Snooker tables are much bigger than pool tables, so are snooker players much more skilful than pool players?
The best pool players are very skilful but I'd argue that snooker is harder, given the size of the table. On a pool table the smaller surface area and closer proximity of the pockets means good eyesight is seldom an issue. Even an average player might rattle the jaws with a loose shot, where a similar mishit shot in snooker could miss by feet and make you look silly. There's also a hell of a lot more accuracy needed when positioning the white ball and a lot more potential for error, again, simply because the snooker table is more-or-less four times the size of your average pub pool table.
stooze
I don't wish to appear super-pedantic, but there is no such thing as a snooker table. Snooker is a game played on a billiard table.
Brian Carr, St Helens, Merseyside
I want to read a philosopher to help steer me through these dark days of austerity. Who should it be?
Socrates: when walking through a market full of stalls groaning under the weight of various tempting goodies, he turned to his companion and said, "It's surprising how many things in this life you can manage without."
Sidney Evans, Chirk, Wrexham
Avoid the existentialists. Having read Sartre's dismal novels, I concluded that they'd all be a lot more cheerful if they did something else apart from sitting in cafes, drinking or drugging too much and chain smoking.
madrupert
I suggest: Do They Think You're Stupid? 100 Ways of Spotting Spin and Nonsense from the Media, Celebrities and Politicians, by Julian Baggini.
Janet Thomson, Exeter
Karl Popper. In these days of wizard wheezes that take the place of examining what works and what doesn't, ideological policy, spin, and hiding inconvenient facts that don't support our narrative, it's relevant that Popper pointed out the benefits of criticism.
Instead of putting forward everything supporting an idea and hiding everything opposing, put forward the idea and all the facts, and try to actually strengthen the arguments against; ideas must stand up for themselves. Popperian governments wouldn't have gone to war over Iraq, and probably wouldn't be trying to forward a hidden agenda and close down the NHS.
Popper also pointed out that in politics the big advantage of democracy is not that the people choose, but that the rulers must put themselves up for criticism – via elections – every few years, so bad rulers are winnowed out.
pol098
Perhaps a bit of the Roman stoic philosopher Seneca who told us that "a great fortune is a great slavery".
barnabasdoggie
Try some Heidegger. By the time you've figured out what he means, the sun will be out again.
gbsteve1
Can someone explain the process whereby trees appear to eventually die of old age?
They die just as animals die. With age their organs begin to malfunction, their parasite load becomes untenable, and if these alone don't get them, starvation and lack of water will.
If a tree reaches maturity, which in itself is not certain, the trunk will begin to hollow out. On the trunk of a tree the only living matter is the cambium, which lies just under the bark. The wood inside is dead and only serves as structural support. However, once insect larvae set about eating out the inside, the trunk may weaken and split or large branches break off, reducing the number of leaves and thus the amount of food available.
Within the cambium lie channels to transport nutrients, the sap, down from the leaves, and water up from the roots. As the tree ages and the trunk expands, it needs ever more energy to support an ever increasing amount of cambium. Yet with the number of leaves fixed or perhaps reducing, the cambium cannot expand – rather it thins to compensate for increasing girth. This results in water being unable to reach the upper part of the tree, leading to stag-heading, still fewer leaves, and the tree dying back even more. Either this process continues until the tree gives up the ghost or, in this weakened state, it succumbs to disease or severe weather.
Terence Hollingworth, Blagnac, France
If I were to travel using the "racing line" on the M1 from one end to the other, how much shorter would my journey be than if I had stayed in one lane?
The M1 runs from Staples Corner, North London, to Leeds, an approximate distance of 200 miles; given good traffic conditions, averaging between 65-70mph travelling north, you should reach Leeds in about three hours. Taking the racing line will dramatically shorten your journey.
At the first mild left hand curve near junction two at Hendon, where the M1 has only two lanes, taking the racing line will afford you little advantage; at the next pronounced – almost 90º – left-hand curve north of Scratchwood Services, however, by taking the racing line and confidently moving tangentially from lane three across two lanes of slower moving traffic onto the hard shoulder while simultaneously being swept into eternity along with a coachload of jet-lagged Japanese tourists you will be transported to your maker, happy in the knowledge that you have shortened your journey by 191 miles.
An additional cause for celebration for your grieving relatives will be that you will have reduced your CO2 emissions for the journey by 97% – providing you are not cremated.
Nigel Hankin, Brockenhurst, Hants
I did the calculation up to junction 15 before I started to lose the will to live. In that 89km (55 mile) stretch of the M1 you would save five metres by cutting off the bends like a Formula One driver. At 70mph, you would save about a sixth of a second, and about a 20th of 1p in fuel cost. I assumed you would use the hard shoulder on the inside of bends, and also that no lanes would be closed due to roadworks. It is this last that makes the whole idea a bit far fetched, don't you think?
MM2000
Any answers?
Why is The Postman Always Rings Twice so called? The title seems to have no relevance to the story.
Sally Potter, St Austell, Cornwall
I keep hearing two opposing views on medieval and renaissance witch-trials in Europe: the first, that many thousands of people (mostly women) were persecuted; the second, that this is a massive exaggeration. What's the truth?
Porthos
Professor Pongoo in Edinburgh aside, has there ever been a non-human elected to public office in the UK? Is there any reason why it can't be done?
Martha Spencer, Torry, Aberdeen
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