HERE is a heart-warming little story for the greens among us. Occasionally, Hester Lacey tells us, she happens across some of the very few remaining horse-drawn travellers down the back lanes of Dorset in the rural south-west of England. These travellers, she says, live one of the greenest lifestyles available in the 21st century but they are evidently still able to take advantage of modern technology.
Recently she passed a traditional yellow-and-red painted wooden caravan drawn up on a wide grass verge. A shaggy brown horse was tethered to a post, dinner was simmering over an open fire, and a portable solar panel was propped nearby, carefully angled to catch the sun. Ahhhh!
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ASKED 鈥淎re they economical heaters?鈥� the FAQs section of the Aircon website replies: 鈥淵es 鈥� the beauty of these units is that they contain heat pumps which generate more heat than they use. For example, a 3-kilowatt radiant electric heater consumes 3 kilowatts power and outputs 3 kilowatts heat, which is a coefficient of performance (COP) of 1. Our units have a COP of 3, that is, for every kilowatt of power consumed they generate 3 kilowatts of heat.鈥�
Jeremy Richemont says he intends to buy one of these and run a steam generator off it. Some of the resulting electricity can be used to power the unit and he will use the rest for his house. 鈥淎n array of these could power a small town for free!鈥�
鈥淩oad signs along New Mexico鈥檚 highways suggest that 鈥淒uststorms May Exist鈥�. When Adam Potterton sees them, he is always tempted to write on them 鈥淥r Maybe They Don鈥檛 鈥� Who Knows?鈥濃��
HERE is another disclaimer on a web page that exploits the creative freedom offered by the fact that nobody ever reads them (17 February).
The planetary orbital calculator Rob Moore discovered at allows users to download a program for plotting the orbits of planets in a solar system. At the bottom of the page it says: 鈥淭his program is for demonstration purposes only. It is not to be used for planning interplanetary missions or for plotting the paths of civilian or military spacecraft or satellites. This product does not provide sufficient targeting accuracy for Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles. Your future can not be predicted by the alignment of the planets or stars using this software or by any other observation method. The alien mother ship is not hiding on the other side of the sun. This program should not be used to predict the end of the world. The longer you use this program the older you will get.鈥�
AT THE end of last year, we voiced the fear that we are being exploited by viral notices for the purposes of propagating themselves (16 December 2006). Lindsay Brash observes that the notice we mentioned then 鈥� 鈥淧lease do not remove this notice until 23rd July鈥� 鈥� 鈥渄emonstrates the rapid evolution of viruses and the sophisticated tricks they can employ on their hosts. By stating a date, the notice fools humans into thinking it must be legitimate, and they let it be.鈥�
In fact, Brash goes on, it鈥檚 even cleverer than that: people 鈥渁re so gullible that they are not likely to remove it until some time after the stated date. But by then they will forget when they first saw it and, to be safe, leave it until the next 23 July. Fantastic!鈥�
And in James Penketh鈥檚 school there is a notice with an even more subtle survival strategy: inducing complete cognitive breakdown. It reads 鈥淭ake no notice of this notice. By Order.鈥� If he took no notice of this notice, he asks, 鈥渨ould I know to take no notice of it?鈥�
Justin Needham, meanwhile, has found an example of the suicide notice: 鈥淧lease leave these facilities as you would wish to find them鈥�. Every time he spots one, he writes, 鈥淚 am tempted (and sometimes succumb) to tear it down. That鈥檚 better, just how I wish to find the facilities 鈥� with no patronising notices.鈥�
THANKS to Sean May for forwarding this note from the veterinary school at the University of Nottingham in the UK with its sadly short-sighted technical solution to the problem of excess noise during exams: 鈥淰et School exams will be held between 9-11 am on the morning of Friday 16 February. We will be posting notices asking for quiet and for all mobile phones to be switched off upon entering the Vet School atrium. Please be aware that we will be operating a mobile phone detector which will sound a loud alarm if phones are left switched on.鈥�
NOBODY could accuse the Coopers of Stratford catalogue of excessive precision. Promoting its low-energy light bulbs, it states: 鈥淟ighting can account for up to 25-40 per cent or more of your household electricity bill.鈥�
鈥淭here鈥檚 no arguing with that,鈥� notes Geoffrey Hammersely. 鈥淏ut why the uncertainty implied by 鈥榗an鈥�?鈥�
FINALLY, aerosol cans of Scotch-Weld Photo Mount bear the instruction 鈥淎void release to the environment鈥�. Bernard Beeston wants to know where he is allowed to spray the contents.