A joke from outer space
QUESTION Is there a running joke among film directors to insert alien words from the 1951 film The Day The Earth Stood Still into their movies?
The Day The earth Stood Still is a classic black-and-white sci-fi movie directed by Robert Wise, who is more famous for West Side Story and The Sound Of Music.
It stars Michael Rennie as the alien Klaatu who arrives to inform the people of earth they must live peacefully or face destruction.
he befriends young widow helen Benson (Patricia Neal) and tells her that if his life should be threatened, she should utter the phrase: ‘ Klaatu barada nikto.’ This triggers his rescue by his 8 ft robot Gort.
There is no official translation for this phrase, which has entered sci-fi folklore. Films, TV, fantasy novels, comics and video games have paid homage to The Day The earth Stood Still by making use of the alien phrase.
In The Return Of The Jedi, Nikto are a species from the planet Kintan. employed as workers for the hutt clan, they serve aboard Jabba The hutt’s pleasure barge.
Klaatu, a red Nikto, and Barada, a green Nikto, are slain by Luke Skywalker as he tries to escape his execution in the Great Pit of Carkoon.
In Steven Spielberg’s Close encounters Of The Third Kind, the phrase is seen on a banner on the wall of an alien research group. In Tron, it is on a sign in the cubicle of video game programmer Alan.
In the comic horror evil Dead: The Army Of Darkness, these are the words that will allow Ash (Bruce Campbell) to safely remove the Necronomicon: The Book Of The Dead, though he can’t remember them properly. In the 1992 film Toys, Leland Zevo uses the phrase to stop a rampaging robotic sea creature.
Penny Lund, Bath, Somerset.
QUESTION Where does the English Channel end and the North Sea begin?
The borders of the english Channel were formally defined in 1953 by the International hydrographic Organisation. The south-western limit of the North Sea Hello world: Robot Gort (left) and Klaatu in The Day The Earth Stood Still is a line joining Walde Lighthouse and Leathercoat Point.
Walde Lighthouse is four miles east of Calais, while Leathercoat Point is four miles north-east of Dover at the north end of St Margaret’s Bay, Kent, marked by a war memorial to the Dover patrol.
It is an arbitrary demarcation, though it does encompass the Dover Strait, the busiest shipping lane in the world.
The western limit of the english Channel is a line between Ushant and the Scilly Isles. Nigel Gray, Portsmouth.
QUESTION Can you still buy an indulgence from the Roman Catholic Church?
IN The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, an indulgence is a full or partial remittance of the punishment for sins.
The Church has never approved the sale of indulgences. however, widespread abuse in the 15th and 16th centuries led directly to the Protestant Reformation.
In Catholic theology, there are three grades of sin — original, venial and mortal.
Original sin dates back to Adam and eve and is absolved by baptism.
Venial sins are minor and their extent determines the amount of time a sinner will spend in Purgatory, a place of purification or temporary punishment, before passing on to Paradise.
Mortal sins are great evils such as rape and murder that result in banishment to hell. No indulgence can alleviate these.
The Church established an elaborate machinery for dealing with venial sin. Most important was the sacrament of Confession, whereby the sinner could confess to a priest and receive absolution on condition they did a prescribed penance.
The other way to reduce your sentence in purgatory was to be granted an indulgence. To obtain one, repentant sinners had to say prayers, help the needy, give alms or go on a pilgrimage.
Gradually, the use and abuse of indulgences became widespread. In the year 1095, Pope Urban II offered a plenary (or full) indulgence to those who joined the Crusade against the Turks.
Financial transacting of indulgences escalated in 1476 when Pope Sixtus IV issued Salvator Noster, a papal Bull extending indulgences to the deceased, meaning their time in purgatory could be paid off by their relatives performing the penitence.
The Church began to use indulgences to help fund church buildings. This came to a head after Pope Julius II issued a Jubilee Indulgence in 1507 to support the construction of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
At that time, Archbishop Albert of hohenzollern had an enormous debt after he had bought the bishoprics of several cities.
he charged the Dominican friar Johann Tetzel, the Commissioner of Indulgences, to sell indulgences, claiming they were to pay for the basilica, but, in fact, they were used to service his debt.
When this became known, it so enraged devout young church lawyer Martin Luther that on October 31, 1517, he nailed his Disputation On The Power of Indulgences (also known as The 95 Theses) to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.
In 1567, the sale of indulgences was restricted, but it was too late to stop the Protestant Reformation.
Indulgences through good works are still available to the Roman Catholic penitent and have been promoted increasingly by modern- day Popes, notably John Paul II and his successor, Benedict XVI. Martin Nicholls, Bamburgh, Northumberland.
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