A classic lost to history
QUESTION
I’ve read that the 1911 Delhi Durbar for King George and Queen Mary was filmed in Kinemacolor. Is this film still available and was it shown in colour to the public? KINEMACOLOR was developed in Britain by expatriate American Charles Urban and his British partner C. Albert Smith. The Kinemacolor c a mera, launched by Charles Urban’s Urban Trading Co of London in 1908, worked by exposing black and white film through alternating red and green filters.
How To Make And Operate Moving Pictures, published by Funk & Wagnalls in 1917, notes: ‘In this system, only two colour filters are used in taking the negatives and only two in projecting the positives.
‘ The camera resembles the ordinary cinematographic camera, except that it runs at twice the speed, taking 32 images per second instead of 16, and it is fitted with a rotating colour filter in addition to the ordinary shutter.
‘ This filter is an aluminium skeleton wheel having f our segments, two open ones, one filled in with red- dyed gelatine, and the fourth containing greendyed gelatine.
‘The camera is so geared that exposures are made alternately through the red and green gelatines. Panchromatic film is used, and the negative is printed in the ordinary way, and it will be understood that there is no colour in the film itself.’
The first motion picture exhibited in Kinemacolor was an eightminute short filmed in Brighton, called A Visit To The Seaside, and shown in September 1908.
The succession of major royal events of 1910 to 1911 was a great opportunity f or Urban’s new technology to find an audience. He recorded the funeral of King Edward VII on May 20, 1910, followed by the unveiling of the Queen Victoria memorial on May 16, 1911, the coronation of King George V on June 22, 1911, the investiture of the Prince of Wales on July 13, 1911, and the Coronation Durbar at Delhi on December 12, 1911. The highlight, however, was the Delhi Durbar.
Durbar is a Mughal word meaning a reception, a court, or body of officials at such a court, and the British organised three durbars, in 1877, 1903 and 1911. The Delhi Durbar of 1911 was significant in that it was the first time the King-Emperor had attended.
It was a spectacular event for which preparations took more than a year, and it was organised by Sir John Hewett, Lieutenant-governor of the United Provinces. A giant ‘city’ of 40,000 tents was erected outside Delhi, which was eventually to house 300,000 inhabitants. The Durbar ceremony was followed by days of polo and other sports, dinners, balls, military reviews, bands and exhibitions.
Several companies filmed the ceremonies in monochrome, but Urban took four or five cameramen with him to film the entire royal visit to India in Kinemacolor.
The film was first screened at the Scala Theatre i n London on February 2, 1912, under the title With Our King And Queen Through India. For the screening the Scala stage was turned into a mock-up of the Taj Mahal, and the show was a sensation, drawing many to come to see motion pictures for the first time. Yet despite its historical importance, the Delhi Durbar is a lost film. The Urban Trading Co was closed during World War I, and most of its Kinemacol or productions were either neglected or destroyed.
A small portion of the film was recently discovered in the Krasnagorsk film archive in Russia, but where the original lasted twoand-a-half hours, all we have is about 20 minutes of military reviews. There is no footage of any of the ceremonies, the parades of elephants or any other aspect of the Durbar.
Graham Moxon, Rawtenstall, Lancs.
QUESTION
Could all the bees in the world lift a jumbo jet? ACCORDING to the European Food Safety Authority, as of 2007 the United Kingdom had around 274,000 beehives, and as each hive contains 20,000 bees, Britain is home to 5,480,000,000 bees.
The average bee weighs approximately 0.07g and is able to carry its own weight in pollen and nectar. Therefore, the lifting capacity of the UK’S bee population would be 5,480,000,000 x 0.07 = 383,600,000g or 383.6 metric tonnes.
An empty Boeing 747-400 weighs 178 metric tonnes, so working together, Britain’s bee population could easily carry two. But as the maximum take-off weight of a Boeing 747-400 is 396.9 metric tonnes, our bees might struggle with a loaded Boeing 747-400.
Our British bees could also lift one of the massive new Airbus A380s. It weighs 277 metric tonnes when empty. However, with a maximum take-off weight of over 650 metric tonnes, our bees would have to enlist help from bees on the Continent.
Jane Wallace, Birmingham.
QUESTION
Women have shapes such as ‘pear’ or ‘apple’. Do we chaps have shapes? FURTHER to the earlier answer, the two terms are also used to describe men’s body shapes and, in particular, to help decide the potential health risks of any excess body fat someone is carrying.
An ‘ apple’ shape describes a pattern of body fat storage mainly around the stomach, midriff, neck and shoulders rather than the buttocks, thighs and hips.
This pattern is also known as ‘ central or abdominal’ obesity and has been shown in several long-term population studies to be more dangerous than a ‘ pear’ distribution in terms of health risks from heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.
In ‘apples’, much of the stored fat is around the liver and other vital organs. This fat is now known to be metabolically active and can release chemicals and hormones into the bloodstream, increasing the levels of blood cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure contributing to increased health risks.
The apple shape is also known as ‘ android’, f rom the Greek f or ‘manlike’ as it is more common in men than women where the ‘gynoid’ or pear shape predominates.
The simplest way to see whether you have an apple shape and are putting your health at risk is to measure your waist circumference. Do so standing upright after gently breathing out and ensure you keep the tape horizontal at the widest point of your waist. This is usually found between the top of the hip bone and the bottom rib.
The waist circumference should not be confused with belt size — men i n particular can have a relatively low belt size, yet have a significantly increased waist circumference. For a man, a waist circumference above 94cm to 102cm (37in to 40in) is considered high risk and very high risk is more than 102cm. The l atter i s the generally agreed measure f or central obesity.
The corresponding figures for women are 80cm (32in) and 88cm (35in). Research has shown that the health risks from central obesity start at a lower waist circumference of 90cm (36in) in men from some ethnic groups, including those from South and Eastern Asia.
The relative size of your waist compared with your hips can also be used. To work out your waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), measure your hips at the widest point and then divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement. The World Health Organisation defines a WHR ratio of 0.9 or more in men as indicating central obesity. Sue Baic, registered dietitian & nutritionist, Bristol.
QUESTION
I’ve often seen the grass being cut immediately after a football match. Why is this done? ALL top-class groundsmen will go over the pitch after a match with a rotary mower collector. This is mainly to pick up any divots or detritus l eft after the match, though a light cut will stimulate grass growth. Failure to do this will result in yellow patches where the divots have been left to decay, increasing bacterial load in the area and exposing the already stressed grass to disease and fungal infection.
Barry Ringrose, Carmarthen.