The Guardian - 07.08.2019

Section:GDN 12 PaGe:7 Edition Date:190807 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 6/8/2019 17:44 cYanmaGentaYellowblac

• The Guardian
  Wednesday 7 August 2019 77
  Notes & queries

The weekly series where readers answer other readers’

questions on subjects ranging from trivial fl ights

of fancy to profound scientifi c concepts

ended when you opened the

windows – remember the sparks

and fl urries of coal particles that

came along?

ID5161948

When I started working on the

railways 30 years ago there were

still plenty of steam drivers

from the 1950s and 60s around.

One of them, who had started in

1944, always said it was the best

thing that ever happened to him

as a driver when they replaced

steam trains with diesel engines

and when electric traction came

along, that was just grand – it was

so much cleaner. He said steam

engines were horrible smelly

things that required a lot of

looking after.

Any answers?

I have a cocker

spaniel and

whenever we

walk in the

countryside I

am amazed by

her ability to

sniff among the

nettles in the

hedgerows. I

can understand

a deep furry

coat being

impervious to

nettles, but a

damp, sensitive,

hairless nose?

Any suggestions

as to how this

phenomenon

occurs?

Michael Turton

Could you be

charged on

Earth for killing

someone in

outer space?

There is no

sovereignty

up t here ...

Peter Martin,

Skewen, Neath

Port Talbot

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Wasn’t it basically all

down to human ingenuity

and clever maths?

leadballoon

Yes, it was, because the humans

designed the hardware and that was

controlled by software written by

other humans. Previously, aircraft

hadn’t needed computers because

they had stability built into the

aerodynamic design and enough

analogue linkage in controls for a

human to keep track of fl ying in real

time. There’s a learned ability by

the pilot to time moving controls

while monitoring the visuals and

instruments to get the results

needed. In space that gets more

complicated. There is no stability;

How important

were computers

in Apollo 11?

you drift wherever the gravity leads

and the gravity that tells an aircraft

what is “up” isn’t there in the same

way. The interaction of dozens

of tiny thrusters, plus the engine

thrust, based on the feedback

from sensors, is what controls

movement; and that movement in

turn has to be in the context of the

calculated position and trajectory

of the craft, balanced with forces

such as gravity from the Earth and

the moon. It is more than a human

can reliably do and that is why a

computer was required.

The Apollo computer was as

powerful as it needed to be to

perform specialised calculation

and control. A modern smartphone

is doing digital video, handling all

the network communications stuff

and a load of other functions the

Apollo computer never had to do.

So a smartphone might have more

raw power, but it is all wasted doing

irrelevant stuff from an Apollo

fl ight’s point of view.

How can you spot

the quickest-

moving queue at

the supermarket?

have to pack before they cleared the

way for the next customer. Other

factors, such as people struggling

with children or those who need to

root around for their purse buried

in their bag, can add signifi cantly. I

always began in a new supermarket

by choosing the queue with the

fewest people (couples or groups

shopping jointly count as one) and

keeping an eye on where I would

have been if I joined adjacent queues.

After a while you get a feel for the

best odds in that supermarket. I then

decided that I had more important

things to think about.

DebW

Don’t get in the queue I’m in. It may

look the shortest, but the till roll

will run out and someone will have

the reduced price item where the

cashier has to scratch off the label

then type in the barcode by hand.

Or the card of the person at the

front will decline, or they will have

forgotten their pin.

Were steam trains more

punctual and reliable?

suebian

Timetables were much more

generous with stopping times

(10-20 minutes at major stations

• today it’s two or three minutes)
  so catching up on a late run was
  much easier. Local traffi c, however,
  was ridiculously slow and steam
  engines were not monsters of
  acceleration. Also, all comfort

Was there ever

a golden age

of steam?

Roy Grimwood, Market Drayton

I carried out my own experiment.

Checkout operators were generally

very quick at scanning, so the

amount of items in a basket had

only a marginal eff ect. More time-

consuming were the processes of

paying and packing. I always started

by looking for the queue with

fewest people, as this reduced the

payment time, although the rise in

contactless payment gives an edge

to smaller baskets. Packing varied,

as sometimes people returned

the goods to the trolley to pack

afterwards , while basket shoppers

who left the basket behind after

loading the conveyor belt would

has found many examples of losses

going back to the 17th century.

“The appropriation of rights of

way,” he writes, “is a perpetual but

surprisingly overlooked aspect of

England’s much-studied landscape.”

Preferences for privacy and fi ne

views led landowners to demolish

villages and reroute, or simply

obliterate, roads and paths. Jones

points to a typical case in Methley,

West Yorkshire, when, in 1627, Sir

Henry Savile built a new park and

refused to countenance “a common

road way ” through it. The right of

way simply disappeared.

At some point, all of us have

probably wondered why the

routes of certain roads can be so

capricious, suddenly darting around

an apparently unnecessary right

angle. The answer is often in the

past. The A350 between Shaftesbury

and Blandford Forum, for example,

does a big loop to avoid a certain

fi sh pond, the property in the 17th

century of the Beckford family,

whose sugar plantations in Jamaica

paid for their Dorset estate to be

remodelled, including the diversion

of local roads. A contemporary trunk

road, it seems, can owe its course to

the slave trade.

John Andrews, a keen walker

in Suff olk, is a veteran of more

recent battles. He saw the original

story and got in touch to tell us

he has submitted more than 800

applications since 1973. “When I

fi rst asked my local council for their

defi nitive map, they didn’t know

what I was talking about.” The map

was eventually found, in an attic,

and Andrews pored over it with a
council offi cer. “Our fi rst discovery
was that their new council building
was built on a public footpath.”
The early years of Andrews’s
campaign were marred by bullying
and violence. “I was physically
attacked several times by
landowners.” The old one-inch OS
maps were not made for walkers
and caused disputes. Fortunately,
with the increasing popularity of
walking and hiking, plus larger-
scale maps, Andrews feels attitudes
have changed. His advice to those
submitting applications is simple.
“Go through the Ramblers, they will
save you no end of time and eff ort.
And collect strong evidence.”
For Cornish, the battle for our
rights of way is about what kind of
country we want to live in. “More
paths means people are more likely
to walk. Take away a useful cut-
through in a town, for example,
and someone might drive to work
instead of walking. More paths mean
a healthier and happier population.”
It is an argument that seems to
have resonated internationally.
Cornish has been contacted by media
from all around the world: German
journalists were in touch to ask
why their own country hadn’t got
a lost footpaths project. “I couldn’t
really answer that!” He spent 90
minutes on the phone explaining the
signifi cance of British footpaths to
an American who went everywhere
by car. Our footpath network, of
course, is an object of curiosity and
envy for visitors from countries who
have no such thing. Recently, I was
pleasantly surprised to see a group
of Asian visitors on the Lyke Wake
walk on the North Yorks Moors, even
more surprised when I noticed they
were pulling wheelie bags.
Andrews now lives in Scotland,
a country with a more positive
attitude to rights of access, but his
fi nest achievement in footpath
salvation is back in Suff olk. “I used
documents from the early 19th
century to prove a right of way along
about eight miles of the Icknield
Way.” Passing over heathland and
through woods, the path ran across
the Guinness estate near Elveden.
Andrews won the case. “That is an
ancient path, I mean, the Romans
improved it. Now it’s on the
defi nitive map.”
For everyone embarking on the
challenge of rescuing a right of
way, his message is clear: “It’s so
rewarding to see people walking a
path that you rescued. Don’t be put
PHOTOGRAPHS: DON’T LOSE YOUR WAY; KEVIN RUSHBY/THE GUARDIANoff by the legal process. Keep going!”

Sam Thompson

in Acomb, York

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