This is LBC, leading Britain's conversation.

Mystery Hour with James O'Brien.

Call 0345-60-973.

Tweet at LBC.

Text 84850.

Mystery Hour with James O'Brien on LBC.

Four minutes after 12 is the time and, well, knowledge is what's on offer this hour.

Knowledge with a, well, I hope, a fat vein of amusement as well.

How does it work?

If you're new to this, all you really need to know is that it's the radio equivalent of those newspaper columns where a reader writes in with a question prompted by their, um, uh, well, sort of, by their life really, a who, or why, or what, or where, or when, or whither, a wherefore, even the occasional whence. Why do we do that? Where does anything at all? Anything at all, as long as it's not boring or repetitious, is allowed to be

included. So if you have a question that is in dire need of an answer, call me now on 034-60-60-9773. Okay? It really is

that simple.

And if you hear someone ask a question to which you know the answer, give me a call quickly on the same number.

It's probably worth clarifying what I mean by repetition and dullness.

If it's something that we've dealt with before and can sort of remember, there is an

archive on the website, LBC.co.com.

There's a really, really entertaining and diverting archive there of a lot of previous episodes of

mystery out, so you can get a quick steer on whether or not your question has been dealt with before.

To give you an idea of how diverse it can be, when people provide an answer, and I ask them what their qualifications are, by which I don't mean, you know, tell me that you've got a cycling proficiency in a bag of gymnastics

award for in 1988. I mean, how do you know that answer to that question? It can either

be, we have two resident professors on the program now, Professor Hale, Professor Hal, the

original, Hal Sozabowski, Professor of the Public Understanding of Science,

...