Calorific confusion
GLYN HUGHES sends word of the latest hot trend in celebrity diets, which is given the rather unimaginative name “Celebrity Diet” by his source. This particular nutritional plan promotes foods that are purportedly high in energy, but low in calories. “I thought that this claim was possibly a little odd,” says Glyn, “but, then, I’m only a heating engineer, so what do I know about energy?”
An online search serves up some foods that are claimed to meet this nutritional contradiction, such as watermelon and açai berries. Served very hot, Feedback assumes.
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“Your contention that trousers, like particles, always emerge as a pair is false, says Joe Oldaker. The world of fashion often refers to ‘a trouser’ or ‘a jean’. Is this a variety of Hawking radiation?“
A tangle of Tims
FEEDBACK’S most indelible mark on popular culture continues to direct further iterations. Sue Whitmore draws our attention to theatre student Timothy Kelly, who for his final degree project, is seeking out fellow Tims “in order to make a one-man play about nominative determinism”.
A Tim By Any Other Name will examine the name’s influence in guiding people’s fortunes. Tim’s investigation will culminate in a public performance of the play at the University of York in the UK. If you or anyone you know is a Tim, now is your chance to shine. Board the Tim train at bit.ly/ns_Tim.
In plain sight
THE leak of 11 million documents from law firm Mossack Fonesca has shone a spotlight on the murky world of offshore financing. The industry could have found a better spokesperson than Anthony Travers, the chairman of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange.
“There is no secrecy with regard to transactions in the Cayman Islands whatsoever,” , before concluding paradoxically, “the suggestion that there is any sort of covert or non-disclosed activity in the Cayman Islands is redundant. Tax haven is a redundant expression when it comes to the Cayman Islands.”
Ladies who launch
OFTEN Feedback finds humour in the use of impractical units to describe perfectly sensible things. But what about less practical measurements? “Many years ago, I read an article that discussed a suitable unit for human beauty, proposing the Helen,” writes Andrew Harper. “However, it acknowledged that a Helen was probably an unachievable level of beauty, so went on to propose the everyday unit of the milli-Helen, defined as the amount of beauty that would launch a single ship.”
Cargo embargo
WHILE booking a journey on the low-cost MegaBus, Gurleen Kaur was about the various articles or substances that she couldn’t bring on board. This prohibition covers anything “capable of posing a risk to health, safety, property or the environment,” and an extensive list of such contraband is supplied, including “live animals (except for guide dogs, hearing dogs or helping dogs)… radioactive materials, raw meat products, infectious substances such as bacteria and viruses”.
A puzzled Gurleen says “I’m pretty sure that list of banned substances rules out all passengers”. No wonder tickets are so cheap.
Bus of uncertainty
MORE travel travails. Rob Ellis is left baffled by bus transport in the UK city of Birmingham: “During my daily commute I regularly find myself reading various West Midlands travel brochures, and foolishly end up trying to decipher them.”
The number 11 bus, he reports, claims a service frequency “up to every 8 minutes”, which implies, in Rob’s view, “that the best they can achieve is every 8 minutes, and you could be waiting forever.” Similarly, weekly tickets for the 904 route are advertised at prices “from less than £12.60 per week”.
“This was when the logic part of my brain got stuck in a loop,” says an addled Rob, “as it is suggesting that the prices are from nothing to infinity.”
All the time in the world
THE universe is expected to last at least another 2.8 billion years, though Feedback wondered what might still be outstanding by then (19 March). “I would expect the Chilcot Report to be imminent,” writes Tim Hall, “and there will apparently still be some people who are eligible to claim PPI compensation. It will also be the year that Scotland finally qualifies for the Football World Cup.” But will there be enough time left to win it, wonders Feedback.
Born free
A QUANDARY for ethical buyers. Tony and Elisabeth Compton received an email from Dyson about their “free-range vacuum cleaner”. They assumed this was in contrast to one raised in a cramped cage. “But this free-range vacuum cleaner has an internal power source, which makes it a battery vacuum cleaner too,” writes Tony. “All very confusing.”
The long road
MORE long-term thinking: while planning a short driving trip in the UK, a colleague noticed that hire firm Europcar allow you to book very long ones, with rental terms stretching from now up to the last day of December, 9999. “Sadly, my attempt to book a compact hatchback to see in the year 10,000 only resulted in a pop-up that said ‘default text’ with a button which said ‘OK’,” he reports.
Feedback suspects this is because it would be impossible to return the car on 1 January 10,000, which will of course be a bank holiday.
