Barometer

Horror shows Eight people were killed when fans of rapper Travis Scott rushed the stage at a concert in Houston, Texas. Some previous deadly concerts: — 11 were killed at a Who gig in Cincinnati on 3 December 1979, after a crush sparked off by concert-goers outside the entry doors mistakenly thinking the band had started playing when they were only tuning up. — Nine were killed at a concert by Pearl Jam at Roskilde, Denmark on 30 June 2000. — 11 people were killed during a festival in Rabat, Morocco on 23 May 2009. Stevie Wonder and Kylie Minogue were on the bill, although not on stage at the time. Third time’s the charm How many people are likely to have a booster Covid jab? By 6 November, 10.

Another minute Addressing COP26 in Glasgow, the Prime Minister claimed it was ‘one minute to midnight’ in the fight against climate change. How many warnings have we had?

Filming fatalities The actor Alec Baldwin accidentally shot a cinematographer on set when mistakenly given a gun loaded with real bullets. Others who have died on set: — Martha Mansfield was resting in her car during the filming of a romance set in the US civil war in 1923 when someone flung a match which set her dress alight. — John Jordan fell out of a plane while filming Catch-22 in 1969. — Vic Morrow was decapitated by a low-flying helicopter while filming Twilight Zone: the Movie in 1982. — Jon-Erik Hexum shot himself while fooling around with a gun on the set of the CBS series Cover Up in 1984. — Roy Kinnear succumbed to injuries after he fell from a horse during the filming of The Return of the Three Musketeers in 1988.

Drinks at the palace The Queen was reported to have given up regular drinking. What do we know about her drinking habits (or what she likes to offer her guests) to judge by the royal warrants she has issued? — These drinks firms currently hold warrants: Bacardi Martini; Berry Bros and Rudd; Britvic soft drinks; Bollinger; G.H. Mumm et Cie; Krug; Lanson Père et Fils; Laurent-Perrier; Moet & Chandon; Veuve Cliquot; James White drinks (tomato juice); Laphroaig distillery. Testing, testing From 24 October, travellers to Britain will no longer be required to present a negative PCR test for Covid, but will be able to use lateral flow tests. Will this mean extra cases of the disease getting into Britain?

Wrong place, wrong time The name of the village of Nelson, north of Cardiff, was described as ‘problematic’ in an audit commissioned by the Welsh parliament, on the grounds that Admiral Nelson is claimed to have opposed the abolition of slavery. Some other place names that might not be safe: — Blackboys, East Sussex — Blackgang, Isle of Wight — Churchill, Devon, North Somerset, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire — Colston Bassett, Notts — Lower Bitchfield, Lincs — Nelson, Lancashire — Pett Bottom, Kent — Rhodes, Greater Manchester So much hot air The government claims that the UK has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 43% since 1990. Is that a fair claim?

Whole-life sentences How many prisoners are serving whole-life sentences? — There are currently 74 prisoners in prison with whole-life tariffs; 11 had the tariff imposed by a home secretary and 63 had it imposed by a judge. There are only two women, including Rosemary West. — A further 29 people have at some point been given whole-life tariffs but have had them reduced on appeal, or been released under the Good Friday Agreement. — 22 prisoners have died while serving whole-life sentences. — The prisoner who has served the longest sentence is Robert Maudsley, who was jailed for one murder in 1977 and was given a whole-life sentence after committing a further three murders in prison.

Scummy idea Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner called Tories ‘scum’ in a speech to activists at her party’s conference. The word, derived from a 14th-century Dutch word for foam, was first recorded in the sense of an insult in Christopher Marlowe’s play Tamburlaine, written in the late 1580s. Referring to Christian slaves kept by the Turks, Tamburlain says: ‘These are the cruel pirates of Argier, that damned train, the scum of Africa.’ Thereafter, the term tended to be applied to people of low birth rather than people who are of evil or ill intent — which is presumably what Rayner meant. Who’s had jabs? Are western countries hoarding vaccines and depriving developing countries?

Seeds of change The Chelsea Flower Show opened in autumn for the first time, delayed thanks to the pandemic. The show has been cancelled before due to the world wars — during the second world war the site was used for an anti-aircraft gun emplacement. But it wasn’t always held in Chelsea. It began as the Royal Horticultural Society show in Chiswick, held from 1827 onwards. It moved to Kensington Gardens in 1861 when rival flower shows were attracting visitors away. In 1888 it moved to Temple Gardens, between Fleet Street and the Thames. It was first held in Chelsea — in a single marquee — in 1913. Highly charged Energy prices spiked. Which countries have the most expensive electricity for domestic customers (US cents per kWh)?

Floating vote Voters in St Petersburg were presented with three candidates all calling themselves Boris Vishnevsky, with two believed to have changed name and appearance to draw votes from the other. It is not the first time voters have faced a confusing choice: — In a Moscow city election in 2019 voters had the option of voting for ‘Alexander Solovyov’ — though it turned out not to be the Alexander Solovyov who was in prison at the time and barred from standing. — In the 2017 local election in Ferguslie Park, Glasgow, Conservative John McIntyre was elected, with many speculating that voters had meant to opt for an independent candidate called John Goudie McIntyre.

Escape velocity The evacuation of Afghanistan was likened to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. What were the logistics of that operation? — Although most US troops had left Vietnam, 5,000 civilians remained. Some left during the month, but ambassador Graham Martin gave the order to evacuate everyone only on 29 April. — The only available airbase had been shelled and there were no sea or land routes, so the only way out was by helicopter. In 24 hours 7,000 people were evacuated, including 5,500 Vietnamese citizens. Helicopters took off from the US embassy compound every ten minutes. — It was a 50-minute ride to US warships waiting off the coast.

Birth of the Paralympics While Athens can claim to be the home city of the Olympic Games, the Paralympics can be traced to Stoke Mandeville, Buckinghamshire, where, on the day of the opening ceremony of the 1948 London Olympics, neuroscientist Sir Ludwig Guttmann — a German-Jewish émigré — held an archery competition for 16 of his spinal patients. The following year it was expanded into the Stoke Mandeville Games, involving several events for wheelchair-bound patients. In 1952, competitors from the Netherlands were invited to take part too. The first Paralympics coinciding with the Olympic Games were held in Rome in 1960.

Student takeover Where did the Taliban come from? — The word ‘Taliban’ means simply ‘students’ in Pashtun. They were originally a group of 50 students from the Sang-i-Hisar madrassa in Kandahar, led by Mohammed Omar, and committed to the overthrow of the warlords who were running Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. The movement emerged in 1994. By November of that year it was already in control of the city of Kandahar and two years later took control of the whole country. Hydrogen balloon The government published its ‘hydrogen strategy’, which it claimed could create 9,000 jobs by 2030 and eventually account for between 20% and 35% of UK energy consumption. How big is Britain’s hydrogen economy at present?

Woolly thinking There were protests in Whitehall to save Geronimo, an alpaca due to be put down after testing positive for tuberculosis. How many alpacas are there in Britain? — The British Alpaca Society claims to have 1,500 members who between them own 45,000 alpacas. — The society’s annual show can attract as many as 600 animals for display. — The wool from the animal, a native of South America, was introduced to Britain in 1836 by Sir Titus Salt, the industrialist and founder of Saltaire, the model villagein West Yorkshire.

Happy valet Police Scotland dropped what they said was a randomly generated codeword — ‘Bunter’ — for the security operation when Boris Johnson visited Scotland. While the name invited comparisons between the PM and Billy Bunter, the overweight public schoolboy in the Greyfriars stories, there is another Bunter in fiction. Mervyn Bunter was the immaculate and well-organised manservant to private detective Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy L. Sayers’ crime stories. This Bunter’s defining characteristics were knowledge, accuracy and loyalty — and he was always on hand to correct Wimsey before he committed any social faux pas.

Reinventing the wheels Skateboarding made its debut at the Olympics. Who invented the skateboard? — There are many reports of homemade skateboards being created in the 1940s and 1950s by Californian surfers who wanted to continue a form of their sport out of season, but the first commercial skateboard was marketed by roller-skate company Roller Derby in 1959. The sport, however, failed to catch on until 1973, with the introduction of urethane wheels and a curve at the end of a board known as the ‘kick-tail’, which allowed acrobatics to be performed. Water logs There was more surface flooding in London. Is heavy rain becoming more common in London? The Met Office uses different ways to measure long-term rainfall trends. 1.

Waiting Games What did Japan, and the world, look like the last time Tokyo held the Olympics in 1964? — As this year, Tokyo had to wait to hold the Games. It was awarded the 1940 Olympics, but the offer was withdrawn after the Japanese invasion of China (before the 1940 Games were abandoned altogether). — South Africa was banned for the first time for refusing to send a single, multiracial team to the Games. — In spite of it being three years since the building of the Berlin Wall, East and West Germany entered a single ‘united’ team. — They were the first Games broadcast around the world by satellite. — They were the last Games to use a cinder athletics track.

Space cadets Richard Branson joined a test flight on his Virgin Galactic craft to the edge of space, to promote the tourist space trips he has been promising for over a decade. How much does it cost to be a space tourist (assuming any succeed in taking passengers)? £180,000: Price for a Virgin Galactic trip to the edge of space. Passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness but will not orbit the Earth or cross the Karman Line deemed to mark the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and space. Price includes spacesuit. £20m: Price of a seat in Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft, auctioned in June. Includes an 11-minute flight into space, sitting next to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. £39.

Mask crusader Who first wore a medical face mask? — The beaked outfits worn by plague doctors aside, the first doctor to wear a mask was the French abdominal surgeon Paul Berger in 1897. His mask, made from six layers of gauze, was inspired by the work of German microbiologist Carl Flugge, who had revealed what a good breeding ground saliva is for bacteria. Berger delivered a paper on masks to the Surgical Society of Paris in 1899, after which they were adopted in other countries. Penalty points How many penalties are scored in the European Football Championship and World Cup? — The overall scoring rate is 75%. In shootouts to decide the outcome of drawn matches, the first player to take a penalty has scored 80% of the time.

Isolated cases Large numbers of people are still being ordered to self-isolate in spite of having been vaccinated — 137,560 people were identified as close contacts of positive Covid cases through the Test and Trace system between 10 and 16 June. How well have they been adhering to the rules? — 79% say they have fully conformed. — 80% claimed they had had no contact with non-household members. — Of the 21% who didn’t adhere to the rules, 90% said they had left home during the period in which they were supposed to be isolating and 21% said they had had visitors to their home. — 41% said that isolating had had a negative effect on their wellbeing and mental health. — 28% reported that they had lost income.

Royal waves Does any other country have a royal yacht? — The Queen of Denmark uses HDMY Dannebrog, a 260ft vessel built in 1932 to replace a paddle steamer of the same name. — The Dutch royal family own a 50ft 1950s yacht, De Groene Draeck, used only locally. — King Harald V of Norway has the use of HNoMY Norge, a 264ft vessel originally built for aircraft manufacturer Thomas Sopwith in 1937 and bought by the Norwegian people for their royal family after the second world war. It was restored following a serious fire in 1985. — King Mohammed VI of Morocco owns El Boughaz I, a 133ft yacht built for a private American owner in 1930 and originally called the Black Douglas. Covid death counts Is the UK still near the top of chart for Covid deaths?