... though we should point out that you don't have to be strange to get a "permanent mark or design made on the skin by a process of pricking and ingraining an indelible pigment or by raising

Understandably, most people dream of discovering that the painting left by granny, or the drawing found in an antique shop may be worth a fortune. The AnswerBank gets its fair share of questions

A new book* tells the story of Man's ascent towards the stars, a journey dreamt of since the days of Icarus and the Ancient Greeks. Acton's new bookIt is a story that gathered pace as chemists,

Insert your own typical 'Scouser' joke hereNot yet, not yet... but maybe one day soon. Twelve cities in the United Kingdom are vying to be European Capital of Culture in 2008 - and yes, Brum is one.

Q: In the movie Moulin Rouge, Toulouse-Lautrec had a small role. Just how involved was he in the seedier side of Parisian nightlife A: For a mere 575,000 you can find out. A complete set of his

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is the oldest public museum in Britain, and one of the oldest in the world. What does it contain, where is it, and why to visit... The Ashmolean collection was

"Divan" asked what is Oscar Wilde's best work - and there were very few volunteers prepared to debate the issue. Can it be that the brilliance of one of the most amusing, prolific and controversial

Q. What is it A. In the early 1990s it was realised that MPs' workspaces within the Palace of Westminster were less than adequate, with many being housed in Portakabins and other temporary quarters

Q. What are they all about, then A. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable defines them as: 'The traditional metrical jingles learnt by children "in the nursery" and frequently used in their games.'

Q. Who was he A. John Stow was a 16th-century London tailor, who, among other things, was one of the first writers in England to use what we would consider proper documentary evidence to produce

Q. Wasn't Haggard a bit of a poor-man's Rudyard Kipling A. That has been said, though it is a little unfair. Haggard and Kipling were friends, and both wrote extensively and in a mythologising

Q. What concepts A. Those ideas and characters that originated in literature but which have passed into the language and become part of our everyday gallery of concepts. Q. How about a few

Q. So, art or disfigurement A. As usual with these things it is a matter of opinion. Tattoos range from self-inflicted crosses and 'evil' across the knuckles to the most extraordinarily elaborate -

Q. Why are we still on about a radio show that finished over 40 years ago A. Because, directly or indirectly, almost all the most cutting-edge British comedy of the last 40 years, that which has

Q. Why 'I was Robin Cook' A. Just a little pun on one of Cook's better-known titles under his pen name of Derek Raymond, I Was Dora Suarez (which was put to music in the early 1990s by the band

Q. Hang on. Mackem A. Someone from Sunderland or its environs. Said to come from the saying 'We mackem; you tackem', it refers to the days when the city had some of the most important shipyards in

One of the greatest poems written in English, 'Kubla Khan' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is loved by many, loathed by some but acknowledged as a classic by almost all. Q. So, what's all this about

Whenever set designers are required to evoke a feel of the 1930s they will almost certainly include some brightly coloured, geometrically-shaped, china. In the English-speaking world, this will

Q. Well A. That's a tough one. It really depends on which of the two versions of his life - both of which stretch credibility - you believe. Version one - that most appropriate to the books -

Q. What, horror, sex, crime, violence and the like A. Exactly that, but we're not talking Stephen King or Jake Arnott here. Sensation Fiction or Sensation Novels were a genre rooted firmly in the