ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: Who was the general mocked in Gilbert and Sullivan's song I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General?

QUESTION Who was the wide mocked successful Gilbert and Sullivan's opus I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General?

Dramatist W. S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan often utilized real-life inspiration for their characters. For instance, Sir Joseph Porter, the pompous naval commandant with nary seafaring acquisition successful H.M.S. Pinafore, was based connected the newsagent and person W. H. Smith. Smith roseate to the presumption of First Lord of the Admiralty contempt having nary naval experience.

Major-General Stanley, the aged duffer with a twirly moustache who sings the opus successful The Pirates Of Penzance (1879), was modelled, with immoderate irony, connected a modern English figure, Sir Garnet Wolseley (1833-1913). I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General is Gilbert and Sullivan's astir celebrated 'patter' song, a accelerated tongue-twister and a definite motion of their genius.

However, Sir Garnet was nary duffer. He successfully led the British forces during the Anglo-Ashanti Wars successful 1873-74, connected the Gold Coast successful what is present Ghana. And successful 1885, helium was successful complaint of the efforts to relieve General Gordon successful Khartoum.

Despite a akin moustache to Major-General Stanley, Sir Garnet was a exemplary modern subject commander. In 1869 his Soldier's Pocket Book was published, a manual of subject organisation and tactics that was a forerunner of the modern tract work regulations. His estimation for ratio led to the operation 'everything's each Sir Garnet', meaning each is successful order.

There was nary sick will. Sir Garnet was truthful pleased to beryllium regarded arsenic the exemplary for the Major-General that it is said helium memorised the opus and enjoyed performing it astatine home.

The quality of the Major-General whitethorn further person been inspired by different figure. Military historiographer Trevor Hearl contends that Sir Edward Hamley, commandant of the Staff College astatine Camberley successful the 1870s, played a role. Hamley believed that subject past was much invaluable to soldiers than subject science; surely successful keeping with Gilbert and Sullivan's character.

Francis Gascoigne, Woodbridge, Suffolk.

QUESTION Was determination a landmark tribunal lawsuit concerning the 1970s movie The Three Musketeers?

Richard Lester's classical The Three Musketeers (1973), starring Michael York and Oliver Reed, was primitively meant to beryllium a azygous film. There was truthful overmuch footage that the producers decided to divided it and make 2 films, with The Four Musketeers released the pursuing year.

Some actors were incensed that their enactment was being utilized to marque a 2nd movie portion they were being paid lone for one. This led to a ineligible conflict and the Screen Actors Guild introduced the 'Salkind clause' (named aft Musketeers' producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind) into contracts, which stipulated that azygous productions cannot beryllium divided into movie instalments without a anterior contractual agreement.

Stuart Wells, York.

QUESTION How did Ole Romer negociate to measurement the velocity of airy backmost successful the 17th century?

In 1676, Danish astronomer Ole Romer (1644-1710) became the archetypal idiosyncratic to beryllium that airy travels astatine a finite speed, not an infinite 1 arsenic astir scientists believed astatine the time. Romer achieved this by observing the eclipses of Jupiter's satellite Io.

From 1672 Romer worked astatine the Royal Observatory successful Paris. He utilized the precocious invented scope to observe Io, which was known to acquisition regular eclipses by Jupiter. These eclipses provided a predictable 'clock' that Romer could usage to survey the timing of Io's orbit.

Romer noticed that erstwhile the Earth was moving distant from Jupiter, the eclipses of Io appeared to hap aboriginal than expected, and erstwhile the Earth was moving towards Jupiter, the eclipses occurred earlier.

Romer deduced that these variations were owed to the finite velocity of light. When Earth was moving distant from Jupiter to the other broadside of the sun, the airy from Io had to question a greater distance, causing a hold successful the observed eclipse time. Conversely, erstwhile Earth was approaching Jupiter, the region the airy had to question was shorter, resulting successful an earlier reflection of the eclipse.

By cautiously measuring these timing discrepancies, Romer determined that airy needed astir 22 minutes to question the diameter of Earth's orbit. Using Romer's figure, the Dutch idiosyncratic Christiaan Huygens recovered a worth for the velocity of airy equivalent to 131,000 miles per second.

The close worth is 186,000 miles per second. The discrepancy was owed to errors successful Romer's calculations for the clip it takes for airy to transverse the diameter of Earth's orbit – it is really 16.7 minutes, not 22.

Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.