ANYONE who feels their sex life has become a bit boring lately can take heart. Social scientists are getting on top of the problem. 鈥淢undane sex鈥� is the theme of the latest issue of the Journal of Mundane Behaviour, the sociology journal devoted to the science of the ordinary.
It seems that mundane sex is all too common, despite media images that try to convince us otherwise. JMB guest editor Kimberly Mahaffy, an assistant professor of sociology at Millersville University in Pennsylvania, explains: 鈥淪ome of us are too tired to have sex or we go through the motions. The novelty and lust have been replaced by 鈥楥an we do it before 10 pm?鈥� and 鈥楧o I have to take my socks off?'鈥�
Don鈥檛 go looking for a chapter on how to revive your stalled sex life, though. The JMB鈥檚 scholarly writers skip the 鈥渉ow-to鈥� and instead address topics ranging from mundane pornography to women who describe love-making in terms of housekeeping.
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For example, in the article entitled 鈥淗omebodies鈥�, researcher Annie Potts discovers that many women identify sexually with interior spaces like living rooms. One woman interviewed by Potts says that sexual intercourse is like inviting someone into your house for a cup of tea.
Later in the journal, social scientist Ruth Barcan examines why people want to watch other normal-looking people, rather then glamorous porn stars, have sex with each other. A profusion of home-made porn movies can apparently be found on the Internet, but why? Barcan finds that home-grown porn is popular because many people have what she calls a 鈥渞eality fetish鈥�.
If mundane behaviour is your thing, go to mundanebehavior.org/issues/v3n1/toc3-1.htm for more.
FROM an article in The West Australian (23 February) about a popular exhibition of historically important documents at the National Library of Australia: 鈥淭he collection covers works from the fourth century to the 21st. It includes Mozart鈥檚 manuscript for his unfinished Requiem, a Gutenberg bible made on the world鈥檚 first moving printing press, Charles Darwin鈥檚 notes on the Origin of Species and a set of notes by Sigmund Freud detailing his calculations to reach the formula E=MC2.鈥�
We can鈥檛 wait for the exhibition to transfer to London.
ANYONE who has done it will know that reading newly filed patents is a chore. Often the technical descriptions are so badly written they stimulate only an urge to strangle the inventor. So it is refreshing to find that even government officials, who are paid to read the stuff, can lose their rag over the rubbish often filed by patent seekers.
An examiner at the US government鈥檚 palatial Patent Office near Washington DC recently loosed off an official report rejecting an inventor鈥檚 claims. To his embarrassment, you can now read his grammatically incoherent remarks because they have been posted on the Internet ().
The sanitised, but not grammaticised, text reads: 鈥淎s to claims 12 and 13, the Applicant recites the limitation 鈥榤ore distant鈥�. It is unclear to the Examiner has no f***ing clue as to what this means.鈥�
We hope the US Patent Office won鈥檛 penalise this honest member of staff.
MEANWHILE, over at the US Copyright Office, they are slightly more successful at hanging on to their gravitas. On its website () a laudably conscientious official responds to the tricky question of how people might protect their intellectual property rights in a sighting of Elvis鈥攁pparently one of the office鈥檚 frequently asked questions.
鈥淐opyright law does not protect sightings,鈥� our official explains. 鈥淗owever, copyright law will protect your photo (or other depiction) of your sighting of Elvis. Just send it to us with a form VA application and the $30 filing fee. No one can lawfully use your photo of your sighting, although someone else may file his own photo of his sighting. Copyright law protects the original photograph, not the subject of the photograph.鈥�
THE LATEST hot trend in telephones is the Internet Phone, which offers a range of intelligent features through built-in programming capabilities. Feedback recently got an invitation to take a look at one, produced by a company called Pingtel and billed as 鈥渢he world鈥檚 first intelligent, Java-based SIP phone, an open platform for innovation by software developers around the world.鈥�
The phone allows you do to all sorts of clever things鈥攊f, that is, you can read the faint LCD display, which Feedback鈥檚 eyes couldn鈥檛 make out at all at the company booth. The sales manager conceded the models in the booth would benefit from brighter displays that supplied their light from inside the phone, rather than trying to reflect ambient light in the room.
Very intelligent.
鈥�NOW YOU can consult with real live psychics 24/7 and actually see them right on your computer screen live,鈥� says a spam Feedback received the other day about a site called psychicreading.com. 鈥淵ou will get unlimited access not only to live psychics but a lot more鈥︹�� it goes on.
However, we couldn鈥檛 get the URL to work鈥攁nd anyway, we would have been much more impressed if they鈥檇 promised us unlimited access to dead psychics.
IT MUST be difficult to calculate your time-and-a-half rate if you do overtime in your job as a cleaner at Aston University in Birmingham. An advertisement in Job Opportunities, a free fortnightly paper circulating in the West Midlands, states that two cleaners are needed by the university. Successful applicants are offered pay at 鈥溌�4.8033 per hour鈥�.
FINALLY, when you are sent tickets for the London Eye, the huge Ferris wheel now dominating London鈥檚 skyline, the accompanying letter states: 鈥淧lease arrive at the Eye approximately half an hour before your flight. You can expect to wait approximately 30 minutes to board the Eye.鈥�