EASTER is over for another year, but for one chocolate shop in the south of England the memory lingers on with an expensive pile of useless Easter eggs.
The shop鈥檚 speciality is to use a clever machine to trace a child鈥檚 鈥� or adult鈥檚 鈥� name on the chocolate shell in white icing. Customers take in a list of names 鈥� Lucy, Jake, William, Suzanne and so on 鈥� then go off to do the shopping and come back an hour later to pick up the personalised eggs.
A colleague was in the shop over Easter to order some of these eggs for younger members of the family. He got chatting to the owner, and was told this tale of woe. A busy mother planning a children鈥檚 party had run in, left what looked like a list of names, and dashed off to do her shopping. By the time she came back it was too late. The assistant in charge of the clever machine had already iced a dozen eggs for children with such unlikely names as Bacon, Sausages, Butter, Milk, Tea and Bleach.
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ARE women the real innovators? Last week鈥檚 widely publicised story that young female chimpanzees learn to use tools faster and better than young male chimpanzees (New 杏吧原创 online news, 14 April) reminded us of another brilliant female called Betty. Described as challenging the chimpanzee鈥檚 reputation as the most proficient toolmaker in the animal world, the female New Caledonian crow, which lives at the University of Oxford, constructed a hook out of a piece of wire, something even a chimpanzee cannot do (New 杏吧原创, 17 August 2002, p 44).
The report on chimpanzees points out that the learning difference between male and female chimps is similar to that between girls and boys 鈥� girls learn to write earlier and better than boys. Perhaps palaeontologists should recheck their assumptions about all those elegant prehistoric stone tools, generally seen as having been manufactured by males. Could the makers have been the original mothers of invention?
THE Pears shampoo bottle that Kathleen Robinson bought stated, unremarkably: 鈥淧ears Herbal Care Aloe Vera, Honeysuckle and Vitamin E Shampoo maintains the health and shine of normal hair 鈥� for less than the more expensive brands.鈥�
EVEN the most innocent-sounding words can be seized on by diligent spam-busting software. John Griffiths was surprised when a message from a colleague, Orde Eliason, was blocked by his spam filter. Eliason describes himself in his email signature as a 鈥淪pecialist Brazilian, Chinese, Indian and South East Asian image source鈥�, and his photographs have been used from time to time in New 杏吧原创.
So what could the problem be? Well, it鈥檚 that word 鈥渟pecialist鈥�. It contains the name of the 鈥渟uper-Viagra鈥� pill, Cialis. From now on, Eliason has decided, his signature will begin: 鈥淪pecializing in鈥︹��
THE contents page of the April Scientific American summarises a piece in its 鈥淭echnicalities鈥� section as follows: 鈥淚nexpensive robots could be as customisable and user-friendly as PCs鈥�. David Wheeler, who noticed this, comments: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the end of that, then.鈥�
FINALLY, Alix McDonald鈥檚 son Iain has only just turned 8 years old, but it seems he is already displaying the keen instincts of a future Feedback reader. While shopping with his parents in a Wal-Mart store, he read a sign saying: 鈥淟ower Prices Every Day.鈥�
鈥淭hat鈥檚 impossible,鈥� he declared. 鈥淧retty soon, everything would be free.鈥�
Brian McPherson found these words of wisdom on the box for a Pampas brand lemon meringue: 鈥淲arning 鈥� contents will be hot after heating鈥�