THE BIG QUESTIONS
Which brave soul was the first person to allow a magician to saw them in half? – R
The illusion, billed as “Sawing Through A Woman”, was first performed at the Finsbury Park Empire, London, in 1921, by magician TP Selbit.
The woman was his assistant, Betty Barker.
Selbit went on to create many other illusions, some of which are still performed today, such as Man Without A Middle, Stretching A Girl, and Avoiding The Crush
It’s my local supermarket but I don’t know what its name – Lidl – actually means. Can you tell me, Queries Man? – G
The supermarket chain was founded in Germany by Josef Schwarz in the 1930s. By the ’70s, as his son, Dieter, expanded the company into the wholesale food market, he realised he couldn’t call his firm Schwarz-markt as that meant “black market”.
He tried to use the name of a former business partner, A. Lidl, but failed due to legal reasons. Eventually he read about a retired painter, Ludwig Lidl, so bought the rights to use the name Lidl from him for 1,000 Marks.
Lidl now has around 100 stores in Scotland.
If the earth was totally smooth, with no mountains, how deep would the covering of water be? – P
It’s a terrible thought, but if all the planet was rendered smooth, the water would cover the globe in a layer of water approximately 8,810ft deep.
Currently, the area of the earth covered by the sea is estimated to be 139,670,000 square miles. This represents 70.92% of the total surface.