杏吧原创

THE BBC recently had to ask private collectors for help in finding lost TV treasures. Music programmes and comedy classics 鈥� like the best of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore 鈥� were all lost when the BBC had economy drives in the 1970s and erased recordings and threw out rolls of film. Turning a blind eye, the BBC has now borrowed back 鈥渦nauthorised鈥� copies that collectors had rescued from BBC rubbish bins.

You might think that lessons have been learned. But a recent issue of the BBC鈥檚 in-house magazine Ariel tells a sobering tale. Terry Smith, the BBC鈥檚 head of programme delivery, recalls how two decades ago the 鈥渂ig debate鈥� was on what to do about a leaky roof in the BBC鈥檚 film library in London. Twenty years later, he has just found the BBC鈥檚 stock of 35-millimetre feature films 鈥渟urrounded by collapsed roofing tiles, plastic sheeting and rainwater鈥�.

Some films have had to be junked, while two prints of the original King Kong, with more complete sequences than any other prints in the world, were just two metres away from the watery mess and narrowly escaped damage.

Says Peter Barlow, the BBC鈥檚 head of estate strategy in charge of property: 鈥淥ptions are being examined.鈥� As a fan of Fay Wray, Feedback can only hope this won鈥檛 take another 20 years.

ALAN Ralsky, said by some to be the world鈥檚 biggest spammer, is finally getting a taste of his own medicine. According to Free Press columnist Mike Wendland, a highly organised anti-spam campaign has been mounted against him at his home in West Bloomfield, New York state, following an earlier article in the online magazine exposing him.

鈥淪everal tonnes of snail mail spam every day might just annoy him as much as his spam annoys me,鈥� one of the campaigners is quoted as saying.

It seems to be working. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e signed me up for every advertising campaign and mailing list there is,鈥� Ralsky complains, and he is not amused. He says he鈥檚 asked Bloomfield Hills attorney Robert Harrison to sue the anti-spammers.

GOOD to see that British girls are being encouraged to go into science. Reader Debbie Harding reports that bookseller and newsagent WH Smith鈥檚 Christmas gift catalogue included the following in the 鈥淕ifts for boys鈥� section: Science Kit, WHS Science Gift Pack and Inventor鈥檚 Handbooks (Flying Machines and Robots).

And the 鈥淕ifts for girls鈥�? Oh, those were things like: Ballet Bag, Barbie as Rapunzel, Cool Texting Gift Pack and WHS Felicity Wishes Gift Pack.

Felicity Wishes, of course, is a small female person with wings 鈥� so she must be encouraging girls to investigate the cutting-edge science of genetic engineering. Probably.

COUNTLESS dire warnings accompanied this year鈥檚 round of Christmas presents, thanks to product liability lawyers. What was most surprising was the sheer bulk of some of them. One colleague in Boston reports that his wife opened a present and found a 64-page booklet that she first thought was a manual, but turned out to be packed with warnings in five languages about the consequences of misusing the product.

Understandable, if the present was something potentially lethal, like a chainsaw or a do-it-yourself brain surgery kit. But it was merely an Olympus digital camera, which would seem incapable of doing serious damage to anyone unless dropped from a large height.

THEN there are the product warnings that are themselves hazardous. Bleary-eyed and suffering from a bad cough, the same colleague tried to find the proper dosage on a bottle of Leader Nite-Time cough syrup. He read through the list of warnings on the label twice, thinking the instructions must be there somewhere. Finally he spotted a note at the bottom of the label, telling him to peel it back and look underneath.

Sure enough, the dosage was printed on the back of the label 鈥� a distinctly odd place to hide the bit of information most essential to the safety of a medicine.

WHEN a massive European eagle owl with ferocious talons escaped from Clyne Farm Activity Centre in Wales before Christmas, the surrounding area was alerted. 鈥淪mall birds and small cats should give him a wide berth,鈥� announced the head instructor at the centre, according to a report by online news agency Ananova.com.

No doubt birds and cats with a good command of English will heed the warning and do exactly that.

FINALLY, the School of Mathematics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, recently placed a job advertisement in The Australian鈥檚 Higher Education Supplement. It ran: 鈥淎pplications are invited for the Position of Research Associate in the School of Mathematics. The successful applicant will work on the project 鈥楢dvanced computational algorithms for three dimensional systems鈥欌�� Applicants with proven teaching abilities may be considered for a 3/4 research and 1/3 teaching position.鈥�

Let鈥檚 hope their mathematics is better than their arithmetic.

From the department of things we would rather not know. The packaging of Johnson & Johnson鈥檚 rectal thermometer tells potential users: 鈥淓very rectal thermometer made by Johnson & Johnson is personally tested鈥�