Icebergs, whales and seals were clues to a southern landmass
It’s not my usual tipple, but I did have a glass or two at a wedding last week, and now I would like to know who Moet & Chandon, of champagne fame were. – T.
Moët et Cie (Moet & Co.), one of the world’s largest champagne producers, was founded in 1743 by Claude Moet, a French wine trader.
In 1833 the company, then headed by Monet’s grandson, Jean-remy became Moet & Chandon when Pierre-gabriel Chandon de Briailles became a partner. Is it true that ’Allo ’Allo, probably my favourite comedy of all time, was based on another TV series? – P.
Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once... it was!
The comedy, which originally aired from 1982-92 was a spoof of war based TV and film damas, most notably the BBC’S Secret Army.
Bernard Hepton and Angela Richards starred in three series of Secret Army, from 1977-79.
There was exciting news recently about the discovery of a huge lava lake on a sub-antarctic island in the South Atlantic Ocean.
It has rekindled a thought I have long had, and that is, who discovered that there was land at the far south of the globe? – W.
Captain James Cook circumnavigated Antarctica from 1772-75, and, although he never actually sighted land, he did record icebergs, which suggested there was a land mass to the south.
He published account of his discoveries, including descriptions of large numbers of whales and seals in the Southern Ocean, which sparked a gold rush of sorts.
With a high demand for oil from marine animals, from the late 1770s
large numbers of European and North American private voyages brought back lucrative cargoes of oil from whales and seals, as well as the pelts of fur seals, from Antarctic.
One American sealer, Nathaniel Palmer, claimed to have sighted land in 1819, though this is doubted by many polar scholars.
The following year, on January 27 1820, Antarctica was finally found.
A Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev discovered an ice shelf at Princess Martha Coast that later became known as the Fimbul Ice Shelf.
The pair became the first explorers to see and officially discover the land of the Antarctica continent.
Incredibly, they beat a British expedition, captained by Edward Bransfield, by a mere three days. Of all the islands in the world, how many are larger than Great Britain? – C.
Britain, at 80,823sq miles, is the world’s ninth largest island by area.
It’s less than a tenth of the size of the largest, Greenland, at 840,004 square miles.
The other seven larger than Britain are, in order, New Guinea, Borneo, Madagascar, Baffin, Sumatra, Honshu and Victoria.
Ellesmere makes up the top 10 and Ireland (32,595sq miles) is 20th. I’ve just discovered a great track, For What It’s Worth, by a ’60s US band, Buffalo Springfield.
How did they get their name? – I.
The band, who released three LPS, launched the careers of Neil Young and Stephen Stills.
The band got its name from a plaque on the side of a steamroller, made by the Buffalo-springfield Roller Company.