The Saturday briefing
IS THERE anything you are desperately yearning to know? Are there any pressing factual disputes you would like us to help resolve? This is the page where we shall do our best to answer any questions you throw at us, whatever the subject.
WHY do koalas sleep for more than 20 hours a day?
Chris Schuman, Reading, Berkshire. BASICALLY it’s because they live on a rather inefficient diet of eucalyptus leaves. This food offers little nutritional benefit and takes a great deal of time and energy to digest, so sleeping up to 22 hours a day is an energy conservation measure.
Sloths are very similar and for much the same reason, though they do not sleep nearly as long as koalas. WHEN oil is pumped from the ground into massive oil tankers, what occupies the space it has been pumped from? Gerry Cullen, NW London (and others with similar questions) THE amount of oil we have pumped out seems vast but compared with the volume of rock underground it is tiny. Most of the oil, in any case, comes from pores between the rocks which are stable with or without the oil, so the spaces do not need filling.
In time water seeps into the spaces. In the relatively rare case of oil removal threatening imminent land subsidence, water is pumped in to take its place.
IS it true that the Suffolk painter John Constable said “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”? If not, who said it?
C Pope, Isle of Wight WELL John Constable may have said it but he wasn’t the first to do so. Constable lived from 1776-1837 but the proverb about bringing a horse to water dates back to the 12th century.
Indeed it is one of the oldest English sayings and a version of it appeared in a collection called Old English Homilies in 1175. WHEN a Window Tax was imposed, many windows were bricked up to avoid payment. I still see many attractive houses that have bricks where a window clearly once was, so has the tax ever been rescinded? I have always wondered whether or not the houses could be returned to their original state. Janet Allen, Caversham,
Reading, Berkshire THE Window Tax was imposed in 1696 and not repealed until 1851. With different rates of tax for different numbers of windows, house-owners often bricked up a window or two to avoid moving to a higher tax bracket.
The main reason many windows have been left bricked up since 1851 is alteration in the internal architecture over that period. Any change in design was likely to take into account the absence of light from a bricked-up window, so by the time the tax was repealed, the former window was no longer appropriate.
In some cases (though I know of no precise examples) the house may have become a listed property and changes such as unbricking a window may not be permitted. WHY do we call moving the clocks forward British Summer Time when it is only spring when we do it? Anonymous
On the same topic: Why do we change the clocks in March at 1am but wait until 2am to put them back in autumn? Edna Phillips, Southend-on-Sea, Essex TAKING the second question first, it seems logical to me: when we put the clocks forward we skip the hour from 1am to 2am; when we put them back, we give that hour back by having it twice. Or, to put it another way, both changes are made at 1am GMT. It’s been called British Anvandbar Butter Dish, £6.50. 020 3645 0000/ Ikea.com Definitely not the most conventional of butter dishes but with an upper part made from red clay and a strong stoneware base, it is a favourite from the Ikea range. by Summer Time since May 1916 when the British Summer Time Act (also known as the Daylight Saving Act) came into force.
Summer Time starts in spring and ends in autumn so it seems to me Summer Time is a good average name for it. This was all, incidentally, the result of a tireless campaign begun by builder William Willett in 1907. He died in 1915 before it was brought in.
One impulse for Britain to adopt Daylight Saving Time during the First World War was that Germany had already done so to boost their war effort.
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BUTTER DISHES
This delightful dish, made from fine bone china, has a pretty curved lid and co-ordinating saucer and is finished in hand-gilded 22-carat detail. Great value from a well-known designer. to www.express.co.uk/contactus where you will find our complaints policy and procedure. Alternatively, once you have established that your complaint falls within the complaints procedure, you can put your complaint in writing to Complaints, Daily Express, 10 Lower Thames Street, London EC3R 6EN.