Aunt Sally’s a game girl!
QUESTION
Why is an easy target for criticism known as an ‘aunt Sally’?
This term goes back to the 17th century and refers to a game popular in pubs and at fairgrounds. The Aunt sally was a doll sitting on a post, modelled on an old woman with a clay pipe in her mouth.
The objective was to throw a stick at the doll and try to knock the pipe from her mouth without dislodging the doll. in fairgrounds, prizes were awarded for success, while in pub gardens it was more of a game, with scores being kept.
From the game it is easy to see how the modern use of the term emerged, referring to someone putting forward an idea to see if anyone can knock it down. in that respect it is similar to another popular business term, the straw man, which is easy to re-shape or take apart.
Aunt sally is still played as a team game in pub gardens in Oxfordshire, southern Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, with league structures just like those for darts.
Nowadays, the doll has been replaced by a 6in-high skittle, called a dolly, and the stick has become a wooden baton. The baton, still called a ‘stick’, is about 18in long and 2in thick and is thrown from a distance of ten yards.
The Oxford & District Aunt sally Association, which governs the game, was established before World War ii and has 120 teams divided into 12 sections.
Origins are unclear, but some think a live cockerel was impaled on a stick and whoever killed it got to take it home for food. Other sources claim it was invented by the soldiers of King Charles i during the Civil War to help pass the time.
its prevalence in Oxfordshire would fit in with such a theory, as Charles based himself in Oxford and his army was garrisoned throughout the county. The first battle of the Civil War was fought at Edge hill, north of Banbury, home to one of the local Aunt sally leagues.
Last year, on the TV show hidden Villages, Penelope Keith visited hook Norton, near Chipping Norton, where she was taught to play the game.
it is also seen being played in an episode of Midsomer Murders, Dark Autumn, aired in 2001.
in fiction, Aunt sally is the female admirer of scarecrow Worzel Gummidge, in the books by Barbara Euphan Todd. From a fairground stall, Aunt sally was very fastidious and also quite vain. On TV, she was played by Una stubbs.
Bob Dillon, Edinburgh.
QUESTION
Is there an obligation in the EU treaty for the UK to pay compensation for leaving?
The so-called Lisbon Treaty is officially subtitled ‘Amending Treaty On European Union and Treaty Establishing The European Community’, and is virtually unreadable in parts because it is what it says it is: a series of amendments to and deletions from the two treaties.
it was brought in after another treaty — the Treaty Establishing A Constitution For Europe — was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands, with Europe-wide threats of referendums on the proposed EU Constitution.
There is no mention of compensation for exit in the Lisbon Treaty or in either of the treaties it amends, nor is there mention in the abandoned EU Constitution. A readable version of the Lisbon Treaty put together by Danish former MEP Jens-Peter Bonde also doesn’t mention compensation.
The Mail reported last December that EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier demanded a £50 billion ‘exit bill’ from the UK. The PM commented that this was an opening gambit, and since no such bill is demanded by any treaty, she is right.
Gerry Dorrian, Fulbourn, Cambridge.
QUESTION
Is the temperature in outer space absolute zero?
This question has a rather complex answer, but first a brief word about temperature. Temperature is actually a measure of the velocity of the molecules in a material: the higher the velocity, the higher the temperature.
Conversely, if an object is cooled to absolute zero, then all movement ceases. This happens at just below minus 273 degrees Celsius, also known as zero degrees on the Kelvin scale.
in a solid object, the addition of heat causes each molecule to vibrate. if enough heat is added, the vibration of the molecules is sufficient to break the bonds between them and they move about freely. in other words the solid object melts and becomes a liquid.
in a gas, the molecules have even more freedom and travel in straight lines until they hit something and bounce off.
The distance a gas molecule can travel before it collides with another is ‘the mean free path’. At sea level this distance is tiny, but as you leave the Earth’s atmosphere, it becomes significant and can be measured in metres.
in deep space the pressure is so low a molecule might travel for many kilometres before it collides with another.
You could say the temperature of space is the temperature represented by the velocity of these particles, but this would be misleading.
Calculated from their velocity, the temperature of these particles could be in thousands or millions of degrees, but there are so few of them and they are so tiny, that they have no heating effect on any object they encounter.
Of more significance is the cosmic background radiation, and in our vicinity, the sun. Cosmic background radiation left over from the big bang has a temperature of about three degrees above absolute zero.
if you placed an object in deep space, it would cool to this temperature, not the temperature of the odd gas molecule that happened to hit it. in the vicinity of our sun, however, the object would be warmed by its radiation and would take up a higher temperature influenced by the surface finish of the object.
space vehicles can have one side matt black, a good absorber or radiator of heat, and the other shiny, a poor absorber and radiator.
if the vehicle is too hot, it is positioned so its shiny side faces the sun to minimise heating while its matt black side faces deep space to maximise cooling, the reverse having the opposite effect.
Denis Sharp, Hailsham, East Sussex.
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