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QUESTION: Was Michael Mann’s horror movie The Keep filmed in a coal mine?
Not a coal mine but a slate mine.
Based on a popular horror novel by F. Paul Wilson, The Keep is about a group of Nazi soldiers who occupy an ancient fortress in Romania, where they awaken an ancient evil.
It’s not a great film, but it’s very interesting for those interested in North Wales and slate mining. The film’s main set was built in a former slate quarry at Glyn Rhonwy near Llanberis, home to the National Slate Museum. Some interiors were filmed inside Llechwedd Slate Caverns, near the historic mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog. It’s well worth a visit. Tourists descend nearly 500 feet in Europe’s steepest mining cable railway and for the adventurous, the area has fast zip wires and an underground trampoline centre.
Evan Lewis, Barmouth, Gwynedd
Based on a popular horror novel by F. Paul Wilson, The Keep (pictured) is about a group of Nazi soldiers who occupy an ancient fortress in Romania , where they awaken an ancient evil
QUESTION: Did the word ‘silly’ once have positive connotations?
Yes, very much so. The word silly is remarkable for having a totally opposite meaning now to its original one.
In Old English the word was sælig, meaning happy and blissful. It was used to describe nuns and the Virgin Mary. By the 15th century, this meaning of pious now included any behaviour considered virtuous, righteous or noble.
If someone’s behaviour was considered virtuous, it was harmless. If you were harmless, some people might consider you weak, so that by 1539 Richard Morison – in his translation of Introduction To Wysedome – is writing harshly about ‘sylly wretches’.
By the end of the 16th century, silly took on the derogatory meaning of stupid. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hippolyta remarks: ‘This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.’
Ian MacDonald, Billericay, Essex
QUESTION: Following a report on the demise of oboe-playing, have any well-known pop songs featured a prominent oboe part?
Further to the earlier answer, the oboe was used to nice effect in the opening to Madonna’s 1985 Crazy For You. S Club 7’s 2000 hit Natural begins with a burst of Fauré’s wistful Pavane on oboe.
Karen Murphy, Leeds
