Elton tribute to an old nag
QUESTION When Reginald Dwight took the stage name Elton John, why did he choose Hercules as his middle name?
Elton JoHn had a particularly tough touring and recording schedule in 1971. His tumbleweed Connection/Madman Across the Water tours consisted of 29 dates in Britain and France and 80 across the U.S.
By the time he returned to london, his nerves were shot and his fingers raw and he felt ‘like a plate of jelly’.
An incident that December resulted in him officially changing his name for good. Shopping in Fortnum & Mason, Elton threw one of his now-legendary hissy fits.
A sales assistant recognising him as Elton John refused to accept a cheque from him because it had been signed ‘Reginald Dwight’ — his birth name.
the matter was quickly resolved, but left Elton annoyed. So, on December 8, Elton’s publisher Dick James arranged a meeting for the singer with his lawyer to change his name by deed poll. Asked if he wanted to give himself a new middle name, he said, on impulse: ‘Hercules.’
this was not after the ancient hero, but the long-suffering nag from his favourite show, Steptoe And Son. Elton identified with the poor horse whose lot in life mirrored his own. His mother ‘went berserk’ — ‘Fancy calling yourself after Steptoe’s horse,’ she said.
James had signed Reg Dwight and his lyricist, Bernie taupin, in 1969. It was James’s son, Stephen, who’d instigated his adoption of the stage name Elton John. It was borrowed from two members of Elton’s former band Bluesology — namely Elton Dean and long John Baldry.
Jo Wilmots, Croydon, Surrey.
QUESTION Was George Harrison the first to say: ‘If you can remember the Sixties, you weren’t really there’?
tHIS quote has been attributed to just about everyone: George Harrison, Robin Williams, Wavy Gravy, timothy leary, Willie nelson, plus Paul Kantner and Grace Slick, who were both members of Jefferson Airplane.
However, the earliest known citation for the quote comes from actor and comedian Charlie Fleischer in the Comedy Column of the los Angeles times on June 13, 1982: ‘If you are having difficulty decoding the joke, here is one explanation: the drugs/ alcohol/sex/bell-bottom-pants/love-beads/ insanity of the period has permanently impaired the memory of those who actually experienced the 1960s.’
the shortened form became a favourite of actor Robin Williams and he did more than anyone to popularise it.
Tim Williams, Wolverhampton, West Mids.
QUESTION Is there a mnemonic to help you learn the periodic table?
tHoUGH many mnemonics have been devised for remembering the periodic table — there are 118 named elements and counting — a single mnemonic would be just as hard to learn as the names of the elements themselves.
Schoolchildren are sometimes taught such mnemonics as: Happy Henry likes Beer But Could not obtain Food. this gives the first ten elements: Hydrogen, Helium, lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and Fluorine.
this approach of breaking it down into blocks has some utility. At college, we had one for the actinides, 15 elements at the heavy end of the table. they are radioactive and all but the earliest members have short half-lives and are not found in nature, but are synthesised. they are Actinium, thorium, Protactinium, Uranium, neptunium, Plutonium, Americium, Curium, Berkelium, Californium, Einsteinium, Fermium, Mendelevium, nobelium and lawrencium.
With characteristic student smut, this came out as: ‘All tall Prostitutes Use new Plastic American Contraceptives Because Customers Expect, Free Minded nymphomaniac ladies.’ Yes, a bit smutty, but I can still remember, in order, the names of the actinides.
Phil Alexander, Farnborough, Hants. PRoBABlY the closest to a mnemonic for learning the elements of the periodic table is a song by tom lehrer. lehrer was a graduate and lecturer at many top U.S. universities including his alma mater, Harvard, and wrote many humorous songs, often parodying popular tunes. He set the names of the elements to the Major-General’s song from the Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan.
It begins: ‘there’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium . . .’
And ends: ‘. . . and argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium and chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium. these are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard, and there may be many others, but they haven’t been discovered.’ In the last line, ‘discovered’ is pronounced in a Boston accent — ‘discarvered’, so that it rhymes with Harvard. David Albury, quizmaster,
Edinburgh. I WAS taught an amusing one for the lanthanides: ‘liverpool Corporation Passengers need Padded Seats Especially Going to Dingle, However Even they Yell loudly.’
this relates to lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, promethium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, thulium, ytterbium and lutetium.
Ray Reeves, Windsor, Berks.
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