IT SEEMS that half the top brass in the boardrooms of British industry must inhabit some far-flung outpost that keeps them insulated from the economic realities of life here in Britain. At least, that鈥檚 what Feedback is forced to conclude from a snippet thrown away by Michael Heseltine, the industry minister.
In a speech to the Institute of Directors, the 鈥渃lub鈥� that represents the elite of Britain鈥檚 boardrooms, Heseltine mentioned that an internal survey of IoD members had revealed that half the respondents had not heard of the government鈥檚 White Paper on Competitiveness. This is little short of amazing, given that the White Paper, published a year ago, was probably the most important industrial policy document published by the government since Margaret Thatcher brought the Conservatives to power in 1979. The fact that a bevy of ministers, including the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, were wheeled out to launch it gives some measure of its importance.
The White Paper was attacked by many for lacking new ideas, but whatever its shortcomings it did represent a comprehensive analysis of what the government believed was good and bad about British industry, the City, the education system, the science and technology base and the country鈥檚 economic future. In other words, it ought to be compulsory reading for anyone remotely concerned with the country鈥檚 economic prosperity, and still more so for anyone with their hands on industry鈥檚 tiller.
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So how can these IoD members not have known about the White Paper? Where were they when it was launched? Have they heard of it now?
A spokeswoman for the IoD said it was the government鈥檚 fault. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not a failure on our part,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f they [our members] don鈥檛 know, they don鈥檛 know.鈥�
Heseltine has occasionally come in for some stick in this column, but this time he has our sympathy. On Monday he will be launching a follow-up White Paper. If he appears a touch jaded this time round, you will know why.
WHAT is the origin of the exploding whale story? This is the one about an extremely smelly dead whale that washed up on a beach in Oregon. The authorities decided to blow it up in an operation which unfortunately scattered stinking chunks of whale over a large tract of the surrounding countryside.
Wendy Grossman, reviewing J. C. Herz鈥檚 Surfing on the Internet on 1 April, described how the story has buzzed round the Internet in recent years, and how Herz found it in alt.folklore.urban. But it isn鈥檛 folklore, insisted Grossman, and she traced the story back to a column by the American humorist Dave Barry.
Now Barry is a wonderfully imaginative writer, but he doesn鈥檛 usually make his stories up. So congratulations to Robert Lawrence of Portland State University for unearthing the ultimate source of the story 鈥� presumably where Barry got it from, too.
Lawrence sends us photocopies of the Portland Oregonian of 13 and 19 November 1970. The first issue carries the headline, 鈥淏last Fails To Budge Beached Whale, But Sends Blubber Soaring In Air鈥�. The second proclaims, 鈥淲hale Gone, But Strong Odor Lingers鈥�, and focuses on the plight of Walter Umenhofer, whose car was hit by a piece of flying blubber. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want the car,鈥� Umenhofer says. 鈥淚t stinks of whale.鈥�
So there you have it. Mystery solved.
PHONE a large company, and you are likely to be greeted by a recorded voice that tells you to press a number on your keypad to get the service you want. This is irritating enough if you have a push-button phone that produces tones the computer on the other end can recognise. But pity the people 鈥� and in the US, at least, there are still a lot of them 鈥� who have an old-style dial phone.
Such people are informed: 鈥淚f you have a rotary phone, please stay on the line.鈥� An extremely long wait ensues, and if the caller doesn鈥檛 hang up in despair, a human operator may answer eventually.
Now, we learn, there is hope for those who love their old dial phones or can鈥檛 afford new ones. You can buy dial-to-tone translators, which convert the clicking pulses produced by a dial into something the computer can understand.
Well, usually, anyway, sometimes the computer won鈥檛 wait long enough for the dial to turn. Other times the translator dutifully tries to convert voices 鈥� presumably muttering nasty comments about voice mail 鈥� into tones, thoroughly confusing the computer. But at least it鈥檚 better than waiting half an hour for the human at the other end to return from their coffee break.
MANY PEOPLE donate their bodies to medical science when they die. But one anonymous donor has scored a posthumous first by allowing his remains to be mummified in the cause of archaeology.
Egyptologist Bob Brier of Long Island University in the US went to some lengths to make sure that everything was done authentically, Science reports. Brier travelled to Egypt to buy his embalming ingredients, fashioned a replica of an embalming board to work on, and used hand tools and instructions from ancient texts.
The donor鈥檚 brain was removed through his nose and his body was packed with natron, a form of sodium carbonate, from the Wadi Natrun in Egypt. The body was then surrounded with more natron, while the internal organs were placed in decorative urns with more of the preservative.
After 35 days, the modern mummy鈥檚 body had blackened and looked just like the genuine, 3000-year-old article. The next stage was for the body to be washed, oiled and packed with spices, wrapped in linen and rested for five months, before its final wrapping and entombment.
The purpose of all this? Other than ensuring that Mr X鈥檚 body will probably survive for a lot longer than yours or mine, Egyptologists now know that it was natron, and not the passage of time, that blackened the cheeks of Egyptian royalty in their tombs.
WHO ARE the sexiest scientific studs around? Robert L. Park, whose 鈥淲hat鈥檚 new?鈥� bulletin is required reading for many Internet users, reports that American science broadcaster Karen Hopkin is putting together a calender featuring the world鈥檚 12 sexiest male scientists.
An appeal in the Annals of Improbable Research has so far resulted in some 50 photos, which are being assessed by a panel of 鈥渆xpert鈥� judges. (Park doesn鈥檛 say what they are experts in.)
So far Hopkin has received only two complaints from women about the project and none from men. Beefy boffins, your time has come at last.