Ifitwasn’tforbertha wemayneverhave hadfillingstations...
Your STORY BEHIND THE SONG
I have a hazy recollection of a drink I used to love in my youth. Am I right in thinking it was called Tree Tops? – P.
There was a squash in the ’70s called Tree Top and it came in four flavours, orange, Mandarin, lemon and lime.
The bottle had an unusually-shaped screw top cap, which many people would use as an egg cup.
Another popular squash you may recall from the time was called Quosh.
Man of many clubs, Kenny Miller, has retired from playing football – which made me ponder, which footballer has played for most sides? – H.
Kenny has played for 12 clubs (Rangers three times), but that’s nowhere near the most.
The record is held by Sebastian Abreu, who has played for 26 clubs in 11 countries. He is now player/coach of Boston River in his home country of Uruguay.
The one near me has a strange mixture of goods – I mean, of course, barbecue briquets and kindling.
Yes, like most others, my local petrol station sells more than just fuel – it flogs flowers, groceries and vastly overpriced bottles of water, too.
But I would like to know where the first petrol station was built – in the US, I presume. – F.
Actually, the first was opened in Germany.
It wasn’t what we would recognise today as a filling station, but was a pharmacist’s shop.
On August 5, 1888, Bertha Benz, wife of automobile inventor Karl Benz, was the first person to drive a car over a long distance.
She drove from Mannheim to her mother’s home in Pforzheim, 65 miles away. At the time, her car ran on Ligroin, a solvent available only at dispensing chemists’ shops, so she stopped at the StadtApotheke in Weisloch, making it the world’s first filling station!
Along the way, she had a blacksmith in Bruchsal mend a
When did my favourite film star – Wile E. Coyote – make his debut? –T.
The hapless beast has been trying to catch his cunning adversary, Road Runner for more than 70 years, since 1949’s Fast And Furry-ous. There have been 48 cartoons featuring the pair, who were dreamed up by animator/director
Chuck Jones and screenwriter Mike
Maltese. drive chain, which means he could claim to be the world’s first garage.
However, she also had to make repairs of her own – using a hat pin to clean a fuel pipe which had become blocked, and a garter to insulate a wire.
The first petrol station in the US was opened in St Louis, Missouri, in 1905.
Britain’s first petrol station was opened by the Automobile Association at Aldermaston in Berkshire in 1919.
What’s the story behind Sleeping Satellite by Tasmin Archer? – E.
The former sewing machine operator, typist and Magistrates’ Court clerk teamed up with co-writers John Beck and John Hughes under the umbrella of The Archers, not to be confused with the Radio 4 soap of the same name. Together they wrote
I don’t understand why my wife loves the chocolates she buys every time we do the weekly shop as I can’t stand them. I also don’t know why they are called Ferrero Rocher. Any ideas? – G.
Ferrero is an Italian confectionary company, the second largest in the world.
They introduced the Ferrero Rocher in Europe in 1982.
Inventor Michele Ferrero, named the chocolate after a grotto in Lourdes, Rocher de Massabielle.
Sleeping Satellite in 1988 but it wasn’t until the singer penned a solo deal with EMI in 1990 that it saw the light of day as the lead single from her debut record, Great Expectations.
Her first and only top 10 hit to date, it knocked The Shamen’s Ebenezeer Goode off the top spot before spending two weeks at No 1 in October 1992.