US Amendment that led to the rise of Al Capone

The BBC’s NFL This Week show stated that the Jacksonville Jaguars are one of only four teams never to have reached the Super Bowl.

Who are the other three, please? – T.

They are the Cleveland Browns, the Detroit Lions and the Houston Texans.

That’s bad for their fans, but spare a thought for those who support the Minnesota Vikings and the Buffalo Bills. Both have been to four Super Bowls, and both have lost all four.

I remember seeing Bob Dylan in a pretty dire movie, called Hearts Of Fire, I think. He co-starred with an actress who only used one name, Fiona, and I’d like to know what happened to her. – N.

Released in 1987, the film starred Dylan as fading rock star who has a young protege (Fiona).

Fiona Flanagan also appeared in The Doors (1991) and continues with her successful singing career.

With President Trump possibly about to testify under oath in the Robert Mueller Russia probe, we were joking that he would be “Pleading the Fifth” quite a few times.

That has me wondering – how many Amendments are there to the US Constitution? – M.

“Pleading the Fifth” is a colloquial term for invoking the right that allows witnesses to decline to answer questions where the answers might incriminate them.

Of approximately 11,500 proposals to amend the Constitution, 27 have been ratified since the Constitution was put into operation on March 4, 1789.

The first 10, known as The Bill Of Rights, are specific guarantees of personal freedoms, and limitations on the Government’s power. Of the other 17 Amendments, the best known is certainly the 18th Amendment, ratified on January 16, 1919, which prohibited the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol in the United States.

Of course, this is better known as Prohibition, which was the result of a widespread temperance movement during the first decade of the 20th Century.

Now seen as a disastrous idea, Prohibition encouraged the rise of criminal activity associated with bootlegging, giving rise to gangsters such as Chicago’s Al Capone.

However, the 21st Amendment, ratified on December 5, 1933, repealed Prohibition.

It is the only one to repeal a prior amendment and that’s surely worth raising a glass to.

What is a Thankful Village? My wife mentioned she vaguely recalled the phrase as we drove along the Rest And Be Thankful road last week. – T.

Thankful Villages are the 53 settlements in England and Wales where all the inhabitants who enlisted to fight in the First World War returned home alive.

Of these, 14 are known as Doubly Thankful as they also lost no personnel during the Second World War.

What do other nations call the game I know as Chinese Whispers? I ask because my young American niece was baffled when I suggested we play it. – E.

The game was known in the UK in the 19th Century as Russian Gossip or Russian Scandal.

Your niece may know the game better as Telephone, as it’s called in the USA.

In Russia, it is called Broken Telephone.