FRINGE medicine may provide our richest vein of creative marketing prose, but audiophiles seem determined give the snake-oil people a run for their money 鈥� as evinced by P. W. B. Electronics, for example, (). For the bargain price of 拢20 per pack, P. W. B.鈥檚 Rainbow Electret Foil will, when attached to the back of a CD, 鈥渘eutralise the adverse energy by inverting the energy pattern and therefore restoring it to a naturally occurring environmental pattern鈥�.
What鈥檚 more, the P. W. B. Red 鈥榵鈥� Co-ordinate Pen, for only 拢50, 鈥渉as been induced with complex messages and when a human writes a message with the Pen, the conditions on the object change in a similar way to the events in the 鈥榙ouble slit鈥� experiment, in which the essential ingredient is the pure energy form of the photons and electrons which readily interact with the human observer鈥�. This means that it 鈥減ossesses the special ingredient of manipulating modern material to form the basic pure energy pattern that readily interacts with the human 鈥榦bserver'鈥�.
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It all seems a bargain 鈥� especially as both of these products are subjects of the $1 million prize offered by sceptic James Randi to anyone who can prove various paranormal claims that he doesn鈥檛 believe: 鈥淪hould any of these products prove to work as advertised, the first person who is able to demonstrate the efficacy of any of them, will be the winner of the JREF prize.鈥� See for the details.
If, and only if, you win that prize, you could consider improving the sound of your stereo with a Silver Rock Signature Knob 鈥� 鈥渃ustom made with beech wood and bronze鈥� 鈥� from . Apparently, with ordinary knobs 鈥渢he micro vibrations created by the volume pots and knobs find their way into the delicate signal path and cause degradation鈥�. But: 鈥淲ith the signature knobs, micro vibrations from the C37 concept of wood, bronze and the lacquer itself compensate鈥nd provide鈥ay better sound!鈥� The knob is a snip for $485 plus shipping. Yes. That鈥檚 $485 for a knob.
ENTERPRISING New 杏吧原创 readers with a penchant for engaging in cutting-edge research do not only devote themselves to adding reduplicative syllables to the word 鈥渂anana鈥� and then finding out how many hits the resulting words produce on search engines (Feedback, 2 April). Colin Dold has done the same thing for 鈥測oyo鈥�, 鈥渕ama鈥�, 鈥減apa鈥� and 鈥淧aganini鈥�. He has also done it for 鈥淎bba鈥� using the pattern 鈥淎bbaabba鈥�.
Most successful was 鈥測oyo鈥�, which succeeded in getting Google hits right up to 63 repetitions of 鈥測o鈥�. But even though it looks rather nice, sadly there isn鈥檛 space in the column for us to write this one out.
AMERICANS are 鈥渢oo sleepy for sex鈥�, according to the headline on a recent Reuters newswire story. But Andres Villaveces writes from Geneva University Hospital in Switzerland, where they believe in precision, to draw our attention to the reported details of the study: 鈥淭he survey of more than 1500 adults found that 87 per cent usually watched TV in the hour before going to bed, 47 per cent usually had sex and 64 per cent read.鈥�
Which is 198 per cent of them, not counting any other things they may do. So, Villaveces asks, 鈥淒o they read during sex, or perhaps they watch TV while reading?鈥� And with all this multitasking before bed, don鈥檛 they end up too overstimulated to get any sleep?
OK, the headline that biotech firm Genzyme of Cambridge, Massachusetts, gave to its press release was a bit cumbersome: 鈥淢assachusetts General Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Grant Rights to Develop Diagnostic Test.鈥� But we鈥檙e not sure that Yahoo鈥檚 attempt to spice it up for its online news service really conveyed what was intended: 鈥淕enzyme Announces License Agreement for Exclusive Rights to Lung Cancer.鈥�
鈥淎lways on the ball, the UK constabulary. According to a BBC online news item on 12 May, 鈥淎fter the hearing, Det. Con. David Ecuyer of Kent Police said that if the bomb had gone off it would have caused an explosion鈥濃��
FOR his first major speech, the UK鈥檚 new energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, announced a huge growth in the number of wind turbines to combat the menace of climate change.
But the government鈥檚 publicity machine put a slightly different slant on the speech. A fortunately unnamed spokesman told The Observer newspaper that the speech would 鈥渞eaffirm the government鈥檚 commitment to developing wind鈥�.
We hope this will not happen in an enclosed space.
FINALLY, the 拢6.2 billion national programme for IT for the UK鈥檚 National Health Service (known as NPfIT) has been slow to get off the ground, partly because many NHS organisations feel they have not been consulted enough on its objectives and implementation. Phil Sissons tells us that this led an NPfIT manager to announce at a recent meeting he attended that 鈥渢he inertia of the NHS is gaining momentum鈥�.