I went into Leicester today to see Pawel Pawlowski's new film Fatherland and also to buy the new issue of Fortean Times at the T.G. Jones on Leicester station.
Fatherland is well worth seeing, but here are a couple of minor quibbles occasioned by my flick through the magazine on the bus home.
David Hambling writes in his regular science column about some regions' claims to have lots of inhabitants who have lived well past the age of 100 – and about how they generally prove to be unfounded upon investigation.
One region that made such a claim was Abkhazia in the Caucasus, which used to be part of the Soviet Union. Today it is recognised by most countries as part of Georgia, but it is occupied by, or at least economically dominated by, by Russia.
Hambling says of Abkhazia:
A 1970 census showed that 40 per cent of the population claim to be over 90, but were remarkably youthful looking. This was partly attributed to yoghurt, a novelty in the West at the time, and Danone used the claims in a successful yoghurt advertising campaign.
But yoghurt was not a novelty in the England by 1970. I can remember regularly choosing a pot for breakfast from the milkman's float as a small boy several years before that.
A BBC News story confirms my memory:
In 1963, Swiss-invented Ski was launched in the UK. With added sugar and real fruit it was an instant hit and launched a yoghurt revolution on our supermarket shelves.
And the Ski television commercial above dates from 1967.
Danone, I suspect, were behind the Chambourcy brand, which I also remember from childhood. Maybe they were launching it in 1970?
And then Alan Murdie's Ghostwatch column refers to:
Wild Edric, an Anglo-Saxon noble who resisted the Normans between 1067-70, appearing on the jagged Stiper Stones, Shropshire, on the longest night.
"Stiperstones" as two words? The term describes a five-mile ridge, not just the outcrops at its highest point.
Still, I am happily reminded of the young son of a fellow Liberator collective member who was delighted that we had found "the stiper stones" when we reached those outcrops in the rain, much as Christopher Robin was convinced Pooh had found the North Pole.
