In 'Los Tayos Gold', Stan Hall relates that in October 1999 he 'returned to Ecuador with two British cavers.' This was after the famous 1976 Los Tayos Expedition. Although Hall is usually scrupulous in naming the people who accompanied him on his exploits in Ecuador, the two cavers are not...

Actually, it was the opposite. I cut the battery container off and now, when I connect external batteries to it, it works. I now have to find a small battery box to connect it to.

I have had a Petzl MYO RXP as a back-up light for many years, but have never needed to use it. When I DID need to use it, however, the blasted thing wouldn't work. If it's a broken contact, can any of you tell me how to open it up? (Yes, I know Monsieur Petzl tells me not to 'attempt to...

After seeing a t-shirt with an image of Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup label, I have turned the 'front' of this bat soup label into an image for a t-shirt. I am not a dedicated Mendip caver, so to represent a more local area it shows 'Cotswold Bat and Wild Mushroom Soup'. Full acknowledgement...

There are many commercially available battery chargers that will charge individual batteries of various sizes, but are there any that will charge made-up packs of AA batteries? I have packs of 5 x AAs, which will need a charger with an output of more than 6V, and with the capability of...

Have any of you read this book, subtitled 'Ergor's Unbelievable Cave Stories', by 'Ergor Rubreck'? Speleobooks in the US have it for sale. I wonder if it's worth getting.

Thanks, Mikem. I think I'll give this one a miss, then!

I've come across a catalogue with this book in it, published by Amberley in 2024. According to the blurb, it 'explores ... mineshafts; caves; ... canal and railway tunnels; secret passageways ... ; caverns beneath Dudley Zoo'. Have any of you read it? Is it worth getting?

Here's the baby beast. And if you want proof that when it grows up, it can create caves, you only have to look at the symmetry of these:

Last Monday (6 Jan), the first episode of the new series of 'Silent Witness'. An old lady drugged and led into a 'cave' and killed. Does anyone recognise the location?

If the original excavations were done in the 1970s and 1980s, why has it taken 40 - 50 years to come up with these conclusions?

'Ottavia fell due to a subsidence of the ground, a hole that was created under her feet in a point from which the speleologist colleagues who were with her had passed shortly before.' This sounds familiar, eh George?

On Monday 2 December, there was a rerun of an episode 'Buried - Part One' of the DCI Banks series on ITV3. It featured 'the body of an eminent lawyer ... washed up by an underground river.' This series is set in Leeds. Is there such an underground river there? The brief shot of it looked very...

There's a feature in Withyhill Cave called Barabobath's Bath. What's the origin of this name? It looks most peculiar.

Yes, I can assure you this is the definitive answer. I expect so! But where is Conkwell Cave? It's not in my Mendip Underground (Irwin & Jarratt edition, 1993).