Springtime For Saddam
QUESTION Did Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein write a musical?
Saddam HUSSEIN wrote a number of novels, the best known of which was Zabiba and The King. This was turned into a 20-part TV mini-series starring the well-known Iraqi actress Hind Kamel. a musical version was proposed, but was never staged.
Zabiba and The King was the dictator’s debut novel and was published anonymously in 2000. It became a bestseller, with lavish praise from the Iraqi press.
The novel is an allegorical love story set in the era of the arabian Nights. a beautiful married woman, Zabiba, falls in love with King arab and teaches him about Islam and how to run a country.
Zabiba’s abusive husband is supposed to represent the predatory U.S. invading and pillaging an innocent Iraq.
In 2002, the Iraqi National Theatre announced it would produce a musical based on the novel, which was touted as ‘the country’s biggest production ever’.
One wit suggested it be titled Springtime For Saddam in a nod to mel Brooks’s musical comedy The Producers about ‘the worst play ever written’, Springtime For Hitler. However, it is uncertain how far this project had advanced before Iraq was invaded by coalition forces in march 2003.
Zabiba and The King was followed by three more novels by Saddam Hussein: The Fortified Castle in 2001; men and The City in 2002; and devil’s dance, which was written in 2003 and smuggled out of Iraq by one of Saddam’s daughters.
Mrs D. P. Figgis, Cambridge.
QUESTION Who first described the Mandela Effect, a phrase used to describe a collective false memory?
FALSE memory is well documented in the field of psychology. Examples of this phenomenon can range from the mundane, such as incorrectly recalling that you locked the front door, to the serious, such as falsely remembering details of an accident you witnessed.
False memories are one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions, usually through mistaken identification of a suspect or false recollections recounted during police interrogations. The idea of collective false memory is less well established, yet there are examples.
a 2010 Italian study examined people who were familiar with the clock at Bologna Centrale railway station, which had been damaged in a bombing in august 1980: some 92 per cent falsely remembered that the clock had remained stopped since the bombing. In fact, it was repaired shortly after the attack.
Other examples include the mistaken belief that Rich Uncle Pennybags, the mascot of the monopoly board game, wears a monocle; that the Star Wars robot C-3PO is entirely gold, though he has a silver leg; and that the Queen in disney’s Snow White says: ‘mirror, mirror on the wall.’ She actually says: ‘ magic mirror on the wall.’
This type of scenario was dubbed the mandela Effect by the self- described paranormal consultant Fiona Broome after she discovered that other people shared her false memory of the South african civil rights leader Nelson mandela dying in prison in the Eighties.
Broome makes the extraordinary claim that, within each universe, alternative versions of events and objects exist.
However, psychologists point to other sources. The mandela Effect can be better explained by schema- driven errors. Schemas are organised packets of knowledge that direct memory.
They facilitate understanding, but can produce distortion.
a common example is if we try to remember all the objects in an office. We might recall the familiar ones, such as bookshelves, and omit inconsistent items, such as a golf club.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.
QUESTION Do we still need radar, which was developed during World War II?
WE NEED radar more than ever. aircraft are fitted with GPS (global positioning system or satnav), which gives their precise location, but can’t indicate where other planes are.
This information is provided by air traffic control, which uses radar technology to ensure aircraft can fly safely in crowded airspace. Only radar can detect if an unauthorised vehicle strays into controlled airspace.
Planes carry a transponder that responds to the incoming radar pulse and sends a signal back to the groundbased radar with information such as flight number and course.
an aircraft’s nose-mounted weather radar enables it to detect storms and avoid them.
military planes not only use groundbased radar for air traffic control, but also for the detection of hostile aircraft.
Stealth technology is used to make it difficult for radar to ‘see’ an enemy plane. This involves shaping the aircraft to minimise radar reflections — such as the flying wing design of the stealth bomber — and covering it with material that absorbs rather than reflects signals.
military aircraft are fitted with radar for detecting other aircraft and targets on the ground or sea. However, this transmitter acts as a beacon that can be detected by a hostile force, thus revealing your position.
Consequently, stealth aircraft are not fitted with radar or use it only under specific circumstances.
all commercial large ships and many small ones carry radar, which is vital for navigation at night and in poor visibility. military vessels positively bristle with radar scanners for navigation and the detection of potential threats.
Radar is not just used for aircraft and shipping. Temporary traffic lights at roadworks are often controlled by radar. This is more effective than a fixed-time sequence to change the lights from green to red since it responds to the actual flow of traffic.
Denis Sharp, Hailsham, E. Sussex.
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