The Saturday briefing
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
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 Tomorrow, the Premier League can be won by either Arsenal in north London or Manchester City playing 200 miles away. How do they make sure the trophy is at the right ground in time for the presentation?
Dennis Cooper, Lytham, Lancs
A The Premier League title is going down to the final day of the season for the third time in the past 11 years, with Arsenal hosting Everton, and Man City at home to West Ham, both kicking off at 4pm tomorrow.
Luckily, there are two identical trophies, both featuring an engraved base detailing past champions. One stays with the defending champions for the season, and they hand it back three weeks before the end of the campaign, while the other is kept by the league and used worldwide for promotional events.
If there are more than two teams in the running, then a replica also comes into play.
The 3ft 5in trophies were cast by royal silversmiths Asprey London, and are made of solid sterling silver, with the crowns on top cast from 24-carat silver gilt.
The weighty base is made from malachite, a bright green semi-precious African stone, which represents the pitch.
The design is based around the three lions, with one on each handle. When either Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard or Man City skipper Kyle Walker lift the four stone trophy tomorrow, the idea is they become the third lion.
In 2004, Arsenal were given a gold version of the trophy to keep, in recognition of not losing a single game the whole season.
The champions also get 40 commemorative silver medals to hand out – every player who has made at least five Premier League appearances during the season goes home with one.
Q What is the longest distance anyone has flown a paper aeroplane? Asking for a grandson!
P Green, Richmond, NorthYorks
A The world record of 88 metres – nearly the length of a rugby pitch – was achieved in 2022 by Boeing engineers Dillon Ruble and Garrett Jensen and aerospace engineer Nathaniel Erickson, after nearly 500 hours of folding created a design that focused on speed and minimised drag.
It flew for only six seconds, whereas the longest flight for a paper aeroplane was achieved in 2010 in Japan, with a time of 29.2 seconds. At the last Red Bull Paper Wings world championships in Salzburg, British aircraft designer Yicheng Sun was runner up, with his flight of 57.07m, after ensuring the folds were exactly symmetrical.
The earliest paper aeroplanes were developed in Ancient China and Japan around 500 BC.
Leonardo daVinci built a model plane from parchment but his ideas for flight were inspired by animals. His ornithopter design, with bat-like wings that used mechanical systems powered by human movement, remained grounded.
The first folded paper aeroplane built to approach modern specifications was created by Scarborough-born engineer Sir George Cayley in the early 1800s.
The Wright brothers built many paper models and tested them in a wind tunnel. Their creations played an integral part in the first successful aeroplane flight in 1903.
Q When did a lie become a “white lie” and a “fib”?
Charles Pope, Ryde, Isle of Wight
A White lies tend to be harmless, small lies, told to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, or to motivate a person into action.
The word “lie” dates back to the 10th century, but the white variety first appeared in print in a letter to the Marshal of the Army in Ireland in the 1560s: “I do assure you he is unsuspected of any untruth or other notable crime (except a white lie)” – the “white lie” clearly meaning free from evil intent.
It comes from old associations with black and white colours, when white represented purity, and black implied evil or darkness.
Hope Hicks, former White House communications director, admitted she occasionally told “white lies” for Donald Trump, like saying he was in a meeting when he wasn’t, but had not lied about anything substantive.
Fibs tend to be lies that are not terribly important.The word is believed to have come from fibble-fable, meaning nonsense, originating from fable. It’s been used since the late 16th century to reference a tall story rather than a deliberate attempt to mislead.
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