SILLY QUESTIONS / This growing mound

A MOUND of confusion has arisen from Donald Pogson's question on the unavailability of Real Poo, as opposed, or indeed oppoosed, to the common or bathroom sham variety.

Diana Howard denies the existence of real poo, claiming that shampoo is the real thing, being an acronym for Soap for Hair, Artificially Manufactured, Perfumed, Over-marketed, Over-priced. This view is enhanced with added conditioner by Stuart Cockerill, who suggests that it is real poo that is a sham, the genuine article being produced only by the Methode Shampenoise in the Champeau region of France.

This is all heavily denied by Ms Caroline Hull of the Campaign for Real Poo, 'available in parks, pavements, shoes, pram wheels and on small children'. Julia Hall gives a recipe involving a toddler, an expensive shoe, a fitted carpet and a blunt knife, but laments that it comes in only one fragrance.

Mary Hess steps into a similar line of argument, before wishing she hadn't, while Joan Branton sends us a report on the success of Chester Zoo in marketing elephant droppings as 'Zoo Poo'.

Front-to-back baseball caps have also provoked much interest. Tim Godfrey maintains that all such caps are made with their peaks at the back. Brian French says that the peaks are at the front, but our heads are the wrong way round. D F Broomfield says that 'difficulties only arise if one wishes to wear the peak to the side, when care must be taken in ascertaining whether you have a left- or right-handed one.'

Scientific credibility is added by S Cockerill: 'It is well-documented that baseball caps in the northern hemisphere swivel anti-clockwise to protect the wearer's left ear, the direction of rotation enjoying antipodeal inversion.' It is all part of an ingenious plot, he explains, to infiltrate Australian cricket with English players.

Which leads nicely into the first of this week's questions: Why do we call clockwise 'clockwise' when, if you put yourself in the position of the clock, it is clearly anti-clockwise? (R Simpson). Further questions: How did Stone Age man cut his toenails? (Anne Induni). And what did the Duchess of Malfi mean when she said: 'Better a green envelope than a rhinoceros in long johns'? (J Webster).