Go for broke with Mr Fixit
QUESTION What was the first item on TV’s The Repair Shop?
The Repair Shop is a wonderful BBC programme where a team of skilled craftsmen and women restore broken objects to their former glory.
The opening episode was broadcast on March 27, 2017, and the first item to be fixed was a clock, repaired by furniture restorer and foreman Jay Blades and horologist Steve Fletcher.
The clock had sentimental value for its owner Jane Fanner because it had been built by hand by her blind father.
Jane could not recall the exact chime, simply that it reminded her of her father. Steve immediately recognised that nine gongs meant it had a Whittington chime, so-called because it resembles that of St Mary-le-Bow church in London, which has connections to Lord Mayor of London Richard ‘Dick’ Whittington.
When the fixed clock was demonstrated, it proved to be an emotional moment as Jane’s father had passed away while sitting next to it.
Two other items featured on the opening programme. The first was a damaged wooden model of a flying fish that had been carved by an inhabitant of the Pitcairn Islands 50 years previously.
The other was a beautiful Settimio Soprani accordion owned by Sarah Brierley, whose 94-year-old gran, Iris, had played it in Underground shelters during the Blitz to boost morale.
Accordion expert Roger Thomas took it to pieces, tested the 448 individual reeds, repaired the leather and felt ‘sandwiches’ and realigned the keys. In a poignant final scene, Sarah played the repaired accordion to her gran.
Annette Miles, Newquay, Cornwall.
QUESTION Do fireflies synchronise their flashes?
FIREFLIES are not flies, but beetles, with thousands of species found in temperate and tropical regions.
The synchronisation of large groups of fireflies has been recorded for at least four centuries.
There are several mechanisms for synchronisation. In phase advance synchrony, the insect is able to advance its phase to a pulse of light, but can’t delay it. In phase delay synchrony, the phase can be advanced or delayed. In perfect synchrony, there is no time lag even if the stimulating frequency is not the same as the intrinsic frequency.
Three tropical Asian fireflies — Pteroptyx malaccae, Pteroptyx tener and Luciola pupilla — appear to be able to achieve perfect synchronisation. They keep such a tight rhythm that they are called living clockworks.
experiments have shown the Thai firefly can blink in response to a neighbour’s flare in 150 to 200 milliseconds. Yet the insects flash together in too tight a burst for a leader to be sending the signal for each surge. even the slowcoaches lag no more than 20 milliseconds behind.
humans can get into phase without listening to a leader for each beat. A hall full of people who are asked to close their eyes and tap the arm of their chair as soon as possible after the leader’s signal have been shown to get into sync in just five taps.
Researchers have proposed variations on the model for firefly synchrony, but they always involve an internal pacemaker in the insect’s tiny brain.
During certain phases of its rhythm, the pacemaker becomes sensitive to a neighbour’s flash. A quick twinkle resets the clock.
When the sensitivity occurs and what the resetting flash affects seem to vary by species. Researchers have coaxed fireflies into changing their natural rhythms by as much as 20 per cent.
Synchronisation among fireflies might serve a mating function. One theory suggests flashing in unison aids the females in picking up the rhythm of the right species. Another idea is that a male will flash in unison with a neighbour flirting with a female — that way he might get a chance to steal her.
Males may be sending a neon message as direct as: ‘Over here, girls!’
Emilie McRae, Trowbridge, Wilts.
QUESTION Are the bones in St Rosalia’s shrine in Sicily really those of a goat?
The bones revered as those of St Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo, were identified as being those of a goat by the eccentric 19th-century geologist and theologian William Buckland.
Born in 1130, Rosalia left home at the age of 14 to become a hermit. She devoted her life to worshipping God until her death in 1166.
In 1624, the Black Death spread through Palermo. A local woman claimed to have seen a vision of Rosalia, who instructed her that the outbreak would end ‘as soon as my bones are carried in procession through the city’.
Remains were recovered from a cave on Mount Pellegrino, duly paraded and a miracle was deemed to have occurred. every year on July 14 and 15 the citizens of Palermo commemorate the event in the vibrant Festino celebration.
William Buckland was Dean of Westminster and an expert in palaeontology, the study of fossils and bones. he wrote the first account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus.
A true eccentric, he took part in field work wearing an academic gown. his lectures were famous for his imitations of the movements of dinosaurs.
Palermo was one of the stops on Buckland’s honeymoon in 1825. Visiting St Rosalia’s shrine, he declared: ‘They are the bones of a goat, not of a woman.’
The priests told Buckland the saint would not allow him to see what was only visible to the Roman Catholics. Thereafter the bones were enclosed in a casket, away from prying eyes, and stored in the reliquary of Palermo Cathedral.
Devotion to the saint remains strong in Sicily. The Monte Pellegrino hermitage is a shrine to St Rosalia. Artworks celebrating her life abound in Palermo, the finest of which is a Van Dyck portrait in the Palazzo Abatellis.
Sophie Buckland, Dorking, Surrey.
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