杏吧原创

HI-FI buffs do like their little tweaks. Remember the infamous advice to
freeze CDs and mark them with green ink? This was alleged to improve the sound
quality and was backed up by supposedly scientific evidence. Large companies
usually steer clear of such nonsense, but it seems that Sony has fallen into the
trap.

The normally sensible Japanese giant is running adverts for a new range of
hi-fi components, such as amplifiers, radio tuners and CD players, which explain
that the system is 鈥渢uned specifically for the British ear鈥�.

鈥淪ounds incredible, doesn鈥檛 it?鈥� says Sony. Well, yes. But it goes on: 鈥淥ur
sound specialists understand how demanding the British ear can be. And, being
the perfectionists that we are, we felt obliged to tune to suit that
ear鈥攅ven going to the extent of tilting the circuit board within each
component by 2 degrees.鈥�

If tilting the electronics really can alter the sound of music passing
through a component鈥攚hich we very much doubt鈥攚e cannot help
wondering what happens if the owner鈥檚 house is on the side of a hill, or, like
so many houses in Britain, built skew-whiff so that the hi-fi shelves are at an
angle to the ground.

Or, put another way鈥攑ull the other one.

IT IS not often you come across an advertisement declaring that the product
it is promoting has no purpose or function whatsoever. So congratulations to
Innovations, the catalogue put out by Barclaycard, for including this
ad for an utterly useless 鈥渂racelet to wear while you sleep鈥�.

鈥淭he Sleep Partner,鈥� the ad tells us, 鈥渋s designed to be worn for 30 minutes
before you sleep and kept on throughout the night. The leather-effect bracelet
comes in a presentation box. May be worn on either wrist. This product has not
been proven to have any effect on sleep.鈥�

At 拢19.99, it is obviously a bargain.

WHILE visiting the quaint little town of Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast
recently, a chemist colleague of Feedback spotted some interesting goblets
in one of the countless arty-crafty shops there. The goblets were boldly etched
with the chemical formula for water鈥擧₂O.

Amused by this, he ventured to the shop鈥檚 owner that it would be even more
fun to have whisky tumblers bearing C₂H₅OH, which he explained
was the formula for ethanol. The owner thought this a vaguely entertaining
notion and then, to our colleague鈥檚 surprise, asked him whether he was an
undertaker.

He was about to suggest that HCHO would be more appropriate for an embalmer鈥檚
drinking vessel, being the formula for formaldehyde. But, instead of making this
witty riposte, he decided to leave the premises. He also vowed to stop wearing
black outfits and making chemical jokes in seaside shops.

THIS week鈥檚 award for an inappropriate headline goes to the Edinburgh
Evening News billboard which proclaimed last week: 鈥淐all for cuts in
Caesarian births鈥�.

MARK ALKER received a junk e-mail from RealWorks recently. It informed him of
an opportunity to purchase a memory management program that RealWorks guaranteed
would speed up his computer.

So sure is RealWorks of its software that it offers a 30-day money-back
guarantee on condition that the software is returned. But the software is
received by downloading it from the Internet. What, Alker wants to know, are you
expected to do if you want your money back? Re-zip the program and send it back
by e-mail, along with a promise you haven鈥檛 kept a copy of it?

DOES Illinois College in Jacksonville know something the rest of us don鈥檛
about cryogenics? School student Alex Zimmerman says he has been inundated with
college brochures from around the country in recent months. One in particular
stood out鈥攁 pamphlet from Illinois College urging him to apply for a
scholarship there. For it is students like him, the brochure asserted, who can
help the college fulfil 鈥渋ts mission to educate the leaders of the twenty-second
肠别苍迟耻谤测鈥�.

ONE OF the joys of rural radio stations like BBC Radio Suffolk is the insight
they give into country ways. Last week, an interviewer for the station asked a
mole-catcher what he did with the moles he caught.

鈥淚 put them on the compost,鈥� he answered.

鈥淒o they like the warmth in there, then?鈥� asked the interviewer.

鈥淣o, but happen they rot down to a lovely mulch,鈥� the catcher replied.

HAS anyone come across any extraterrestrial fruit recently? We only ask
because Feedback鈥檚 local Sainsbury鈥檚 supermarket is currently selling bananas
from a company called Pratt鈥檚 which finds it necessary to state that the
banana鈥檚 country of origin is 鈥淐osta Rica, Earth鈥�.

FINALLY, thanks to Robert Douglas for making us groan. He tells us that he
went to medical school with a young woman called Nicole Organ. A friend of
Douglas鈥檚 on the staff was her tutor and deliberately moved her from one
tutorial group to another so he could claim that he too had performed an organ
transplant.