Albatross in the top flight
QUESTION Do any migrating birds actually circumnavigate the Earth?
THE wandering albatross ( Diomedea
exulans) circumnavigates the globe in the southern sub-Antarctic latitudes.
This was described in a 2005 article Global Circumnavigations: Tracking YearRound Ranges Of Non- breeding Albatrosses, in the journal Science following a study led by Professor John Croxall, head of conservation biology for the British Antarctic Survey.
The team tracked the precise movements of 22 birds and showed 12 had made global circumnavigations — three birds circled the Earth twice. The fastest managed a distance of 14,000 miles in 46 days — the equivalent of a steady 13 mph.
Scientists have long queried how the wandering albatross soars for as long and as far as it does over open water, without help from thermal updraughts.
It’s no accident that the bird dwells in exceptionally windy places, the far southern latitudes known as the Roaring Forties and the Furious Fifties.
The wind helps this large bird, which can weigh up to 26lb and have a wingspan of 11ft 6in, to get airborne.
It flies long distances using a technique called dynamic soaring that expends minimal energy.
Once in the air, there’s a windward climb, then a curve from windward to leeward at peak altitude, followed by a leeward descent and finally a reverse turn close to the surface of the sea that leads seamlessly into the next cycle of flight.
Dr Ken Warren, Glasgow.
QUESTION Was there a fad in the Sixties for baroque harpsichord pop music?
THERE are a number of reasons why the harpsichord was popular in Sixties pop music, but perhaps the most important was the remarkable rise of the factoryproduced harpsichord during the Fifties and Sixties.
Instruments by German firms such as Neupert, Sperrhake and Wittmayer ensured a supply of affordable instruments. In 1969, British- based William de Blaise was producing an impressive 60 instruments a year. The all-purpose instrument for recording studios could be used by a wide range of musicians. While these instruments have been shunned as inauthentic by baroque musicians, they found a niche role in film and TV soundtracks. A Pleyel harpsichord can be heard in John Addison’s score to the 1963 film Tom Jones.
The oboist and record producer Mitch Miller brought the harpsichord into popular music in the Fifties with his records for singer Rosemary Clooney. He admitted it was a gimmick to ensure the productions had a novelty appeal.
I have spent a decade compiling a database of Sixties artists who used acoustic and electronic harpsichords and am amazed at its versatility.
The instrument features in songs by bands including The Mamas & The Papas, The Monkees, Grateful Dead, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Donovan, Marianne Faithfull and The Beatles.
Ironically, the ‘ old’ sound of the harpsichord was seen as hip.
Equally remarkable is the sharp decline of the harpsichord in pop music after 1970; I suspect the reason being that musicians felt the sound had become associated with the past — not the baroque, but the Sixties.
Dr Christopher D. Lewis, lecturer in music, Chester.
QUESTION When and where in Britain was a row of houses first called a terrace?
THE phrase terrace housing originates in the practice of levelling building sites to allow long buildings to be erected at one level. Terrace originally referred to the site, not the buildings. The word is still used in this sense for football terraces and hillside farming terraces.
The first terrace houses in Britain were a row of 14 built in London’s Covent Garden in 1637. The oldest surviving terrace houses are Lindsey House in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, which date from 1640. These gracious villas, three or four storeys high, were aimed at the affluent middle class and were large enough for a family and its servants.
Later, terrace housing became the favoured way of accommodating the rapidly growing industrial population during the 19th century. Thus the two up, two down was born.
My late parents, who died before the word patio came into use, always referred to the small paved area behind our house as the terrace.
Quite right: the ground-floor windows of large country houses would open on to wide gravel paths, used for fresh air and exercise during the day, and no doubt discreet amorous meetings after dark.
Woe betide anyone who looks at one of these gracious terraces and calls it a patio.
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