The tourists who stayed
QUESTION Did the construction of the Suez Canal cause a problem with invasive species?
THE separation of Atlantic biota (animals and plants) from that of the Indo-Pacific is as old as the late Miocene period, around ten million years ago.
That all changed in 1869 when the Suez Canal was cut along the arid isthmus that separates Africa from the Middle East, creating an aquatic shortcut between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
To date, about 1,000 species have made the journey. The migration is known as the Lessepsian Migration after Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Frenchman who supervised the Suez Canal construction.
The term was coined in 1970 to signify a unique phenomenon in biogeography, that the invasion is almost entirely unidirectional, with invasive species moving from the Red Sea into the Mediterranean. For a century or so after the Canal opened in 1869, hyper-saline lakes and freshwater rivers crossing the waterway prevented most marine organisms from surviving the length of the canal.
The effect of these natural saline barriers has been reduced as the canal was widened repeatedly throughout the 20th century. An expansion of the canal completed in 2015 diluted the Bitter Lakes and exacerbated the situation.
The Red Sea is at a slightly higher altitude than the Mediterranean, so the water flows south to north. Those currents encourage invasive species – from red soldierfish, yellow striped mullet, lizardfish and lionfish to moon crabs and jellyfish – through the choke point and pull them into the warm Mediterranean Sea where they thrive.
Every creature swept through the canal is washed eastward along the Levantine coast – Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey – and then westward. Since Israel is the first country on the route, it has suffered the greatest impact.
Invasive limpets cover rocky coastlines, and low-value narrowbarred Spanish mackerel from the Red Sea have replaced native meagre. Erythrean penaeid prawns now make up most of the shrimp catches along the Levantine coasts. Of particular concern is a population explosion of toxic lionfish species, including along coastlines popular with tourists, from Cyprus to Sicily.
Lionfish have huge appetites and reproduce year-round; a mature female can release about two million eggs per year. Its sting produces intense pain and swelling that may last for days.
Swarms of migratory jellyfish have blocked power plant cooling systems in Israel. The nomadic jellyfish (Rhopilema nomadica) has stung countless tourists.
In summer 2017, a swarm stretching the length of the Mediterranean coast of Egypt spoiled Eid celebrations. R. nomadica has now spread as far west as Sardinia, Sicily, Malta and Tunisia.
QUESTION Which system of bridge would they have played on the Titanic?
PAUL ROMAINE CHEVRE, a French sculptor and survivor of the Titanic, stated: ‘We were quietly playing auction bridge with a Mr Smith from Philadelphia, when we heard a violent noise, similar to that produced by the screw racing.
‘We were startled and looked at one another under the impression that a serious accident had happened. We did not, however, think for a catastrophe, but through the portholes we saw ice rubbing against the ship’s sides.’
Auction bridge was a popular game that formed a step in the evolution of bridge. Bridge was derived from the 17th-century card game whist.
In whist, four players, arranged in two partnerships, were dealt 13 cards each from a 52-card pack, with a partnership’s objective being to win as many tricks as possible. By the turn of the century, the game evolved into plafond (‘ceiling’) in France and auction bridge elsewhere.
Plafond required each partnership to state the number of tricks they were going to take. Auction bridge, developed in about 1904, introduced the element of bidding to determine which suit, if any, would be trumps.
Contract bridge, the game played today, was invented by the American Harold Stirling Vanderbilt while cruising on the SS Finland in 1925.
Vanderbilt’s game incorporated a sophisticated scoring table and varying modes of vulnerability, correcting many of the faults found in auction bridge and plafond. He succeeded so well that his game became the staple diet of card players everywhere. Jonathan Avery, Bristol.
QUESTION Who designed the flag of Kazakhstan? What is its significance?
THE national flag of the Republic of Kazakhstan, pictured above, was adopted on June 4, 1992, replacing the flag of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, a red flag with a hammer and a sickle in gold with a cyan bar across the lower third.
The design was adopted following a nationwide competition for new national motifs, won by Kazakh artist Shaken Niyazbekov (1938-2014). His design features a gold sun with 32 rays above a soaring golden steppe eagle, centred on a sky-blue background; the hoist side displays a national ornamental pattern koshkar-muiz (horns of the ram) in gold.
The light blue background symbolises cultural and ethnic unity; it also represents the steppe sky. The eagle has appeared on the flags of Kazakh tribes for centuries and represents freedom.
Ant Bleeker, London.
QUESTION Before Piers Morgan, what other dramatic TV walkouts have occurred?
FURTHER to the previous answers, one famous example was in 1982 when John Nott, Margaret Thatcher’s defence secretary, was interviewed by Robin Day at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton shortly after Britain’s victory in the Falklands War.
Day went after Nott over cuts to Royal Navy spending, describing him as a ‘here today and, if I may say [smirking], gone tomorrow politician’. Nott did not take kindly to this jibe.
Saying, ‘I’m fed up with this interview’, he removed his microphone and walked out.
Also, Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson stormed out of an Australian 60 Minutes interview with Michael Usher in 2011 after she was shown footage taken by a reporter who had secretly filmed her offering to sell access to Prince Andrew for £500,000. She eventually returned. Rowan Price, Staffordshire.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.