Let a monkey puzzle it out!
QUESTION Who dubbed Araucaria araucana the monkey puzzle tree?
THOUGH marketed as the Chile pine, this tree was called a monkey puzzle as a joke — and the name stuck.
It was introduced to the commercial nursery trade by Cornish plant hunter William Lobb in the 19th century.
According to Edgar Thurston in his 1930 book British And Foreign Trees And Shrubs In Cornwall, Sir William Molesworth was hosting a house party at Pencarrow in 1834 during which a specimen of what was then a very rare tree was planted. It cost him £25 — £3,200 today. A guest, the barrister Charles Austin, said on touching its prickly branches: ‘It would be a puzzle for a monkey.’
Richard Dee, former head gardener of the Lost Gardens
of Heligan, St Austell, Cornwall.
QUESTION Why is the aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth commanded by a captain and not an admiral? And why does it have two towers on its flight deck?
THE rank of the officer in charge of a Royal Navy ship is determined by the number of personnel on board, rather than by the vessel’s size, though the two usually go hand in hand.
A minesweeper, which has a small crew, might be commanded by a lieutenant.
An aircraft carrier effectively has two crews: one to operate and defend the ship and a second to operate the aircraft.
Without its air complement, HMS Queen Elizabeth didn’t have sufficient personnel to justify an officer more senior in rank than captain.
However, with the arrival of the ship’s aircraft, aircrew and associated technical personnel, the ship is now under the command of Commodore Steve Moorhouse, the rank appropriate for a fully operational Royal Navy aircraft carrier.
An admiral may use a carrier as his flagship for a battle group, but will command the battle group, not the ship, in much the same way Captain Thomas Hardy commanded HMS Victory, not Admiral Lord Nelson.
The Royal Navy experimented with aircraft carriers with twin towers — known as islands — in the Twenties to create a larger deck space on which to store and manoeuvre aircraft.
However, this design was found to create turbulence and cross winds that affected light aircraft. This was especially dangerous during landings when most of the deck was in use. A single island became standard for carriers worldwide.
Turbulence is not such a problem for the larger and heavier F35 aircraft, which land vertically at the rear of the flight deck. This has allowed a break from traditional designs.
Twin islands also allow the engine air intakes and funnels to be spaced farther apart, reducing the risk of simultaneous damage by enemy action.
Queen Elizabeth and sister ship, Prince of Wales, are commanded from the front island with air operations from the rear.
Bob Dillon, Edinburgh.
QUESTION Where did the Christian name
Elvis originate?
ST ELVIS performed the baptism of Wales’s patron saint, David, at Porth Clais in Pembrokeshire.
Elvis is thought to be the anglicised version of the Irish Gaelic name Ailbe. St Ailbe is recorded as the sixth century Bishop of Emly in Munster. He is also known as St Elwyn, St Alleyn, St Allen or St Elian. The Gaelic word ailbe means ‘white’, while ail means ‘rock’.
A few miles from the Preseli Hills is the small parish of St Elvis and a Neolithic burial chamber that bears the name St Elvis Cromlech.
This has led to rumours that Elvis Presley had Welsh ancestry. Studies of the singer’s family tree have shown him to be of Scots-Irish and Cherokee heritage. Elvis was named after his father, Vernon Elvis Presley, who came from a religious family.
Al Dean, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs.
QUESTION Trains from London to East Anglia were cancelled after balloons became caught in overhead wires. What other unusual incidents have caused transport delays?
FURTHER to earlier examples, in 1976 I was at an air navigation conference in Montreal. One evening a group of British delegates walked to the main railway station to see the famed bullet train arrive from Toronto. It didn’t turn up.
Its air intake had hit a skunk and the train had to be taken out of service as, due to the air conditioning, the carriages had been perfumed with ‘Eau de Pong’.
Closer to home, on a train leaving Waterloo for Portsmouth, I heard the announcement: ‘Apologies to customers for the late departure of this service. This has been caused by lack of information!’
John Langley, Newport, Isle of Wight.
CATCHING a train from Clutton, Somerset, we were 30 minutes late arriving at Bristol Temple Meads because a cow was walking along the railway line and our driver would not leave the train to chase it away.
A labourer working nearby eventually cleared the line.
On another occasion, I was late for work because the guard on the train got off at Whitchurch and blew his whistle, but the train door closed before he could get back on.
We had to wait at Brislington station a few miles away until the guard rejoined the train after getting a lift in a car.
Brian Rogers, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.
IN WINTER 1980, I was travelling on an evening local train from Edinburgh when it stopped just short of Polmont station.
We asked the guard why there was a delay and he said that a dog had been injured in an earlier incident on the railway line and its mate, a fierce Alsatian, wouldn’t let railway staff approach it.
We had to wait two hours for an RSPCA officer to arrive from Stirling.
John Bramall, Sheffield, S. Yorks.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB. You can also email them to charles.legge@dailymail. co.uk. A selection will be published, but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.