The Good, the Bad and the Mumbly
QUESTION Do the vocal chants in the theme music to Sergio Leone’s Three Dollars films have any meaning?
To CREATE the atmospheric soundtracks to his spaghetti Western trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For A Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966), starring Clint Eastwood as ‘the man with no name’, Sergio Leone hired Italian composer Ennio Morricone — and Morricone hired his childhood friend Alessandro Alessandroni (1925-2017) to play the music.
Alessandroni was an Italian multiinstrumentalist, equally accomplished on guitar, mandolin, mandolincello, harmonica, sitar, accordion and piano. He composed more than 40 film scores.
Morricone’s orchestrations often called for an unusual combination of instruments and voices. Alessandroni was a great whistler, a skill used in the Three Dollars trilogy as well as classics such as once Upon A Time In The West (1968). He also supplied the Duane Eddy-style guitar riff that was central to the theme for The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.
In 1961, Alessandroni formed an eightman chorus I Cantori Moderni and they provided the haunting vocal chants in the films. What made Morricone’s use of them effective was the way they acted as an instrument. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly theme, as well as several cues in the Dollars Trilogy, were distinguished by chants. There were no specific words.
In 1994, Charles Bernstein, a film composer who worked on the score for A Nightmare on Elm Street, asked Morricone about the chants in a Score magazine interview. Morricone replied: ‘They weren’t saying anything. It was like they were cursing… I didn’t care whether the words were understood or not.’ Paul Lester, St Albans, Herts.
QUESTION When was the offside rule introduced to football?
FOOTBALL’S offside rule was thought to have been part of the Cambridge Rules that came into force in 1848, but eight years later a set of new rules was found in the library of Shrewsbury School, closely modelled on the Cambridge Rules. This is regarded as the oldest set still in existence. Rule No 9 required more than three defensive players to be ahead of an attacker when he played the ball.
In 1857, however, Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, members of newlyformed Sheffield Football Club, drew up another set of rules and these were adopted as the official rules of the Sheffield Football Association before spreading to other clubs and associations in the Midlands and the North of England.
Six years later, in 1863, the Football Association rules were created, influenced by the Sheffield game, though ongoing disputes meant the Sheffield rules continued to be used. Around this time, many elements of the rules were incorporated into the Association game.
Regular games were played between Sheffield and London using both sets of rules. This led to an 1877 agreement on a single set of laws being administered by the FA. These had a major influence on how the modern game of football developed, with corners, throw-ins and free kicks for fouls all entering the rule book.
In 1925, 37 years after League football had been introduced, the offside rule changed to read that there had to be ‘two opponents’ between the attacking player and the goal. This led to an immediate increase in goal scoring, rising from 4,700 goals netted in 1,848 Football League games in 1924-25 to 6,373 being scored from the same number in 1925-26.
In 1990, the law was amended to adjudge an attacker as on-side if level with the second-to-last opponent and more recently it has changed again — confusing many spectators, players, coaches, managers, and even referees.
Tony Matthews, football historian, statistician and
author, Cabrera, Almeria, Spain.
QUESTION We have a new 12-sided pound coin. Do other countries use such shapes in their coinage?
ROUND coins are generally favoured in modern coinage, as they are less prone to wear and are most easily mass-produced, but at least 50 countries have issued non-round coins for circulation, seven-sided (heptagonal) and 12-sided (dodecagonal) being the most popular.
Many territories that have had historic ties to the United Kingdom have issued heptagonal coins. These include the Isle of Man, Jersey, Ireland, Papua New Guinea, Uganda, Barbados, Jamaica and Gibraltar.
other countries with seven-sided coins include Gambia, Ghana, Haiti, Liberia, the United Arab Emirates and Zambia.
The Australian 50 cent piece is perhaps the most familiar dodecagonal coin in circulation. Numerous countries have issued them historically, including Fiji, Colombia, Argentina and Israel. Cyprus issued a seven-sided 50 cent coin before adopting the euro.
The record holder for the most sides goes to the Yemeni five rial coin, which is officially henicosagonal (21-sided) in shape. A striking coin is Tunisia’s 13-sided (tridecagonal) 200 milim. The Czech Republic’s 20 Korun was also tridecagonal. The old Bermuda one dollar coin was, perhaps inevitably, triangular. Edward Byron, Nottingham.
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