime centred on a pack of cigarettes and more than a couple of bottles of ice cold lager,’ one journalist described him.
In 1998, he took on the Williams sisters after they said they could beat in a set any man ranked in the top 200. Braasch (then 31 and ranked 203) beat Serena 6-1 and Venus 6-2, indulging in a few smokes during the changeover.
Several golfers are smokers: Ian Woosnam, Angel Cabrera, Darren Clarke and John Daly. Spanish golfer Miguel Angel Jimenez often clamps a stogie — a long, thin cigar — between his teeth.
footballers Wayne rooney, Jack Wilshere, Zinedine Zidane, Dimitar Berbatov, Mario Balotelli, Lionel Messi and Ashley Cole have been photographed smoking. Zidane was pictured with a cigarette during france’s World Cup run in 2006, having led an anti-smoking campaign in 2002. Bradley Wiggins has been seen smoking roll-up cigarettes. His lung capacity of eight litres, compared to the average six, is perhaps how he gets away with it.
Simon Ward, Blackpool. QUESTION I’ve just completed the electoral form on which one of the details requested is whether the registered person is aged 76 or over. What is the purpose of this detail? THe register of electors is used for the selection of jurors. In february 2014, the Ministry of Justice announced it was to raise the age of eligibility for jury service from 70 to 75.
The upper limit in the past was 65. People aged 76 or over are ineligible. The fact that you are over 75 will be shown only in the copy of the register sent to the Crown Court for the selection of jurors.
It is of no relevance as far as voting is concerned. Judith helen Addison, Accrington, Lancs. QUESTION When I told my nineyear-old daughter that no one in the world had the same DNA, she asked: ‘What about Siamese twins?’ A GroUP of people do have identical DNA — monozygotic (identical) twins.
Such twins come from an egg fertilised by a single sperm, but which then splits into two embryos to produce two foetuses with identical DNA. They are, therefore, always boy/boy or girl/girl. Siamese, or conjoined twins, are identical twins where the fertilised egg did not separate fully. Because they are identical twins, they, too, have identical DNA.
Separating conjoined twins after birth is notoriously difficult and dangerous because they often share vital organs.
A subset of identical twins is mirror twins. They have identical features, but they are mirrored.
for example, if one is left-handed, the other is right-handed. Their hair can curl in different directions to each other.
They, too, have identical DNA. The mirroring is created during the growth process in the womb.
fraternal (non-identical or dizygotic) twins come about because two eggs are fertilised by different sperm in the womb at the same time, forming separate embryos from the very start of their life.
Boy/girl twins are — obviously! — always non-identical. Non-identical boy/boy and girl/girl twins also have unique DNA. They can have different eye or hair colouring or one can be taller than the other.
Physically, one could favour the features of the mother while the other favours the father, all of which show that they have different DNA.
Triplets can follow the rules for dizygotic twins, with three eggs being fertilised at the same time to produce three embryos, each with unique DNA.
However, in some rare cases they can be monozygotic — all of them coming from the same egg and, therefore, having the same DNA.
They can also be a mixture, with two embryos coming from a single egg, giving a pair of siblings with identical DNA and the third being fraternal, with different DNA.
The same can apply with other multiple births, such as quads or quins.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton. QUESTION In a 1988 concert tour, the support act Guns N’ Roses upstaged the main act Aerosmith. Are there any other occasions when this has happened? fUrTHer to earlier answers, in october 1958, two American brothers, the Kalin Twins, topped the UK charts with their single When.
on their 1958 tour of Britain, their support act was 17-year-old Cliff richard backed by his band the Drifters. Cliff was promoting his single Move It and he easily upstaged the main act. The Drifters went on to become The Shadows. Gerald Lee, Newport, South Wales.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT. You can also fax them to 01952 780111 or you can email them to charles. legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.