Why Jimi loved Ena
QUESTION Is it true that Jimi Hendrix was a big fan of Coronation Street’s Ena Sharples? Such is Jimi hendrix’s status as a rock ’n’ roll immortal, that few remember that he arrived in London in 1966 as a complete unknown after being discovered by The Animals’ bassist chas chandler playing in small clubs in New York’s Greenwich Village.
Almost as soon as he arrived, hendrix began a relationship with Kathy Etchingham, a trainee hairdresser and amateur DJ with a network of impressive contacts. It was through Etchingham that hendrix met The Beatles and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, whose support established his career. The couple briefly rented a flat from Ringo Starr.
Etchingham also introduced hendrix to British popular culture, including coronation Street. In her memoirs, she recalls hendrix was fascinated by Ena Sharples, the acid-tongued grande dame of the Rovers Return, played by Violet carson. hendrix found great inspiration in accents and dialects and said coming to Britain opened his imagination to the creative possibilities of the English language and made him a songwriter.
he remained an Anglophile for the rest of his short life — he died aged 27 after a drug overdose. When people ask me what hendrix would be doing now had he lived, I reply that, musically, I have no idea, but that I am sure he would be a member of Mortlake Bowling club, with his friends Roger Mayer, the electrical engineer who devised the guitar effect on Purple haze, and hammond organist Zoot Money.
William Saunders, author of Jimi Hendrix: London, N19. QUESTION Can any animals recognise their own reflection? ThE Gallup mirror self-recognition test is regarded as a key test for animal self-awareness.
In 1970, Gordon G. Gallup, a professor at Tulane university in Louisiana, the future home of the National Primate Research centre, was inspired to create the test after reading charles Darwin’s account of his visit to London Zoo in 1938. Darwin had been impressed by Jenny, the zoo’s first orangutan, and wrote to his sister that the animal was ‘astonished beyond measure’ when she saw her reflection in a mirror.
In 1889, German researcher Wilhelm Preyer became the first to posit a connection between mirror self-recognition and an inner sense of self in people.
In 1969, Gallup began experimenting with chimpanzee reactions to mirrors. he isolated two chimps and placed a mirror in each cage for eight hours at a time over ten days. Gallup observed marked changes in the chimps’ behaviour.
First, they treated the reflection as if it was another chimp. But, over time, they started to explore their own bodies. ‘They’d use the mirror to look at the inside of their mouths, to make faces at the mirror, to inspect their genitals,’ said Gallup. In 1970, he anaesthetised the chimps, then painted one eyebrow ridge and the opposite ear tip with a red dye. Gallup recorded how the chimps touched the marks. In the early Nineties, Gallup encouraged one of his PhD students, Lori Marino, to explore the question further. Working with Diana Reiss at Marine World/Africa u.S. in california, Marino exposed two bottlenose dolphins at an aquarium to a mirror. Like the chimpanzees, the dolphins learned to use the mirror in a variety of ways. They whistled and squawked to reach out to the reflection socially. Then they performed a series of imitation games, such as opening their mouths and wiggling their tongues. Reiss concluded this proved they were self-aware. Only bonobos, orangutans, dolphins, orcas, elephants, humans, magpies and possibly pigeons have passed the Gallup mirror self-recognition test. Michelle Davies, Richmond, Surrey. QUESTION Do Urdu speakers consider the liver to be the centre of emotions, rather than the heart? I WAS born and raised in a Punjabi urduspeaking family in the north-western region of India. I often heard the words
jigar and kaleza, which are the urdu terms for the liver.
Whenever they wanted to show affection, the people in that area would say you are tukda of my kaleza — meaning you are part of my liver.
Dr Prem Ohri, Bangor.
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