Donald, where’s your troosers?
QUESTION When the New York store Macy’s stopped selling Donald Trump’s range of menswear in 2015, did it affect the share price? Macy’s started selling Donald Trump’s menswear line — mid-range suits, dress shirts, ties, cufflinks and watches — in 2004. The businessman and TV personality known for The apprentice even appeared in Macy’s commercials.
But in June 2015, when announcing his candidacy for U.s. President, Trump made controversial statements about Mexican immigrants:
‘When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best . . . They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting.’
Macy’s received a petition with more than 700,000 signatures calling for Trump’s merchandise to be dropped. The store, which was trying to court more Hispanic customers, bowed to the pressure.
It released this statement: ‘We are disappointed and distressed by recent remarks about immigrants from Mexico.
‘We do not believe the disparaging characterisations portray an accurate picture of the many Mexicans, Mexican americans and Latinos who have made so many valuable contributions to the success of our nation.
‘In light of statements made by Donald Trump, which are inconsistent with Macy’s values, we have decided to discontinue our business relationship with Mr Trump.’
In true Trump style, he retaliated with a tweet calling for a boycott of Macy’s: ‘ Those who believe in tight border security, stopping illegal immigration & sMaRT trade deals w/other countries should boycott @Macys.’
shares in Macy’s fell by a whopping 46.8 per cent during the second half of 2015. Factors such as an unseasonably warm winter and competition were blamed, but compared to other stores, the drop in Macy’s shares was extreme and in part must be blamed on their stance.
Trump loved it, tweeting: ‘I hope the boycott of @Macys continues forever. so many people are cutting up their cards. Macy’s stores suck and they are bad for U.s.a.’ He also claimed credit for it: ‘@Macys was one of the worst performing stocks on the s&P [standard & Poor’s 500, the american stock market index] last year, plunging 46%. Very disloyal company. another win for Trump!’
When asked by cNN, the U.s. TV channel, if he regretted the ban, Macy’s then chief executive Terry Lundgren, a former golfing buddy of Trump, said: ‘No.’ He also claimed Macy’s couldn’t have carried on selling Trump’s merchandise after he had entered politics.
Peter Davison, Liverpool. QUESTION What was the first electronic musical instrument? IN THE 18th century, inventors had adapted various acoustic instruments to exploit the novelty of electricity.
contrary to popular belief, Benjamin Franklin didn’t discover electricity in the 1750s. For a century before this, many aspects of electricity had been known to scientists, such as positive and negative currents, and the classification of materials as conductors or insulators.
In 1753, czech theologian Vaclav Prokop Divis constructed the Denis d’or, a keyboard of 700 strings, electrified temporarily to enhance sonic qualities.
This was followed by the clavecin electrique of Frenchman Jean-Baptiste de Laborde in 1761, a keyboard with plectra (picks) activated electrically.
In 1876, american electrical engineer Elisha Gray created the musical telegraph, which used steel reeds oscillated by electromagnets and transmitted over a telephone line.
He built a simple loudspeaker into later models, a diaphragm vibrating in a magnetic field, which was the first true synthesiser — a keyboard that generates and modifies sounds electronically and can imitate other musical instruments.
In 1893, Thaddeus cahill, an inventor from Washington Dc, discovered that when a generator sent electric current down a phone line, it created a tone in the earpiece.
Different frequencies of current created different tones. He realised he could send music over phone lines. In 1897, he received a patent for the telharmonium, an instrument resembling a power plant. It was 60ft long and weighed 200 tons.
Its principles live on in the Hammond organ — an electric organ, first manufactured in 1935, which uses sliding drawbars to produce a variety of sounds.
The first electronic instrument to enjoy lasting success was the Ondes-Martenot. Invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot, it produced eerie wavering notes by using a keyboard to vary the frequency of oscillation in vacuum tubes. It was still being manufactured as late as 1988.
Mr C. Alleyne, Pembroke. QUESTION Is the sun actually white? THE sun emits energy across the visible spectrum — all the colours of the rainbow ranging from violet to red.
Rainbows are light from the sun, separated into its constituent colours. Each colour (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) has a different wavelength. Red is the longest, blue the shortest.
Mix all the colours together and you get white, which is why this is the true colour of the sun.
When the sun is low in the sky at sunrise or sunset, it may appear yellow, orange or red. This is because its short wavelength colours (green, blue, indigo and violet) are scattered by the Earth’s atmosphere. Only red, yellow and orange can get through the thick atmosphere to our eyes.
When the sun is high in the sky, the shorter waves, primarily blue, strike air molecules in the upper atmosphere and scatter. Hence the blue sky.
Jean Donovan, Inverness.
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; fax them to 01952 780111 or email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.