A COMPANY going by the name of Fake Bake is promoting what Niall Goulding considers a “rather amusing” skin product. Featuring something called “apple stem cell technology”, Fake Bake’s Platinum Face Self-Tan is apparently a “breakthrough in anti-ageing” – for which you may read that it is a breakthrough in fruitloopery.
The product is described in the “self tan” section of . Here we are told that with its Platinum Face Self-Tan, “Fake Bake has combined its award winning self-tan formula (containing premium DHA and Erythulose for longer lasting, natural looking results) with the latest anti-ageing ingredient – PhytoCellTec™ Malus Domestica, created from stem cells extracted from the rare Swiss apple Uttwiler Spätlauber.”
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Got that? This is a skin cream that combats ageing using stem cells from a rare Swiss apple.
How so, you may well ask. Fake Bake tries to explain. “With age, the number of skin stem cells in human’s [sic] decreases and their ability to maintain and repair the skin becomes less efficient,” its blurb says. “Plant cells are totipotent, meaning that every cell has the ability to regenerate new organs. It’s this characteristic that has been harnessed within Platinum Face Tan to ensure the longevity of your skin stem cells, essentially delaying biological ageing of your essential cells.”
Our response to this is simple: pull the other one. If, on the other hand, you believe the hype, then you can buy a buy a jar of Platinum Face Self-Tan for £29.95. Alternatively, you can buy an apple from your local greengrocer and eat it – at a hundredth of the cost and, we are sure, much greater all-round benefit.
Threat of the homeopathic bomb
OH DEAR. Those who are sceptical of homeopathy, Feedback included, may have to keep their eyes open just in case. Orac, writer of the science blog, points us to a report warning: “New Age terrorists develop homeopathic bomb.”
We went to the NewsBiscuit site at to find out more and discovered to our alarm that: “The world has been placed on a heightened security alert following reports that New Age terrorists have harnessed the power of homeopathy for evil. ‘Homeopathic weapons represent a major threat to world peace,’ said President Barack Obama, ‘they might not cause any actual damage but the placebo effect could be quite devastating.’ “
Who could be behind such a dastardly plot? “The H2O-bomb has been developed by the radical New Age group The Axis of Aquarius,” NewsBiscuit declares. “In a taped message to the world, their leader, Professor Hubert Pennington, said: ‘For too long the New Age movement has been dismissed as a bunch of beardy weirdy cranks and charlatans. But now we have weapons-grade homeopathy and we demand to be taken seriously’.”
The report goes on to quote the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner: “A homeopathic attack could bring entire cities to a standstill… Large numbers of people could easily become convinced that they have been killed and hospitals would be unable to cope.”
We couldn’t let it rest there and chased Frank Gardner to tell us more about this threat. But when we finally made contact with him he gracefully declined to make any comment to us. Probably a wise move, even though the UK government has yet to send out a “D-notice” warning journalists not to alarm the populace about this danger.
Meanwhile, we have waited and waited, but the has failed to respond in any way to our request for comment – although we cannot rule out the possibility that they sent a homeopathic email that slipped undetected between the photons coming out of our screen.
Recursive ingredients in snacks
FOLLOWING our recent discussion of recursive acronyms (10 July), Harry Gibson alerts us to the equally important issue of recursive ingredients in snacks.
“Cutbacks to our research-centre’s canteen forced me to go to the newsagent for lunch,” he says, “where I bought a Ginsters Peppered Steak Slice. To enrich the experience of eating it I read the ingredients list. One ingredient was ‘Beef Stock’.
“Listed separately were the ingredients for said Beef Stock, namely: “Water, Yeast Extract, Beef Stock, Salt, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Beef Fat”.
What Harry wants to know is how they made the initial batch of beef stock – the one that didn’t already have beef stock in it.
FINALLY, Joe MacDonell returns to the theme of recursive nested acronyms. Driving home recently he noticed a van with the name “ACE” written on the side. It seems this stood for “ACE cleaning equipment”, as this is what was written underneath.
“Presumably,” Joe speculates, “this stands for ‘(ACE Cleaning Equipment) Cleaning Equipment’. Have I discovered an infinitely nested acronym?”
“Glyn Williams forwarded an email from British communications firm Virgin Media. “It begins,” he comments, “with the immortal words ‘Click here if you cannot see this email’”