Stan’s head for showbiz
QUESTION Did Stanley Matthews and his brother tour music hall theatres, demonstrating his skill at controlling a football?
Footballing great Sir Stanley and his brother Ronnie did perform together on stage.
in January 1949, Stan’s club, blackpool, were knocked out of the Fa Cup by Stoke City, his former and future club.
after that, Stan, by then 34, struggled with injuries and missed the club’s endof-season tour of norway and Sweden.
instead, he stayed at home in blackpool, trying to get fully fit by demonstrating ‘head tennis’ with his brother Ronnie around local vaudeville halls.
the duo did two short routines four or five nights a week throughout the summer of 1949 and the audiences loved it.
this engagement was all down to two comedians, Wee georgie Wood and Charlie Chester, who were close friends of Stan’s, who had the nicknames the Wizard of the Dribble and the Magician.
the three men had got talking and came up with the idea of the Matthews brothers showing off their heading skills on stage.
Tony Matthews, football historian, statistician and author,
Almeria, Spain. RatheR than touring the country, Stan and his brother Ronnie were a support act in blackpool for Wee georgie Wood and Charlie Chester.
Stanley wasn’t particularly enamoured of the act, but recalled later that it paid the bills: ‘the act, such as it was, involved a tennis net being set up on stage, with Ronnie and i playing football/tennis.
‘the gimmick was that when Ronnie returned the ball to me, i would display a few party tricks with the ball to music before sending it back over the net.
‘it was a support act, nothing more. a little eccentric, but in the days when only the well- off had television sets, i suppose it provided novelty on an entertainment bill.
‘Ronnie and i went on stage twice nightly for about ten minutes.’
Graham Dean, Preston, Lancs.
QUESTION What important books were lost to mankind following the fire at the ancient Library of Alexandria?
alexanDRia was founded in egypt by alexander the great. his successor as Pharaoh, Ptolemy i Soter, founded the Royal library of alexandria in 283 bC.
there are many myths about the library, including the notion that it once housed a million books, that great literary treasures were lost to mankind in a fire and that it was destroyed by Christian zealots and replaced by a church.
We largely have the 18th- century historian edward gibbon to thank for this last view in his famous work, the history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman empire:
‘the valuable library of alexandria was pillaged or destroyed; and near 20 years afterwards, the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator whose mind was not totally darkened by religious prejudice.
‘the compositions of ancient genius, so many of which have irretrievably perished, might surely have been excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the amusement and instruction of succeeding ages.’
the number of ‘ books’ held by the library is uncertain. the information was, in fact, held in scrolls and several of these would have been required to make what we would refer to as a book.
the number of scrolls said to be held by the library varies from author to author. For instance, Seneca the Younger, writing in aD 50, refers to just 40,000 scrolls, while aristeas, writing in 100 bC, mentions 400,000. the library’s decline seems to have been gradual, though punctuated by destructive events in which scrolls may have been lost. in 145 bC, Ptolemy Viii Physcon purged some of its scholars.
Julius Caesar may have burned part of the library during the civil war of 48 bC. Plutarch, writing in aD 100, describes the Siege of alexandria in which Caesar was forced to burn his own ships ‘which, after burning the docks, thence spread on and destroyed the great library’.
Yet the library seems to have continued for another 300 years until its contents were largely lost during the taking of the city in aD 270 by the emperor aurelian, who was suppressing a revolt.
by this time the library was in decline and the seat of learning in alexandria had been moved to the city’s Serapeum temple. this was destroyed in aD 391 on the order of emperor theodosius i for practising paganism.
the truth is we don’t know what scrolls were lost. Missing works may include those of aristarchus of Samos (written 310- 230 bC), hero of alexandria (aD 10-70), Sappho (612-570 bC) and berossus’s babylonaica (281 bC).
Catherine Doyle, Oxford.
QUESTION If a male lion takes over a pride, he kills all the cubs. In what other ways is nature cruel?
FURtheR to the earlier answer, which described infanticide by chimpanzees and meerkats, an apparent act of cruelty that is frequently observed is the way a cat will spend a long time playing with its prey before finally killing it.
this is generally explained as a way for cats to protect themselves from serious injury.
they kill their prey by breaking the spinal cord with a strong bite to the neck. but cats have a short muzzle, so to reach the neck of an animal — even one it has caught — they have to temporarily release their prey, so risking injury to its own eyes or face in a counter-attack.
therefore, cats wear out their prey before making a killing bite to minimise their own risk of injury or the chances of their victim escaping.
Kittens develop their coordination and timing skills through playtime with the rest of the litter.
Such strategies as ambushing, pouncing and capturing their prey are learned as kittens play together. Domesticated cats who are removed from their mother at a very young age may never learn how to execute a kill properly.