HAVE YOU come across those clever handbags with a magnetic clasp that shuts the bag without you having to fiddle around with clips and catches? Well, as it happens, they鈥檙e not so clever 鈥� in fact, they probably ought to come with a health warning on them. As a colleague on this magazine has found to her extreme inconvenience, the clasps wipe all the digital information off the magnetic strips of credit cards, which then become virtually useless.
And where do most women carry their credit cards? In their handbags, of course. It鈥檚 rather an extraordinary thing for the manufacturers of the bags to have overlooked.
HAVING BEEN the sort of child who identified with Eeyore, the melancholy donkey in the Winnie the Pooh books, Feedback is not one to make light of the realities of depression. On the other hand, one wonders if some of the people studying depression are really getting to grips with the problem.
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Take, for example, a Cornell University study by Eunice Rodriguez, described in the university鈥檚 press release as a 鈥渟ocioepidemiologist鈥�. This study showed, we are told, that 鈥渋f you are on welfare and looking for work, you are at significantly higher risk of depression鈥� than people who are employed.
Eeyore would be tempted to ask how much time and money went into this study, the results of which are about as surprising as telling us that rain has a significant likelihood of being wet.
A RECENTLY discovered minute book sheds a revealing light on Sir Alexander Fleming鈥檚 days at St Mary鈥檚 Hospital Medical School in London. It shows that just because you make one of the most important medical advances of the century (the discovery of the antibiotic penicillin in 1928), you aren鈥檛 necessarily ahead of your time in all other matters.
The book reports on an internal meeting in 1930 at which Fleming spoke about infected wounds. During the discussion, one of his colleagues wondered how beneficial or otherwise it was to introduce maggots into a wound. Fleming replied that he thought it an excellent idea, but that their use was not advised in general practice.
IN 1991, the BBC took over responsibility for the issue of TV licences and subcontracted it to a Bristol company known as TV Licensing. But little has changed, because TVL is a division of the Post Office, which had done the job before.
TVL uses its computer database to track down people who have not renewed their licences. 鈥淲e catch a thousand a day,鈥� boasts the company. Radio and TV adverts are calculated to scare the living daylights out of those who try to evade paying their licence fee.
Take this case. An elderly relative of Feedback鈥檚 bought a licence from a post office in Sussex last October and by Christmas was being accused by TVL of not having one. Feedback faxed a copy of the licence to Bristol on the relative鈥檚 behalf. But five days later, TVL sent a letter threatening a visit by an investigation officer and a 拢1000 fine.
After much toing and froing, Rod Alexander, managing director of TVL (which you will remember is part of the Post Office) now apologises and admits: 鈥淲e did not receive the records copy of your licence from the Post Office 鈥� We have experienced some difficulties in recording details of licences which are purchased at post offices 鈥� We are currently investigating ways of improving this process.鈥�
Meanwhile, in an unrelated incident, the postman delivered a licence to Feedback鈥檚 home in London. It was accurately addressed, right down to the correct post code, but the envelope and the licence were made out in a completely wrong name. Feedback had already had a licence for several months anyway. When confronted, Alexander admitted that 鈥渦nfortunately鈥� he was unable to explain why this licence had been sent. Said Lucy Heath, head of PR at TV Licensing: 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have a company-wide problem. This was a one-off instance鈥�.
One-off? Feedback does not need a computer to add these errors up and make a total of two. Perhaps the same thought occurred to an embarrassed Post Office, which then invited Feedback to drive round London in the TVL detector van and see the computer system working. But on the appointed day, the outing was cancelled. The Post Office had found 鈥渇aults鈥� in the system and the van had gone back to Bristol for debugging.
THE GAS attack on the Tokyo subway in March has had major repercussions in Russia, where membership of the Aum Shinrikyo cult is allegedly double that in Japan. Among other consequences, it has revealed yet another divergence of views between the old-guard psychiatric establishment and the Independent Psychiatric Association, founded in the dying days of the Soviet Union to restore psychiatry鈥檚 integrity.
But the two groups appear to have changed sides. The Serbsky Institute of Forensic Psychiatry, once notorious for the internment and attempted brainwashing of political dissidents, is now quoted by the relatives of 鈥渞escued鈥� cult members as backing their claim that 鈥淎um is a factory for the production of lunatics鈥�.
According to Moscow News, however, the Independent Psychiatric Association, has come out on the side of the cult, saying: 鈥淭he classes in Aum do not lead to mental disorder and do not impair mental health. On the contrary, it becomes only stronger.鈥�
SRI LANKAN wildlife have been at the booze again. On 7 January we reported how farmers were being kept awake at night by gangs of drunken rats, bats and monkeys who had overindulged in toddy, a local drink which is hung up in jars on coconut palms to ferment. Now we learn from the Sri Lankan Daily News that butterflies in the Bellanwila-Attidiya Sanctuary have been observed acting in a disorderly fashion round a plant known locally as the elephant鈥檚 trunk (Heliotropium indicum).
S. A. Senadhi of the Society for Environmental Education was conducting a survey of butterflies when he noticed clusters of the creatures hanging round the elephant鈥檚 trunk 鈥渓ike boozers around a bar鈥�. At first he thought it was the nectar from the light blue flowers that was attracting them, but closer observation revealed that dew or rain had fermented on the plant鈥檚 berries, producing an intoxicating brew which was greatly to the butterflies鈥� liking.
They liked it so much, in fact, that they tended to go on benders on the plant lasting several days. By the end, many had damaged wings, most were 鈥渟loppy and lazy鈥� in their behaviour, and some were so blotto they couldn鈥檛 even be bothered to move when disturbed.