Penguins 3 July

The origin of the word 'penguin' has, over the years, been the subject of heated debate. For example, John Latham, in 1785 suggested that the word came from the Latin 'pinguis' meaning fat, which, supposedly refers to the appearance of the bird. Fatuous. It is now widely accepted that in fact the name stems from an ancient description of a bird that was, at one time, found in great numbers on islands off eastern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Ireland and Britain (including Wales). The word stems from the welsh phrase 'pen gwyn', meaning "white head" and referred originally to the Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis). (Although the head of the Great Auk is not in fact white, there is a white patch behind the beak.) Later, when explorers discovered apparently similar birds in the southern hemisphere, the term was supposedly transferred to them. The Great Auks were excellent swimmers, using their wings to swim underwater. Unlike other auks, however, the Great Auk could not fly, which made it vulnerable to being hunted by humans and it was eventually hunted, for food and down for mattresses, to extinction. The last pair was killed on this day July 3, 1844, on the island of Eldey, near Iceland. This day is clearly a remarkable one for flightless birds. Take the Mallard for example, and I don’t mean the duck but rather the beautiful blue and magnificently streamlined steam locomotive that is the holder of the world speed record for steam locomotives at 126 mph (203 km/h). The record was achieved on July 3, 1938 on the slight downwards grade of Stoke Bank south of Grantham on the East Coast Main Line, and the highest speed was recorded at milepost 90¼, between Little Bytham and Essendine. It broke the German 1936 record of 200.4 km/h. Apparently, it was one of a small number of locomotives equipped with a double Kylchap blastpipe, which is a useful thing to know if ever you should need to pass the time of day with an anoraked and be-Thermos’d train spotter.