What is the difference between fish cakes and fish fingers?
My mother's fish cakes were a sort of rissole made with a small quantity of fish but with mostly potato. Fish fingers, on the other hand, appear to be fish scraps reconstituted into that unnatural rectangular shape with few additives.
Ted Webber, Buderim, Queensland, Australia
The answer, of course, is that one is made out of roundfish and one is made out of flatfish. I forget which iswhich, though.
Ian Toal, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Less sea horse.
Bernard Galton, St-Nazaire-sur-Charente, France
No pleasure without pain
How are hand-cooked chips cooked?
In palm oil.
David Tucker, Halle, Germany
Until they are crispy.
Alan Williams-Key, Madrid, Spain
If, like me, you are all thumbs, don't even ask.
Harvey Mitchell, Castlemaine, Victoria, Australia
Painfully.
Tony Mount, Nakara, Northern Territory, Australia
With the blessing of a deep fat Friar.
Roger Morrell, Perth, Western Australia
Genealogical colour code
Mr White, yes. Why no Mr Purple?
There are various generations of the Red family buried in the graveyard of the tiny church at Porlock in Somerset. Ethel, the wife of John Red mentioned on one gravestone, was, presumably, unready.
Richard Deacon, London, UK
Not only is there no Mr Purple, but neither do we seem to have a Mr Yellow. I never knew a Mr Red either. Black and White and Green are in profusion, but ... where have all the other colours gone?
Iby Knill, Leeds, UK
Sometimes there's no joke
Where are all the modern-day saints and what are they doing?
I recently saw a herd of saints marching across midwest America – indiscriminately consuming everything in their march toward their pearly gates – without regard to us mere mortals or our earthly sustenance. They trumpet on!
Daniel-Paul Bork, Montreal, Canada
If we can use the feats of Saint Pius V, who organised the extermination of some 2,000 people of different faiths or, of Saint Dominic, whose monks became the first inquisitors and presided over torture, as benchmarks of saintly achievements, Barack Obama is well on his way to sainthood.
Matthias Tomczak, Port Adelaide, South Australia
All over the world our modern-day saints are being killed for defending the environment or human rights. Sorry it's not funny.
Margaret Shams, Trevignano, Italy
The news would be good
If we always did the right thing, how would we know?
The newspapers would be all sport and weather.
Susan Douglas, Hazelton, British Columbia, Canada
By our haloes.
Philip Stigger, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
We wouldn't. We'd just think we did – correctly so.
David Speedie, New York City, US
Any answers?
Why is it seemingly the good guys who mostly get bumped off, eg Lincoln, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King and Gandhi, while it takes military intervention to get rid of the real baddies, eg Hitler and Osama bin Laden?
Nigel Amies, Stuttgart, Germany
