The Saturday briefing
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Is there anything you’re yearning to know? Send your questions, on any subject, to the contacts given below, and we will do our best to answer them…
Q
In the quiz game Pointless, 100 people are given 100 seconds to come up with answers. Who are the 100 people and how are they monitored?
Bridget Shakespeare,York
A
The BBC1 quiz, hosted by Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman, sees contestants try to score as few points as possible by coming up with answers no one else has thought of. Questions can range from naming chemical elements to the most influential TV celebrities.
The panel of 100 are found by an online polling company and they will also be completing surveys on other things, so won’t realise they are answering for the show.They are given a set time to type in their answers before being moved on to the next question.
These online market research companies, such as Crowdology, work with the media and leading brands and you can sign up online to get paid for answering their questions. Surveys normally take about five minutes to complete and can cover topics from politics and what washingup liquid you use to your sex life and favourite food. Each survey will typically earn you only pennies, but if you are dedicated enough you could earn £200 a year in cash and vouchers.
Q
I am an avid sudoku player. Is there more than one correct answer when completing a grid?
Maurice Goodluck, Liverpool
A
A perfect, wellconstructed sudoku has only one solution. There can be
multiple answers but that will be due to a design error. Puzzle designers have to give enough constraints in the grid to make sure there is a unique answer, and a 2012 study concluded that meant at least 17 numbers to start. Professor Gary McGuire, a mathematician from University College Dublin, spent a year running possible outcomes through a supercomputer, which was quite a task given the total A number of sudoku solutions when Waltzing Matilda is Australian starting with an empty grid is slang for travelling and 6,700 million, million, million. He looking for work with your found that no grids with 16 or belongings on your back. fewer clues have just one solution. “Matilda” was the blanket they Similar puzzles, called Latin cuddled at night, coming from a square, can be traced to 18th nickname given to women who century Europe, and slept with soldiers. versions appeared in On the face of it, Australia’s 19th century French unofficial national anthem is newspapers but about a travelling labourer – a did not catch on. swagman – who steals a sheep It was an and leaps to his death into a American who waterhole when police find him. gave us the But underneath there’s a tale of modern civil uprisings, a mysterious version. In murder, a love story – and tea. 1979, Howard It was written in 1895 by Garns, a retired lawyer and poet Banjo Paterson, architect who with the melody from Christina created puzzles Macpherson, who he was having for a magazine, an affair with. Banjo and his introduced the rule of fiancée Sarah visited Christina in
every nine-square region having to include the numbers one to nine, not just the columns. He called his puzzle Number Place, and it was picked up in Japan in the 1980s, then travelled back to the West with its new name, which translates to “single number”. Q
When I call relatives in Australia, their ringing tone is Waltzing Matilda. Who was Matilda?
V Richards, Swansea
Queensland, as the women were old friends and Christina’s family had a farm there.They arrived after the sheep-shearer strike, when the Macpherson shearing shed was burned down in protests over pay, and union leader “Frenchy” Hoffmeister was hunted by police. His body was found the next day.
Christina introduced Banjo to Scottish love song the Craigie Lea March, and he pinched the tune for his bush ballad. But their affair came out and he was chased out of town. He sold the song rights for a pittance to the Billy Tea company.
When he heard troops in Sydney singing his song while heading for the FirstWorldWar, Banjo said: “I only got a quid for it but it feels like a million dollars to hear them sing it.”
PLEASE SEND US YOUR INTRIGUING QUESTIONS ON ANY SUBJECT:
● By email: put “questions” in the subject line and send to kay.harrison@reachplc.com
● By post: to Any Questions, Daily Express, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5AP
● Unfortunately we cannot reply individually, but we will feature the best questions on this page.