ALIVE, ALIVE-O! Inverclyde council in Scotland is proud of the bird life to be found in the inner Clyde estuary, which has been designated a site of special scientific interest. The council devotes a page of its website to the birds that live there or pass through. The Clyde, it tells us, is the most northerly of the large west-coast estuaries in the UK that are used by migrating birds.
But there is a puzzle about this otherwise attractive and informative web page. A discussion of the feeding habits of the birds in the area contains this mystifying sentence: 鈥淢ussels and *bleep*les, the principal food source for scaup, goldeneye and eider, are found in large concentrations on Mussel Bank and *bleep*le Bank.鈥�
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It took Liam Anton, who discovered this, a while to work out what is going on here. At last he realised that the council鈥檚 net censor software had been doing its dastardly work. He wondered if there are other sections of the website devoted to methods of tackling *bleep*roach infestations, and whether councillors relax of an evening by telling each other *bleep*-and-bull stories over sherry in the council chambers.
MEANWHILE, net users in Finland are also having problems with censor software aiming to protect them from the blandishments of less-than-savoury sites. People often find that they cannot visit legitimate sites when running such software because of a frequently referred-to place name 鈥� the Finnish municipality of Pornainen. Tourist sites referring to the region get blocked, while online users of the OKO Bank of Pornainen can find themselves locked out from their cash. You can鈥檛 even access the Pornainen church museum site or the local Rotary club.
Thankfully, there is now a solution. Finnish company HitBack.fi has developed a Finn-aware program called Block! that recognises when users are trying to access these unexceptionable sites, but blocks out more risqu茅 pages.
This is as it should be 鈥� but we can鈥檛 help wondering about people who really are searching for titillation. What do they think when they find they鈥檝e landed up with a Finnish bank or the Pornainen Rotary club?
DOCTORS in the UK are being told to get rid of their sterilisers. Used instruments must now be thrown away instead of being sterilised and reused.
A letter sent in January by one of London鈥檚 National Health Service trusts to all the surgeries in its area sums up the reasons for the change: 鈥淭he continued risk to patients from poorly maintained bench-top sterilising units means that perpetuation of the current situation is no longer an option,鈥� it says. It goes on to demand a switch to disposable instruments by the end of March, adding that many other trusts in the UK are also changing to disposable systems.
But those unsafe sterilisers and reusable instruments will not be wasted. The trust has identified a charity that will collect them. Once they have been discarded by the UK鈥檚 doctors, they will be shipped off for 鈥渄istribution in Chad and Angola鈥�.
So that鈥檚 all right then.
CONNOISSEURS of fanciful thinking will recognise the sentence 鈥�The Magdalene Legacy goes far beyond the controversies stirred up by The Da Vinci Code鈥� as a sure sign of a rich lode. Daniel Lowy has been through this book by Laurence Gardner. He says it leads us into a whole new world of sciency-sounding silliness, such as: 鈥淭he Templars appear to have been especially interested in the production of 鈥榪uintessential gold鈥欌�t seems that the anti-gravitational properties of this exotic material were of significant value in their construction of the great Notre Dame cathedrals of France鈥he Templar fraternity of the era referred to this branch of their activities as Ormus. Today鈥he mysterious substance is classified by physicists as an ORME 鈥� orbitally rearranged monoatomic element.鈥�
What physicists might those be? Unfortunately, we don鈥檛 know because we couldn鈥檛 find any. But we did find one David Hudson, a farmer turned gold miner who has patented a process for making a milky white fluid out of gold chloride solution. This material, according to , is 鈥渂elieved to be related to the Philosopher鈥檚 Stone鈥�.
Then there are the people at , who plug The Magdalene Legacy and sell a similar product. 鈥淣ow, you can experience the forbidden fruit for yourself,鈥� they promise. 鈥淢onoatomic? Maybe. A superconductor? We hope to know soon. The ancients believed this substance would facilitate extraordinary lifespans.鈥�
Yes, well鈥�
FINALLY, bad news from Ireland, where cattle exports fell by 200 per cent during 2004, according to the Irish Independent. So, David Gogarty wants to know, were they exporting negative cows by the end of the year?
鈥淔rom Australia鈥檚 Bunnings hardware catalogue: 鈥淩oll-a-Putt true surface with true grip backing. Just cut a hole at one end. Ideal for practising your putting. Hole not included鈥濃��