The pop star in the pulpit
QUESTION Which celebrities have become members of the clergy?
RichaRd coles, the vicar of st Mary the Virgin in Finedon, Northants, was once known to pop music fans as one half of The communards.
The band was formed in 1985 after counter tenor/falsetto lead singer Jimmy somerville left Bronski Beat to team up with classically trained coles.
They achieved three Top Ten hits, including No 1 and the best-selling single of 1986, a club/dance version of don’t leave Me This Way.
coles is not your average church of england vicar. he is gay and lives with his civil partner, the Rev david coles (ne oldham), in a celibate relationship.
coles is a presenter on saturday live on BBc Radio 4, has appeared on TV’s have i Got News For You, Qi, celebrity Masterchef, Would i lie To You? and strictly come dancing.
coles also inspired the character of adam smallbone (played by Tom hollander) in the BBc2 sitcom Rev.
his published memoir Fathomless Riches charts his hedonistic pop lifestyle and his rescue through religion. Jason Bingham, Ledbury, Herefordshire. sisTeR doloRes, the prioress of the Benedictine abbey of Regina laudis in Bethlehem, connecticut, is a former film star who appeared with elvis Presley.
Before she was 20, dolores hart had appeared with elvis in loving You and King creole, and with anna Magnani and anthony Quinn in Wild is The Wind.
she received a Tony award nomination for her 1959 Broadway debut, The Pleasure of his company, and achieved star billing in 1960 with Where The Boys are, a film about the annual student invasion of Fort lauderdale during spring break.
having decided as a ten-year-old to convert to catholicism, by 1963 she had given up acting to become a nun. a documentary short film about her life — God is The Bigger elvis — was oscarnominated in 2012, and in 2013 she published her autobiography The ear of The heart: an actress’s Journey From hollywood To holy Vows.
she is also the answer to the quiz question: ‘Who is the only nun to be an oscar-voting member of the academy of Motion Picture arts and sciences?’ Mrs A. Radcliffe, Newcastle upon Tyne. hull-BoRN cornelius ‘con’ o’Kelly Jr boxed for Great Britain in the 1924 Paris olympics and turned pro that year, appearing in england and america. he won 51 fights out of 74 before becoming a Roman catholic priest.
The heavyweight boxer was ordained in 1945, and served in the Midlands and lancashire. he died in 1968.
in my neck of the woods, Rev Peter hart is a celebrity. he was a centre-half for Walsall Football club between 1980 and 1990, then took up the cloth.
he is chaplain of Walsall Fc and was at st luke’s church in cannock, staffordshire, until recently, when he moved to armitage, staffordshire. Tony Salisbury, Rugeley, Staffs.
QUESTION In the film The Untouchables, Eliot Ness is asked why he’s carrying a mohaskar (a gun). What is the origin of the term?
iN daVid Mamet’s script for The untouchables, sean connery’s character Jimmy Malone says eliot Ness: ‘oK, pal, why the mahaska?’
This spelling has led to the erroneous idea that the word is derived from chief Mahaska (1784-1834), known as White cloud, of the iowa tribe. Mahaska county, iowa, was named after him, as was the civil war steamer the uss Mahaska.
however, the word is far more frequently spelled mahoska, and its meaning was broader than just a gun: it referred to anything illicit or secret, a weapon or an item of contraband, a pistol or revolver, a knife, drugs or counterfeit cash.
although its origin is uncertain, some etymologists believe it derives from the irish phrase mo thosca, meaning ‘my business,’ an euphemistic term that conveys secrecy with a hint of menaces.
James Greene, Swansea.
QUESTION Are blue moons ever actually blue in colour?
WhaT we call a blue moon is an additional Full Moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, either the third of four Full Moons in a season or a second Full Moon in a calendar month.
however, a second Full Moon doesn’t change its colour, so most look the more usual white, although on rare occasions the Moon can appear blue, owing to certain atmospheric conditions, such as volcanic eruptions.
in 1883, people saw blue moons for several nights after the indonesian volcano Krakatoa exploded with the force of 200 megatons of TNT.
When plumes of ash rose to the very top of the earth’s atmosphere, some were filled with tiny particles one micron wide — about the same as the wavelength of red light. Particles of this particular size strongly scatter red light, but allow blue light to pass through. Krakatoa’s clouds thus acted like a blue filter.
There were also reports of bluecoloured moons in 1983 Mexico, caused by the eruption of the el chichon volcano in 1982, and on the island of luzon in the Philippines in 1991, when Mount Pinatubo erupted.
another trigger is forest fires. one example, is the giant muskeg (bog) blaze of september 1953 in alberta, canada, when smoke containing oil droplets produced lavender suns and blue moons from North america to Britain. Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wilts.
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