Daily Mail

Monopoly’s bright spark

- C. L. Clarke, Stafford.

QUESTION On the original Monopoly board, which buildings were the Water Works and Electric Company named after?

Legend has it that on March 7, 1933, unemployed electrical engineer Charles B. darrow of germantown, Pennsylvan­ia, had a eureka moment and invented the board game Monopoly.

It was modelled on his favourite seaside resort, Atlantic City, new Jersey. The city was served by the Atlantic City electric Company and the Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority, which inspired two of the properties.

In fact, darrow developed Monopoly from The Landlord’s game, created by elizabeth Magie in 1904, and a variant, The Fascinatin­g game Of Finance.

Unlike Magie’s black-and-white board, darrow’s original circular design has the recognisab­le rectangles with coloured bars along the top, the Chance question mark, Community Chest, electric Company edison screw lightbulb and Waterworks tap.

darrow created the railroad locomotive­s using a stencil, and the story goes that the man behind bars in the jail was modelled on himself. For other designs,

Circle of life: Charles Darrow’s original round Monopoly board

he hired a graphic artist. The family of daniel gidahlia Fox have recently claimed he was the artist.

Simon Johnson, Cardiff.

QUESTION If diamonds aren’t considered ‘super-tough’, what materials are?

In MATeRIALS science, hardness and toughness are different things.

Hardness is the ability to resist scratching or indentatio­n. diamond has the highest value of scratch hardness: it will scratch all other common materials and no other material can scratch it.

A tough material is one that does not fracture under sudden stress. Polymers, such as shoe soles, are very tough — it would take a great effort to fracture one with a hammer. Hit a diamond with a hammer and it would break like glass.

nacre, or mother-of-pearl, the rainbowshe­ened material that lines the inside of mollusc shells, is nature’s toughest material. It scratches easily but is incredibly hard to break.

Its toughness is derived from a structure of microscopi­c ‘bricks’ of the mineral aragonite, laced together with a ‘mortar’ made of organic material.

Graeme Franks, Sheffield, S. Yorks.

QUESTION Was there a real Dino’s Bar & Grill, as mentioned in the Thin Lizzy song?

FURTHeR to the earlier answer, while deno’s nightclub in Manchester is the prime candidate, there is another.

Singer Phil Lynott was a fan of the U.S. detective drama 77 Sunset Strip, which featured dino’s Lodge, a cabaret with a dean Martin theme and a huge winking neon sign of the star.

In the 1950s and 1960s, dino’s Lodge was frequented by the Hollywood elite. When 77 Sunset Strip made it famous, it descended into a tourist trap.

While drink would flow at both establishm­ents, if you were looking for a place where ‘blood would spill’, that would be deno’s in Manchester.

IS THERE a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspond­ents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection is published, but we’re unable to enter into individual correspond­ence.

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