ISN鈥橳 it wonderful how each new high-tech gadget we become addicted to finds a way to inject chaos and disruption into our lives? We鈥檙e thinking here of cellphones, whose owners are tech-savvy enough to program buttons for frequently-dialled numbers, but not enough to lock the keypad when they put the things in their pockets or bags.
The results are predictable. We know one person whose Italian colleague鈥檚 phone is always accidentally dialling him and treating him to the ambient sounds of public transport in Rome. Another keeps getting mysterious calls featuring a Spanish language instruction tape, while another was treated one evening recently to a female choir serenading a trade conference in Bangkok (well, that鈥檚 what her husband said it was).
The potential for marital misunderstanding here is obvious, given whose number usually tops the speed-dial list, and given the sorts of contortions that might activate a phone in a pocket. But one can also imagine all manner of embarrassing security breaches. Does anyone out there know of any good ones? And surely this latest source of high-tech horror deserves a name. Answers on a postcard or email, please, but no inadvertent phone calls.
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WHAT is it with South African President Thabo Mbeki and cymbals? Or rather 鈥渟ounding brass and tinkling cymbals鈥�.
Readers who paid attention in Sunday school will know that this piece of flowery language comes from St Paul鈥檚 letter to the Corinthians. It warns against the dangers of uttering empty words: 鈥淎lthough I speak in tongues of men and angels, I鈥檓 just sounding brass and tinkling cymbals without love.鈥� Those who didn鈥檛 pay attention in Sunday school may still recognise it as an old and obscure blues tune from the forties, or a Joni Mitchell lyric from the eighties.
But back to Mbeki. He has recently adopted the phrase, inserting it into the final text of the Johannesburg Declaration from last month鈥檚 World Summit. The declaration鈥檚 dull, clunking recitation of platitudes is suddenly enlivened by the warning that, unless the summit brings action, the poor of the world will see 鈥渢heir representatives as nothing more than sounding brass or tinkling cymbals鈥�. It sticks out like a sore thumb, but despite many back-stage guffaws, none of the hundred-plus world leaders present dared suggest to their host that it might best be removed.
And blow us down with that sounding brass if Mbeki wasn鈥檛 at it again a few days ago in New York. He declared at a big UN meeting to discuss a new 鈥淢arshall Plan鈥� for Africa that unless it worked, 鈥渢he representatives of the peoples of the world gathered here鈥� will be seen as 鈥渕erely sounding brass鈥︹��
Great stuff, Thabo, keep at it. And please, dear readers, alert Feedback to further sightings of the phrase. For without your help, we are nothing more than鈥�
AS REPORTED in 鈥淪oundbites鈥� two weeks ago (21 September, p 9), Sony鈥檚 Epic record label has been sending out review CDs glued inside a personal stereo so that they can鈥檛 be taken out to make a pirate MP3 copy to put on the Internet. To make doubly sure, the plug of the player鈥檚 headphones is glued into its socket to stop people connecting the socket to a recorder.
It all seems so pointless. As quoted in 鈥淪oundbites鈥�, reviewer Bart Blasengame managed to prise the CD out of the player anyway. But even if this wasn鈥檛 possible, does Sony really believe that no music reviewer is clever enough to cut through the headphone wire and attach it to a recorder?
CONCERNS about human cloning and genetic engineering may be a bit late. According to the employment section in a recent edition of The Weekend Australian newspaper, already 鈥渢here are somewhere between 100 and 130 transgenic scientists working in Britain鈥�.
A RECENT edition of The Washington Post ran a heart-rending article on the elimination of an introduced species of fish, the snakehead, from a pond in Crofton, Maryland. The snakehead is considered such a menace that it was deemed necessary to kill all the fish in the pond with the chemical rotenone and then restock it later.
The Post鈥檚 article was high on sympathy for fish, but not so hot on their biology. After a couple of paragraphs of emotive descriptions of the impending death of the indigenous fish populations, the story reached a climax: 鈥淏luegills, warmouths, crappies, chain pickerels. Into the buckets they went, their sides heaving as the oxygen drained from their bodies. Within minutes of being lifted from the water, their lungs collapse.鈥�
But perhaps fish in Maryland are constructed differently from elsewhere.
FINALLY, the British Institute of Radiology takes a flexible view of things others consider more fixed. The form sent to reader Neil Gillies to allow him to revise his membership details states, under date of birth, 鈥減lease update if necessary鈥�.
At the Qantas museum in Longreach, Queensland, there is a door with a sign on it saying: 鈥淒o not go through this door when it is closed鈥�