Burger calls in his chips

QUESTION Did District Attorney Hamilton Burger ever win a case against TV’s Perry Mason?

Perry Mason was a popular U.s. legal drama TV series broadcast in 271 hourlong episodes on CBs from september 21, 1957, to May 22, 1966.

Mason, played by Hollywood heavyweight raymond Burr, was a fictional Los angeles criminal defence lawyer who had appeared in detective novels by erle stanley Gardner.

Battling Mason was poor old Hamilton Burger, who was played in the TV series by William Talman, the least successful Da (district attorney — a chief prosecutor in the U.s.) in history.

Burger’s cases inevitably revolved around him prosecuting the wrong person, who was defended by Perry Mason. In the end, Mason would reveal the true criminal through a series of tactics that Burger characterised as courtroom tricks.

on rare occasions, Burger was successful. Unfortunately, these were usually converted to failure by the end of the show. In The Case of The Terrified Typist ( season one, episode 38, 1958), a convoluted tale of murder and mistaken identity, the jury brings in a verdict of guilty and Burger believes he finally has a victory over Mason — until we realise that the defendant is an imposter.

In The Case of The Deadly Verdict (season seven, episode four, 1963), Mason loses when Janice Barton is convicted of murdering her aunt and is sentenced to death.

Convinced of her innocence, Perry hires a private investigator and sets out to prove her innocence in an episode away from the courtroom.

asked about how he felt about Burger losing to Mason week after week, Talman said: ‘Burger doesn’t lose. How can a district attorney lose when he fails to convict an innocent person?

‘Unlike a fist or gun fight, in court you can have a winner without having a loser. Burger in a good many instances has joined Mason in action against unethical attorneys, lying witnesses or anyone else obstructing justice. Like any real-life Rare victory: Burger (William Talman, left) and Mason (Raymond Burr) district attorney, justice is Burger’s main interest.’ Daniel Evans, Llandudno, Conway.

QUESTION Can railway tracks be laid in a different way to prevent disruption caused by heatwaves?

HeaT changes the physical state of materials. For marginal changes, this normally manifests itself as expansion with a rising temperature and the reverse on cooling.

By the inter-war years, it was wellestablished practice for railways to be laid in 60 ft long rails with a quarter-inch gap left in each joint to allow for expansion during the summer.

Thus the joints ( and the sleeper fastening arrangements) allowed the rails to move longitudinally during high ambient temperatures.

While rail joints were originally seen as being essential, in fact, it is desirable to reduce their number to improve the quality of the passenger ride and reduce maintenance costs. as rail travel speeds went up, so, too, did rail joint problems.

Continuously welded rail was developed with pre-tensioning of the rail at its normal ambient temperature range midpoint. The critical point is the temperature range selected, catering for high and low extremes.

It is a bit like looking into a crystal ball to decide what the future temperature range should be.

rail buckling should not be underestimated — trackside inspections may show all to be well, but if the rail is ‘hung up’ anywhere along its length i. e. restricted from expanding, the passage of a train can release the tension, resulting in a possible derailment.

The only effective control measure available to track engineers during hot weather are speed and weight reductions of permitted traffic, hence the delays and disruptions to normal services in times of hot weather.

The UK system could be re-engineered to cater for the higher temperatures being experienced, but it must not be forgotten that we also experience very low temperatures.

I am a retired senior rail industry engineer and have measured rail temperatures as low as minus 10c in suburban surrey on a frosty night — something that railways in warmer climates never experience.

re-laying rails to cater for occasional extremes of our normal ambient temperature range would be costly and could take a long time to put into place.

C. E. Sayers-Leavy, Broadstairs, Kent.

QUESTION Did Sir Paul McCartney once disguise himself to go busking?

yes, he did, for Give My regards To Broad street, which is widely regarded as one of the worst films ever — unless you’re a die-hard Beatles fan.

While McCartney has taken flak for it, the musical does have some good tunes and includes remarkable, and genuine, footage of the former Beatle busking outside Leicester square Tube station.

‘They just made me up and dropped me off,’ McCartney told the new york Daily news after the film’s release in 1984. ‘I told ’em we’d never get away with it, but they kept putting dirt on and rufflin’ up me hair and I figured, why not?’

The disguise worked and not even a comical rendition of his most famous tune gave him away. ‘so they’d toss coins and I’d be going: “yesterday, all my troubles — thank you, sir — seemed so far away.” ’

The highlight for Macca was when ‘this fabulous drunk scotsman, who didn’t know me from Jesus, came up, threw his arm around me and gave me all his coins’.

any cash that found its way into Macca’s upturned hat was donated to the seamen’s Mission.

Roland Parry, Nuneaton, Warks.