Where did the name Pompey originate? | BBC Radio Solent's Lou Hannan

Can dogs only see in black and white? Where did the name Pompey originate?

Just a few of the questions that have come up on the Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Solent as part of our Wonderwall feature.

The idea is you pose those weird and wonderful questions that have bugged you for ages and we’ll attempt to answer them.

I say ‘we’ – what I actually mean is the collective brain power of our listeners. For example, one of our listeners wanted to know what the little pocket in a pair of jeans is for?

We’ve all seen it and I bet, now you’re visualising it, you’re also wondering.

Loads of people got in touch with theories including it being used to hold a coin or a key, however a listener got in touch who’d just returned from a training course… about jeans.

He worked for a jeans manufacturer and this very question came up during his induction. And the answer? It’s for a pocket watch, designed for cowboys back in the 1800s.

Other questions which have come up recently include what’s the difference between soda water and sparkling water? When someone says they’re ‘as happy as Larry’, who on earth was Larry?

Because I don’t want you to be bugged by these, the short answers are: soda water is artificially infused with carbon and mineral salts whereas sparkling mineral water is naturally carbonated from a spring or a well.

‘Larry’ in the phrase ‘as happy as Larry’ was a boxer called Larry Foley. Back in the 1890s before boxing was fully legalised, he won the biggest ever prize of $15,000 and a newspaper article at the time in New Zealand carried the headline Happy as Larry and it stuck.

One of my favourites to date is the question about the 99 ice cream with a Flake in the top. Most of us would assume it started as a price reference, but in actual fact the main theory is it’s named after the address from where the ice cream first came – 99 Portobello High Street in Scotland. So now you know.

If there’s a question you’ve been pondering for years, email us at [email protected] and we’ll find you an answer!