Fame is up your street
QUESTION A Birmingham street is named after Charlie Hall, a comic actor who was in Laurel and Hardy films. What other streets are named after long-forgotten celebrities?
Charlie hall was born on august 19, 1899, in a small cottage at 23 Washwood heath road, Ward end, Birmingham. he was a member of the Fred Karno vaudeville troupe that gave the world Charlie Chaplin and Stan laurel.
hall arrived in hollywood in the early Twenties and played the foil for many of the era’s top comics, including Buster Keaton and Charley Chase.
he is best remembered as the short, stocky, curly haired, bad-tempered little Nemesis to laurel and hardy in 47 of their films.
he would play the hotel landlord or bartender, a husband jealous of hardy’s attentions to his wife, a competing store owner, or just a bystander who would end up in an altercation with the pair.
hall died in hollywood on December 7, 1959. The Charlie hall, a Wetherspoons pub in erdington, Birmingham, is named after him.
Jim Richardson, Wolverhampton, W. Mids.
IN HULL, arthur lucan Court is named after the vaudevillian who performed the drag act Old Mother riley, an irish washerwoman who was a forerunner to Brendan O’Carroll’s Mrs Brown.
Born arthur Towle in Sibsey, lincolnshire, in 1885, lucan was performing in Dublin when he met and married 16-year- old Kitty McShane in 1913. he adopted the stage name lucan to sound more irish.
The couple became a popular double act — with McShane playing Old Mother riley’s wayward daughter — and featured in the 1934 royal Command Performance at the london Palladium.
The pair forged a long career on stage, radio and screen with a series of comedy films from the late Thirties to the early Fifties, until their acrimonious divorce.
lucan never lived in hull, but he did have the misfortune to die there. he collapsed in the wings of the Tivoli Theatre on May 17, 1954, while waiting to perform, and died soon after in his dressing room.
The hull street Chevy Chase is not named after the american comedian and star of National lampoon, but after The Ballad Of Chevy Chase — the story of events on an area of hunting land (or a chase) in the Cheviot hills.
Kevin Hills, Hull.
IMPASSE louise Brooks is a short street in Bois d’arcy, a village outside Paris. it is named after the U.S. film star and dancer famous in the Twenties and Thirties for her bob haircut and flapper style.
Ariana Michaels, Oswestry, Shropshire.
LIND road in Sutton, Surrey, is named after a Swedish opera singer. Born in Stockholm in 1820, Johanna Maria lind performed in europe and america before settling in Britain in 1855.
She was known for her ice queen persona: her singing was described as a ‘cold, untouching, icy purity of tone and style’. She is said to have inspired hans Christian andersen’s Snow Queen after she failed to return his affections.
it’s a lovely irony that Savile row, a street known for men’s tailoring, is named after a woman. lady Dorothy Savile (1699 to 1758) was a noted artist — many of her portraits hang in Chatsworth house.
Barton Street in Westminster is named after Barton Booth, who was a great tragic actor of the early 18th century.
Mick Leary, Deal, Kent.
QUESTION September 30 was the Jewish New Year 5780. Where does this number come from?
ACCORDING to the hebrew calendar, Monday, September 30 (or, technically, sunset on September 29) marked the 5,780th year since the world was created on October 6, 3761 BC.
This date was calculated by 2nd-century sage rabbi Yose ben halafta from Biblical references, including major events and people’s life- spans, though it wasn’t widely used until the 12th century.
rabbi Yose was a tanna, a sage of the Mishnaic period, who lived in Sepphoris, a town in galilee. he wrote the chronology Seder Olam (Order Of The World), yet his system did not gain common currency among Jews until medieval times.
They generally counted from the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD.
it was left to Maimonides, an influential 12th- century Jewish philosopher and scientist, to set the precise dates.
in his Mishneh Torah, he wrote that all calculations should be based on ‘the third day of Nisan in this present year . . . which is the year 4938 of the creation of the world’. This correlated to March 22, 1178.
his system continues to be used not only for calculating the hebrew year, but also for co-ordinating it with the lunar cycle that determines the months.
Amelia Brenner, London E14.
QUESTION What is the longest honorific adopted by a world ruler?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, while the Ottoman rulers may have had the longest titles in history, the Duke of edinburgh is the holder of the longest one still in use.
his full honorific is: his royal highness The Prince Philip, Duke of edinburgh, earl of Merioneth, Baron greenwich, royal Knight of the Most Noble Order of the garter, extra Knight of the Most ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Member of the Order of Merit, Knight grand Cross of the royal Victorian Order, grand Master and First and Principal Knight grand Cross of the Most excellent Order of the British empire, Knight of the Order of australia, additional Member of the Order of New Zealand, extra Companion of the Queen’s Service Order, royal Chief of the Order of logohu, extraordinary Companion of the Order of Canada, extraordinary Commander of the Order of Military Merit, lord of her Majesty’s Most honourable Privy Council, Privy Councillor of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, personal aide- de- camp to her Majesty, lord high admiral of the United Kingdom.
Penny Moore, Writtle, Essex.