THE BIG QUESTIONS
There’s only a narrow window of a couple of weeks when the ice opens up and the plankton hasn’t turned the water too green. I saw a group of guillemots diving in this crack in the ice and felt I had a chance to get a shot. They tend to dive as a group and go down about 150 metres to fish before coming back up like rockets with the bubbles streaming behind them. I slowly worked my way towards them and they made this bomb-burst dive and opened up like the Red Arrows in formation. Just minutes after I took it, I was grabbed by a walrus.
Tanni Grey-thompson was on Countdown this week. I’ve always wondered about her lovely first name – is it Welsh? – P
Tanni is believed to be English in origin, and derives from “tawny” meaning “light, yellowish brown”.
Tanni Grey-thompson, however, is really named Cerys. When she was a baby, her sister thought she was very small, so called her “Tiny”. After a while, this became “Tanni” and the name stuck.
I love a walk out to my local lighthouse, Scurdie Ness. It’s a beautiful landmark. But I’ve always wondered how tall it is, and are all lighthouses the same height? – J
Built by David and Thomas Stevenson, Scurdie Ness is 128ft tall, with 170 steps leading to the light, which can be seen 20 nautical miles out to sea.
It was lit for the first time on March 1, 1870, to cheers from the crowds gathered in Ferryden and on the dunes of Montrose, across the mouth of the River South Esk.
Lighthouses come in a variety of heights, the tallest being Skerryvore, situated on rocks 11 miles south-west of Tiree, which stands 156ft high.
What was the name of the TV show about antiques? I recall it had a mechanical bird in a cage as the credits rolled. – T
That was Going For A Song, a game show about antiques which was on our screens from 1965-77.
Two experts and two celebrities tried to work out what a mystery object was and what it was worth. It made an unlikely star out of one of the experts, Arthur Negus, who went on to present the first episodes of Antiques Roadshow.