鈥淧otato-potato-potato鈥� trademark
HAVING read that Royal Mail has registered the colour red as a trademark (Feedback, 22 October) and, in a letter to New 杏吧原创, that Cadbury in New Zealand has done the same with the colour purple (5 November, p 21), Jonathan Owens couldn鈥檛 resist telling us that Harley-Davidson applied to have a trademark on the 鈥減otato-potato-potato鈥� sound that its motorcycles make.
In the words of US trademark application number 74485223: 鈥淭he mark consists of the exhaust sound of [the] applicant鈥檚 motorcycles, produced by V-Twin, common crankpin motorcycle engines when the goods are in use鈥his is often described as 鈥榩otato, potato, potato鈥� by motorcycle enthusiasts. Harley-Davidson believes that the sound of its engines has been a distinctive attribute of its motorcycles and therefore believes protection is necessary.鈥�
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For reasons we鈥檙e not entirely clear about, the application was eventually abandoned. Nevertheless, Owens is thinking of trademarking the sound of a bumblebee in a jam jar and then waiting to see what moped manufacturers do to avoid infringing his trademark.
PHOTOCOPIER supplier Canon has to handle a 25 per cent rise in service calls during the festive season, according to a report on CNET news by Will Sturgeon of . The reason is spelled out by Tim Andrews, a London employee of the company, who says, 鈥淲e always fit lots of new glass to copiers after New Year due to 鈥榬ear-end copying鈥�.鈥�
Cracked glass caused by the practice of photocopying backsides during Christmas and New Year office parties has apparently become so common that Canon has had to make the glass on its machines a millimetre thicker. Sturgeon speculates another reason for this may be the supersizing of the western physique.
SEEN by Diane Lloyd-Jones in the 鈥淪cience and nature鈥� section of The Australian newspaper: 鈥淚n Adelaide, flooding along the river Torrens on the city fringe reached biblical proportions as it swept away the figures of baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, a kangaroo and a whale from the West End Brewery鈥檚 Christmas nativity scene.鈥�
It seems notions of the kind of thing you would be likely to encounter in a Bethlehem stable have moved on over the years.
STAFF at the prestigious Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, one of the world鈥檚 leading genome research centres, were disconcerted to receive this email from the maintenance department recently: 鈥淗ello. Due to a compressor failure, there is currently no air supply to the main Sanger building. We are working on the problem and intend to have the supply reinstated as soon as we can. Thank you. Sparks.鈥�
Sarah Field, who told us about this, makes no mention of corpses of suffocated biotechnologists littering the building, so we assume that miraculously there were no casualties.
ARE there negative placebo effects, Peter Grant asked our sibling column 鈥淭he last word鈥� on 15 October. Answers appear on the opposite page 鈥� and here鈥檚 Ed Saul adding further clarification to the issue. We think.
Of course there are, he says. He agrees with Steven Reitci (opposite) that someone who believes themselves cursed and falls ill is suffering placebo harm. 鈥淔or instance,鈥� (look away now if you鈥檙e reading this in a theatre), 鈥渨hen acting in the famously cursed play Macbeth, where the negative placebo effect may take hold.鈥�
鈥淭he football boots that Russell Rathbone bought for his grandson came in a box announcing: 鈥淎verage contents 2鈥斥��
Then there are placebos that cause actual harm. Saul refers us to a more recent contribution to the literary canon 鈥� the episode 鈥淢arge in chains鈥� of The Simpsons, in which a flu-struck crowd, on being told that any cure the doctor might offer them would be a placebo, set out on a frantic search for a placebo and 鈥渦pturn a truck full of killer bees and pop them into their mouths, muttering 鈥業鈥檓 cured 鈥� I mean, Ow!'鈥�
But we must also 鈥渢ake into account the placebos that don鈥檛 have any effect at all鈥�, Saul writes, 鈥渢hough people think they do.鈥� Now we鈥檙e off to find a placebo effective against logical headaches.
FINALLY, it is not just email subject headers and cinema marquees that suffer from truncation (19 November). David Richard鈥檚 local Co-op supermarket has on sale a ready-to-roast beef joint called 鈥淕et Fresh beef joint with horseradish and mustard topping鈥�. Unfortunately, the limited space on the shelf label renders this as 鈥淕F beef joint with horse鈥�.
Meanwhile Alistair Hamilton tells us of his surprise back in October when he found in his inbox a message from what he calls a 鈥渞eliable source鈥� with a header proclaiming 鈥淣EWSFLASH: Moon discovered orbiting tent鈥�. He wondered if perhaps the tent contained a black hole 鈥� but then he discovered that his inbox had clipped 鈥渉 planet鈥� from the subject line of this New 杏吧原创 email.