Notes & Queries is a series where readers answer other readers' questions, on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific concepts. Add your question or answer below

Why do Italian national sports teams mostly wear blue, rather than one of the colours represented on the flag?

According to their wonderful book Tutti i colori del calcio (All the Colours of Football), authors Sergio Salvi and Alessandro Savorelli acknowledge that although national teams generally wear strips based on the colours of their respective national flags, this is not always the case: The Dutch wear orange jerseys, the colour of the House of Orange-Nassau; the Germans wear white shirts, from the flag of Prussia; and the Slovenians green and white, the traditional colours of the capital city of Ljubljana. The Indians have an all-blue strip and the Australians green and gold!

The Italians' football and rugby (both codes) teams wear blue in honour of the House of Savoy, under whom Italy was unified in 1861.

Nader Fekri, Hebden Bridge, W Yorks

Back in the 60s at elementary school in Italy they taught us that they wear azzurro (light blue) because of the challenge of Barletta, in which 13 French and 13 Italian knights fought and the Italians famously won. The Italians wore a light blue scarf, which then remained as the sporting colour in Italy. It is not reported if Zinedine Zidane was part of the French contingent.

Of course it wouldn't be the first time history was rewritten, and the bit about the blue scarf was invented to justify the blue of the Savoia flag. Or it could be the other way around – that the blue in the flag was chosen based on the Barletta challenge.

Losqualo

Because it would be silly to have a team called the Azzuri wearing green.

Steven Emmott, Givrins, Switzerland

Regarding the plight of polar bears with their ever-diminishing food supply, has anyone thought about relocating penguins from south to north?

While it was not a true penguin, the great auk (Pinguinus impennis) until its extinction in 1844 filled a similar ecological niche in the northern hemisphere. Also the word "penguin" ("white head") is derived from the Celtic name for the great auk, which also had black and white plumage and according to the Natural History Museum website resembled these flightless birds of the southern hemisphere.

Given that it is doubtful that great auks ever formed part of a polar bear's diet, it would be pointless to introduce penguins to regions surrounding the Arctic ocean. Furthermore, history is littered with the damage caused by the introduction of alien species: it would be equally foolhardy to import polar bears to South Georgia or the Kerguelen Islands in the southern Indian Ocean (even if the latter is clear evidence of Slartibartfast's trademark on the designer planet Earth mark I, for which he won an award for the fjords along the Norwegian coastline).

David Nowell, New Barnet, Herts

What about introducing Siberian tigers into Alaska and northern Canada to save the species? The ecosystems and fauna are almost identical.

TheGuvernor

Relocate the polar bears (N&Q, 15 November)? So, any volunteers to round them up and transport them to the Antarctic, then?

hieroglyph

Are there more questions than answers?

Yes, particularly in Ireland. I overheard a tourist ask one of our citizens: "Do you always answer a question with a question?" The reply was: "Who told you that?"

Graham Mace, Castlebar, Co Mayo, Ireland

Try answering a question from my three-year old son. Every answer I give leads to a new question. And another, and so on, until I give up. So I guess there are more questions than answers, with three-year-olds, anyway.

Johan van Slooten, Urk, The Netherlands

Most of the discussion (N&Q, 15 November) is about answers that are correct for a given question. But there are an infinite number of incorrect and indeed meaningless answers to any question. Which reminds me of one of my favourite jokes. Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Ba-na-nas.

Loumo

Any answers?



Most animals appear to be either basically diurnal, like humans, horses, dogs etc, or basically nocturnal, like owls and bats. Cats don't seem to care either way; are they unique in this?

Nigel Agar, Hitchin, Herts

When do we start to become old? Moreover, when do we cease to be young? Are they the same thing?

Andrew McNaughton, Wellington, NZ

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