Does anybody know the origin of this expression? Why a "gift Horse"? Also, any idea why, if the plural of goose is geese, then why is the plural of mongoose not mongeese?
(Part 2) I have tried calling all sorts of organisations to see if they can offer me any solution, or suggest some body who would be pleased to have them to re-use - schools, museums, mail order...
I've been collecting records since 1963, and my collection is now approaching 8,000. Nowhere near John Peel's vast stash, of course, but still pretty impressive for someone on a limited income. For...
I've not been able to get an answer which makes sense on this one yet, so I've come to the Answer Bank for help. I've had several cassette machines over the years - yes, I still use them, and still...
Let's try this one again, and this time, can I please have sensible, considered answers, and not just brain-dead pond life making smartass remarks which aren't remotely helpful. Thanks. Here's the...
Not quite sure how to phrase this one, so I hope this makes sense. A couple get married. Eventually, one of the partners dies, leaving the other free to re-marry. After some time, the new partner...
The local council seem to have control over pretty much everything that goes on within its boundaries - parking, health and safety, building regulations, etc. But I've often wondered just where that...
I tried to find an answer to this one during the time of the 1999 eclipse, but nothing came of my enquiries. Time to try again through the Answer Bank. The Moon is apparently receding from the Earth...
I've been trying to remember the title of a US comedy series that went out on UK TV about 10 or 15 years ago, which featured Bert Campbell, from the 'Soap' series, as the central character. I seem to...
Wherever you look, there are pigeons. Even in news reports from far-flung cities, you see them waddling around in the background. Does anybody have some kind of vague idea as to how many pigeons there...
There seems to be continual controversy over the plural of the word 'mouse' - as in computer mouse. Most people seem to be content with 'mice', while a few who don't see it as a real, proper mouse are...
3 men go into the restaurant at the Hotel Hilbert, where they agree between them to pay exactly a third of the bill and the waitresses tip, whatever the individual costs. At the end of the meal, the...
A few years ago, some archaeologists had a crazy theory that sounds from man's distant past may have been unwittingly recorded in the grooves made in clay pots as they spun upon the potter's wheel,...
We've all been told from an early age that mixing blue and yellow gives you green, and have proved this correct by doing it. The primary colours red, blue and yellow, are the 3 colours from which all...
If you have access to a map of large enough scale, have a look at the borders between Belgium and Holland, and between France and Spain. In Holland, there is a town called Baarle-Nassau, very close to...
Can those tiny button batteries, or lithium or NiCad batteries, etc. be recharged? If not, why not? And if they can, where does one get a recharging unit? I use quite a lot of them in various devices,...
When mini cabs were started up, all that was available was the 4-door saloon. They were generically known as mini cabs. In more recent years, with the law restricting the number of passengers to 4,...
When you enter a building, unless you're Spiderman, you're on the ground floor. But this is the first floor you walk on, so why don't we call it the first floor? By that logic, the first floor is...
Why do we precede some countries' names with the word 'the? eg, The Gambia, The Sudan, The Lebanon, etc.
You never hear 'The Switzerland', or 'The Brazil', do you?
I recently bought 2 new VCRs off E-Bay, to replace the ones I'd had for many years, and had ceased working efficiently. Both machines are variants of the same make and model, but unfortunately only...
