From Russia with dogma
QUESTION In the Seventies, a mournful eight-note tune that sounded Russian played continuously just off the frequency of Radio Luxembourg. What was it? THIS was Radio Moscow broadcasting on 201 metres medium wave, which was next to Radio Luxembourg on 208 metres.
The station identification music was a musical version of the Soviet song Wide Is My Motherland.
Julian Woolvin, Liverpool. WIde Is My Motherland was a patriotic song from the former Soviet Union. In 1939, the opening chorus notes, played on a vibraphone (a type of xylophone), became Radio Moscow’s official call sign.
The song featured in the 1936 Soviet propaganda film Circus. Lyubov Orlova plays an American dancer called Marion dixon who flees to Russia to escape from racism in the U.S. after giving birth to an African-American child.
She joins the circus, where the ringmaster (Vladimir Volodin) threatens to reveal the truth about her baby unless she marries him. But Marion has fallen in love with an acrobat (Sergey Stolyarov).
Out of sheer jealousy, the ringmaster reveals the identity of the woman’s child in front of the circus audience. However, he doesn’t count on the fact that Soviet Russia is a tolerant, inclusive society.
This sentiment is summed up in the song Wide Is My Motherland, which describes the wonders of Russia: Wide is my Motherland, Of her many forests, fields, and rivers! I know of no other such country Where a man can breathe so free.
Composed by Isaac dunaevsky, with lyrics by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach, it quickly became one of the most popular songs in the Soviet Union.
People all around the world will have heard the tune, as Radio Moscow was once broadcast in more than 70 languages using transmitters in the Soviet Union, eastern europe and Cuba.
Tim Lennon, Manchester.
QUESTION For D-Day in 1944, the Allies had a pipeline called Pluto towed across the Channel to supply petrol from England to Normandy. What became of it?
OPeRATIOn Pluto (Pipeline Under The Ocean) was a major success in World War II. during the planning for the invasion of France, the need for a fuel supply for tanks and other essential vehicles was recognised.
As early as 1942, work began on pipelines to connect ports on the British side of the Channel to oil refining plants at Bristol and Liverpool.
These would be extended as far as Shanklin on the Isle of Wight and dungeness in Kent, with above-ground facilities disguised as bungalows and an ice cream parlour. These would eventually feed the underwater pipeline across the Channel to France.
Special pipe-laying ships were designed to do the job quickly.
The pipeline was manufactured in long sections and sealed at both ends because it had to be pressurised to prevent it becoming distorted. The lengths of pipe were coiled around giant drums and fed out in lengths. These were connected to each other while still sealed — when fuel was pumped through the pipeline under pressure, the seals burst.
each pipe was made of lead and had an internal diameter of 3in and an external diameter of 4½ in, the difference being made up of protecting layers of steel tape and armour wire. each mile of pipe used 24 tons of lead, 7.5 tons of steel tape and 15 tons of steel armour wire.
The first fuel supply operations following d-day were conducted using tankers anchored offshore. When Port en Bessin, between Omaha and Sword beaches, was captured, the tankers were brought into port to discharge their fuel through pipes to holding tanks.
The laying of the pipeline from the Isle of Wight took just ten hours and it came ashore at the port of Cherbourg, which had been captured on June 29 after a lengthy battle. A second pipeline was laid later between dungeness and Ambleteuse (Boulogne).
At peak operation, the pipelines were capable of delivering 46,000 gallons (about 200,000 litres) of fuel an hour. nearly 500 miles of pipeline were laid across France to keep the fuel flowing to the front line. The average laying time was five hours for a 30-mile stretch.
By the end of the war, there were 21 pipelines crossing the Channel to Cherbourg and Ambleteuse. But, by 1947, Pluto was redundant and operations started to salvage the pipework.
By late 1949, 778 miles of pipeline had been recovered out of the 800 miles laid. Remnants of the pipelines can still be seen at Port en Besson and Shanklin Chine on the Isle of Wight.
Bob Dillon, Edinburgh.
QUESTION Is it possible never to catch a cold?
In A lifetime, the average person will suffer from 200 bouts of the common cold. While some people have claimed they have never caught a cold, the notion of superhuman health is unproven.
Wide variations in health are inevitable because of the individual and complex nature of our immune systems. The immune system is considered the most variable part of the human genome.
environmental factors such as exposure to germs when young, exercise, diet and vaccination complicate this.
There is growing evidence that our gut microbiome — the range and quantity of microbes in the digestive system — profoundly affects our immune system, but this is poorly understood.
K. Blewitt, nutritionist, Liverpool.
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