MANY of us go through life without truly understanding the significance of
each passing day and week. For example, how many people failed to realise that
14 January was Britain鈥檚 National Rhubarb Day, organised by the National
Farmers鈥� Union to celebrate that splendid plant鈥檚 versatility and high vitamin
content?
If you were one of them, make sure you don鈥檛 miss out on Chip Week 2001,
which begins on 19 February, and is instituted by the British Potato Council in
honour of the country鈥檚 favourite food. Then there is British Sandwich Week,
which takes place the week of 13 May under the proud auspices of the British
Sandwich Association鈥攁nd, later the same month, Foot Health Week,
organised by the Foot Health Council.
The British aren鈥檛 alone in this. In July, lucky people in Las Nieves, near
Pontevedra in north-western Spain, take part in the annual festival for those
who have narrowly escaped death during the past year. They proclaim their good
fortune by riding in open coffins through the streets to the local church and
cemetery.
Advertisement
Those so inclined can follow this up in August by taking part in the annual
pig imitation festival in the town of Trie-sur-Ba茂se just across the
Pyrenees in south-west France. Participants dress up as pigs and go around town
squeaking and oinking. The most realistic offerings win a prize.
Truly, we have much to celebrate.
DO-IT-YOURSELF public relations is a growing field these days. Here鈥檚 a
technique devised by two Americans as a way of publicising their theories and,
even more importantly, their books.
Jay Olshansky of the School of Public Health at University of Illinois,
Chicago, and Steven Austad of the University of Idaho have announced a
$500 million bet riding on whose view of ageing will prevail by 2150.
Austad bet that someone will live to be 150 years old by 2150鈥攊n which
case they will already have been born. Olshansky concedes that scientific
advances will prolong human lives, but reckons no one will live longer than 130
years.
鈥淲e really agree on just about everything,鈥� Olshansky says. 鈥淲hat we鈥檙e
debating is what the world record for the human lifespan will be.鈥�
The prize will go to the heirs of the scientist who wins the bet. The
$500 million is the estimated eventual value of a trust fund that the two
men inaugurated this year by depositing $150 each in it. The trust calls
for Austad, Olshansky and their heirs to contribute a minimal amount to the
trust annually for the next 150 years.
Austad鈥檚 book Why We Age: What science is discovering about the body鈥檚
journey through life was published in 1997 and issued in paperback in 1999.
Olshansky鈥檚 new book, co-authored with Bruce Carnes, is called The Quest for
Immortality: Science at the frontiers of aging and is published this
month.
THOUGH OSCAR WILDE died over a century ago, the British Library鈥檚 Sound
Archive has only now come up with an intriguing claim. It says the only sound
recording of Wilde鈥攁n 80-second snatch of him reading from The Ballad
of Reading Gaol鈥攊s actually a fake.
The original cylinder recording was discovered in the US in 1963 by H.
Montgomery-Hyde, biographer of Wilde, who believed it to be genuine. The
scratches and distortion sounded authentic. But having analysed the recording,
audio experts at the British Library have declared it a forgery.
Bearing in mind a practical joke that fooled the BBC in the 1960s, Feedback
reckons the electronic analysis was hardly necessary. Jazz trumpeter Ian Carr,
who wrote a biography of Miles Davis, was teaching at a music summer school when
the organiser came up with the idea of 鈥渄iscovering鈥� the only cylinder recording
ever made by legendary cornetist Buddy Bolden. Carr played a Bolden solo, the
school musicians played like Bolden鈥檚 band, and the originator of the scheme
rubbed two pieces of sandpaper together in front of the microphone.
The BBC duly played the recording. It was only three months later that a BBC
producer phoned Carr and giggled, 鈥淚鈥檝e just realised what you did.鈥� Which goes
to prove that you can only fool some of the people some of the time.
TALKING of fakes. . . Back in 1917 Marcel Duchamp caused a stir by exhibiting
a common toilet urinal, entitled Fountain and signed 鈥淩. Mutt鈥�, and
calling it 鈥渁rt鈥�. Imagine our delight, then, on reading the small print next to
this landmark in the history of art, which is now on display in London鈥檚 Tate
Modern gallery.
It seems that the original work was lost, so at some point a collector
commissioned not another common-or-jardin pissoir, but a faithful
reconstruction, which the Tate bought in 1999. In other words, the Tate鈥檚
Fountain is a fake. Duchamp would surely have approved.