Hasta la vista, OJ . . .
QUESTION Was O. J. Simpson the first choice to play The Terminator?
O.J. SIMPSON was offered the role of the android in 1984’s The Terminator at a party, but was never seriously considered for it by director James Cameron.
The casting of Simpson, a former American football star who later appeared in the The Naked Gun series, was the idea of Orion Pictures co-founder and film producer Mike Medavoy.
Cameron recalled: ‘Mike Medavoy called me up one night and said: “I just went to this party and I got the movie cast!”
‘Now, of course, every film-maker loves to hear that some executive has cast your movie for you. And he said: “OK, O.J. Simpson for the Terminator.”
‘I was like: “Hey, Mike. Bad idea! You’re going to have this black athlete chasing this white girl around LA with a knife and a gun? We’re not doing that.”
‘Which was fortunate, but also unfortunate in that life ended up imitating art.’
In 1995, O.J. was found not guilty of murdering his former wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman, but in a civil case two years later, a jury found Simpson responsible for both deaths. In 2008, he was part of a gang jailed for a kidnapping, assault and robbery at a Las Vegas hotel-casino. He served nine years behind bars before being released last year.
The Terminator was eventually released with Arnold Schwarzenegger as the killer T-800 cybernetic android sent from the future to murder Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a resistance fighter and mother of the saviour of the human race.
Jim Garfield, Luton, Beds.
QUESTION Is cockroach farming a thriving industry in some countries?
THeRe are hundreds of cockroach farms in China, where they are used as an ingredient in medicine or as a source of protein for livestock feed.
One cockroach farm in Xichang, Sichuan Province, is home to six billion insects — equivalent to the number of humans on the planet.
In some parts of China, they are eaten by people. The correct way to prepare a cockroach is to fry it twice in a wok of smoking hot oil. The second frying makes the shell crispy and the inside succulent. The flesh is said to have the consistency of cottage cheese and to taste like chicken.
The main species used in the Chinese medicine industry is the coppercoloured Periplaneta americana. Cream made from powdered cockroaches is used as a treatment for burns, while cockroach syrup is said to cure gastroenteritis, ulcers and tuberculosis.
The sheer number of insects locked in these farms poses a serious hazard. With their famous indestructibility, voracious appetite and rapid breeding, if billions of cockroaches escaped they would soon make any local town uninhabitable.
W. Gregg, Stafford.
QUESTION During the World Wars, were battlefield ambulances and medics respected by all the combatants?
THe first Geneva Convention of 1864, ‘for the amelioration of the condition of wounded and sick in the Armed Forces in the field’, was the brainchild of Henri Dunant, a Swiss businessman.
He had witnessed the 1859 Battle of Solferino between the French-Piedmontese and Austrian armies in Italy. There was little medical treatment available for the 40,000 wounded on both sides.
Returning to Switzerland, Dunant wrote about what he had seen and began campaigning for the better treatment of wounded soldiers on the battlefield.
This resulted in the publication of the first Geneva Convention. The second dealt with the treatment of the wounded at sea, while the third and fourth dealt with the treatment of prisoners of war and civilians in wartime.
The conventions cover humane treatment, the protection of buildings where the wounded are being treated and the protection of civilians helping wounded soldiers. The conventions also demand respect for the Red Cross symbol covering medical staff, ambulances, hospitals and hospital ships.
Only countries which had signed the Geneva Convention considered themselves bound by it, though some voluntarily treated it as guidelines.
Only 12 nations signed the original on August 22, 1864. Britain signed the following year. Today, 196 countries, including all recognised by the United Nations, have signed the conventions.
By and large, all sides during World War I observed the Geneva Convention. In France, truces were arranged to allow for the treatment of the wounded in No Man’s Land. Truces were also arranged during World War II. However, the Nazis broke the conventions several times, especially regarding Russian wounded and prisoners.
The Fuhrer Order, issued on October 18, 1942, stated all captured special forces personnel (mainly commandos) were to be summarily executed — this was a direct contravention of the conventions. Three wounded members of the SAS were executed under this order.
The Soviets breached the convention when they executed 22,000 Polish military officers, police and members of the intelligentsia after the Russian invasion of Poland in 1939. Many of the dead were buried in mass graves in Katyn Forest.
The Japanese did not sign the first or subsequent Geneva Conventions until after World War II. Their dreadful treatment of the wounded and prisoners of war is well documented.
Breaches of the Geneva Conventions are considered war crimes. There are two categories of breach: minor and grave. A grave action is one carried out deliberately, rather than through neglect.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.