LOST IN Norway? Trying to find your way by car to the Parallab at the High
Technology Centre in Bergen, for example? Never mind, go to
www.ii.uib.no/komme/index-eng.shtml and you鈥檒l be told how to get there. It鈥檚
quite easy.
鈥淢any of the streets in Bergen are one way so it is easy to get lost . . .
However, all major roads leading into Bergen end up in the spaghetti junction
shown on the right side of the map. Untangle yourself from this junction and
head straight towards the centre of the town (鈥淔j酶sangerveien鈥�, E39). Before you
reach the small lake, position yourself in the leftmost lane. Make a left now
heading down 鈥淪tr酶mgaten鈥�. Again place yourself in the left lane and make a new
left turn down 鈥淟ars Hilles gate鈥�. Now position yourself in the right lane.
After the first traffic lights follow the lane to the right so that you are
heading back on E39. You are now travelling in the opposite direction on the
road you just arrived on. At the next traffic lights make a right turn down
鈥淗ans Tanks gate鈥�. Position yourself in the left lane and make a left turn at
the traffic lights. You are now (again) heading down 鈥淟ars Hilles gate鈥�. Follow
this to the roundabout in 鈥淣yg氓rdsgaten鈥� (500 metres). In the roundabout take
the first exit to the right. H酶yteknologisenteret [High Technology Centre] is
now the first building on your left side.鈥�
Did you make it?
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READER Neil Sumner was applying for some information from The Woolwich
building society鈥檚 website and received this error message: 鈥淭hank you.
Insufficient information was not supplied.鈥�
So was everything just fine?
YOU DON鈥橳 need to be a rocket scientist to realise it鈥檚 dangerous to leave
pressurised spray cans inside a car sitting in the sun. The danger was
experimentally confirmed recently by someone who left a can of novelty 鈥淲acky
String鈥� in a car in a southern California parking lot.
The sun heated the can until it exploded, propelling it through the
windshield so that it bounced off an adjacent building and landed on the ground
beside the car, strewing the car with glass fragments. Fortunately nobody was
hurt, although the car鈥檚 owner probably took some stick for his negligence. He
was parked at NASA鈥檚 Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
WE ALL know that automation rules in the world of e-commerce, but even so,
something jars about the note at the bottom of the e-mail sent out by CDZone
advertising its recent sale: 鈥淧lease note that replies to this message are not
read by humans.鈥�
EVER ALERT to the interests of connoisseurs of fine art, we pass on the gist
of a press release picked up last month from the Annals of Improbable Research.
We hope readers will respond to its call.
鈥淪omeone,鈥� says AIR, 鈥渉as secretly monkeyed with the classic plastic
pink flamingo鈥攁nd outraged connoisseurs are calling for a worldwide
boycott of America鈥檚 beloved bauble of bad taste. Genuine classic pink flamingos
have a signature on the butt. The new, monkeyed-with flamingos have no
蝉颈驳苍补迟耻谤别.鈥�
The pink flamingo lawn sculpture was created in 1957 by a young designer
named Don Featherstone, and his signature was added to the rump in 1986.
Featherstone retired last year from Union Products, the company in Leominster,
Massachusetts, that makes the birds, and several months later the mould was
altered to remove the Featherstone signature.
鈥淭he public was never warned. The manufacturer released these altered
flamingos directly into the wild without doing any environmental testing,鈥� says
Marc Abrahams, editor of AIR, the science humour magazine that in 1996
honoured Featherstone by awarding him an Ig Nobel Prize. 鈥淎 plastic pink
flamingo with its Featherstone removed is a pitiful thing, probably unable to
survive in nature,鈥� Abrahams said.
AIR and Boston鈥檚 Museum of Bad Art (MOBA) are calling for a consumer
boycott of unsigned flamingos . . . If you want to join in, get in touch with
either the AIR or MOBA via the Flamingo Boycott website
www.improbable.com/projects/mingo/flamingo-protest.html.
FOUND BY reader John Wallace on the website for the Dundee Courier
last month: 鈥淎stronomers from St Andrews University and the Midi-Pyrenees
Observatory, Toulouse, came up with the new phenomenon, which demonstrates a
slow change in the way the star spins on its axis while working in Australia.鈥�
AND WE liked this headline from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, with its
suggestion of levitation and, should the technology fail, a ghastly catastrophe:
鈥淪ewage treatment site still up in air.鈥�
READER Rachel Caldow purchased a pack of self-adhesive door hooks and was
fixing them as instructed when she noticed the warning 鈥淣ot suitable for
children under 36 months鈥�.
As she was only planning to hang coats on the hooks, she didn鈥檛 mind this
particularly, but wondered in passing whether the hooks were really strong
enough to carry the weight of children over 36 months.
THE INFORMATION on sachets of salad dressing provided by Egyptair
illuminatingly tells users: 鈥淓xpiry date鈥攐ne year from production鈥�
BOTTLES of Sainsbury鈥檚 own-brand washing up liquid on sale in Cambridge bear
the legend: 鈥淪ainsbury鈥檚 Original. New formula鈥�.
THE Berol Red Eye Reduction Pen is for retouching photo prints in which
people have red eyes due to reflection from the camera鈥檚 flash. It comes with
instructions which include the warning: 鈥淥nly suitable for use on prints, never
directly on the living eye.鈥�
FINALLY for those whose grasp of even the most elementary mathematics
keeps failing, there鈥檚 a condom machine in the basement toilets at Birkbeck,
University of London, bearing the useful reminder: 鈥�1 脳 拢1 =
拢1鈥�.