Boxing clever with Del Boy
QUESTION
In the opening credits of Only Fools And Horses, there is a photo of a barman with spectacles and moustache. Who was he and where was the pub?
The barman was Alby hollister, my great-grandfather. A professional boxer from Islington, North London, in the Forties and Fifties, he fought 55 times as a professional, with 28 wins, 24 losses and three draws.
In a middleweight championship bout against Warwickshire-born Randolph Turpin in 1948, he became the only man to knock the Leamington Licker to the canvas. This was something even the great Sugar Ray Robinson couldn’t achieve, having fought Turpin twice in the early Fifties.
During his boxing career, hollister became close friends with fellow local boxer Freddie Mills, whose life and mysterious death was explored in the BBC documentary Murder In Soho: Who Killed Freddie Mills?
hollister gave up boxing in 1952 to concentrate on raising his family, working in Smithfield meat market and the stalls of holloway Road. he bought The Alma pub in Chapel Market in Islington in 1971 with his wife, Rosie, where he was photographed for the title credits of Only Fools And horses.
As a prominent figure in the North London social scene, he was close friends with Terry Downes, the former middleweight world champion, hollywood actor and nightclub owner.
hollister was The Alma’s landlord until the late Nineties, and died in 2006 aged 84. An obituary in the Islington Gazette commemorated an adored local hero.
Harry Lousley, Luton, Beds.
QUESTION
I count the number of steps I take on staircases. What other pointless obsessions are there?
I THOUGHT I was alone. I also count compulsively up to 20, over and over. I do this not just on stairs, but when walking alone or doing repetitive actions.
I don’t recall when this started or why, but it has secretly worried me.
G. Batabyal, Manchester.
My pointless obsession happens in the morning: I try to get the cat fed and tea or coffee and sugar in the mugs before the electric kettle boils. Don’t ask me why I do this — I haven’t a clue!
Pete Williams, Hayes, Middlesex.
My DAD read me When We Were young by A.A. Milne when I was a child, which contained the following advice:
Whenever I walk in a London street, I’m ever so careful to watch my feet; And I keep in the squares, And the masses of bears, Who wait at the corners all ready to eat The sillies who tread on the lines of
the street, Go back to their lairs.
I still avoid the cracks in the pavement — and I’m 48!
Gareth Dewar, Edinburgh.
I count the number of items I put into the washing machine, but don’t count them back out again. So when the sock fairy has her way with a sock, I am at a loss to account for its disappearance.
Pamela Stewart, Okehampton, Devon.
QUESTION
Could HHO gas, made from water, solve the energy crisis?
The idea of HHO gas is that water is separated into its three basic atoms, two of hydrogen and one of oxygen, which are then used for different purposes. The two hydrogen atoms, being combustible, would be used as a fuel.
The origins of the theory behind hhO is in Jules Verne’s 1875 book The Mysterious Island, in which he predicted water would be used as a fuel. This sparked a search for the holy Grail of fuels.
A century later, Australian yull Brown claimed to have found a way of separating water using electricity, paving the way for a water-powered car.
his discovery was called hhO or Brown’s gas. The theory is simple: pass an electrical current through water containing an electrolyte such as salt. The electricity breaks the bonds between the three atoms in a molecule of water, releasing them as a gas. The hydrogen atoms are then fed to a combustion system to burn and provide power.
however, there has been no working model of a vehicle that uses Brown’s process to separate hydrogen from water to power an engine.
A u.S. Department of Transportation report in 2007 stated that a vehicle using the hhO system was feasible as a way of improving the efficiency of diesel power by increasing mileage and reducing emissions. This report was seized upon by proponents of alternative fuels as proof that the theory was valid.
however, the main issue is that it takes more energy to create the gas than is produced when the fuel is burned.
In energy terms, you are robbing peter to pay paul. While it may be possible to reduce the amount of diesel used by the engine, far more energy would be required to split the atoms.
until that energy equation can be balanced or, better still, tilted in the other direction, there is no mileage to be gained from hhO fuel.
however, were it to become a reality, it would be world-changing. Four-fifths of the earth’s surface is covered by water, giving us a huge source of energy.
By recombining unused oxygen atoms with hydrogen atoms at the point of combustion, water would be created, reducing the amount lost during the separation process and therefore making the fuel supply almost inexhaustible.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.
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