FRUITLOOPERY alert! Fruitloopery alert! Yes, it鈥檚 the q-word again, and it鈥檚 popping up all over the place. Take the offered by a company called Vibrancy Inc. A reader who wishes to be known only as Woodrow recommends to us the correspondence between the author of the Found on Craig鈥檚 List blog and a Vibrancy Inc representative who sparked considerable interest among us journalists by claiming: 鈥淚 can design a protocol specifically for writer鈥檚 block.鈥�
How does it work? As you can read at , 鈥渋t sends out 10,000 beneficial homeopathic frequencies鈥�. This must be a good thing, because apparently 鈥渢he body has an incredible intelligence and will absorb what it needs鈥�.
Spectrographers might be even more surprised by the next bit. 鈥淚f the frequency of (for example) vitamin C doesn鈥檛 come back,鈥� the Vibrancy Inc person claims, 鈥渨e know the body has absorbed this energy.鈥� And that, they conclude, would mean the body 鈥渋s deficient in this nutrient鈥�.
Advertisement
Conventional, mundane, unimaginatively rational chemistry would humbly suggest the opposite. Vitamin C does indeed have characteristic electromagnetic frequencies. The more of it there is, the more of them it absorbs. If they don鈥檛 鈥渃ome back鈥� from the body, that would suggest it鈥檚 actually chock-full of the vitamin.
But we are not, of course, dealing with boring old electromagnetic radiation (boo! hiss! 鈥渞adiation鈥�!) here. Further enquiry led our blogger to , which offers remote therapy sessions: 鈥淎fter obtaining and inputting specific information that we gather from you鈥� we can connect with you vibrationally, on what we call a 鈥荣ubspace鈥� level.鈥�
Vibrancy Inc appears, however, not to rely on this amazing breakthrough in cosmology when it comes to customers transmitting the $180 charge for the initial 2-hour remote session. Rather, it relies on tedious, old-fashioned electromagnetic PayPal.
鈥淪everal readers have noted with surprise that the Zome construction kit sold by 鈥渙ffers the ability for kids to expand their objects in up to 61 different dimensions鈥�
THE q-word in 鈥渜uantum biofeedback鈥� is, of course, entirely free of meaning. We can only assume it has been tacked on there by somebody who hoped it would sound impressive. The same is true of the Organic Pharmacy鈥檚 拢150 Quantum Health Assessment, which involves a 鈥渄iagnostic鈥� scanning with a Quantum QXCI machine. The initials here stand for Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface, so the embedded quantums are really stacking up 鈥� all of them meaning absolutely nothing.
Queries to a famous web search engine reveal that the QXCI machine was last year by the quackbusting British journalist Ben Goldacre in his 鈥淏ad science鈥� column in The Guardian newspaper. This was after The Daily Telegraph had run an article appearing to endorse the machine and the claims made for it.
Sadly, it seems Goldacre鈥檚 comments have not cut any ice with the powers that be at the Telegraph group. As late as last month, Organic Pharmacy was still advertising the 鈥渜uantum鈥� machine in the pages of The Sunday Telegraph鈥荣 Stella magazine (26 April), which is where Feedback reader Andrew Brightwell saw it and told us about it.
Pub closes 鈥渟moking research centre鈥�
FIRST it was Japanese fishermen hunting whales for 鈥渟cientific research鈥�. Now a pub in the north of England has been allowing drinkers to get round the UK鈥檚 smoking ban in a room designated as a 鈥渟moking research centre鈥�.
According to a , the Cutting Edge pub in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, believed it had discovered a loophole in English smoking laws that allowed people to smoke on the premises so long as they filled in a questionnaire on their smoking habits before sitting down for a drink and a cigarette in the 鈥渃entre鈥�.
Sadly, that this could only apply within research institutions 鈥� which the Cutting Edge is 鈥渃learly not鈥�. The pub has therefore had to close down its smoking room.
THE letter that Jim Franks received from , a branch of the UK government, told him: 鈥淲e have looked at your Pension Credit again and made an automated decision using the details we currently hold to set a new assessed income period from 5 July 2009 to 28 February 1852.鈥� With commendable determination to put first things first, rather than respond to The Pension Service and ask what on earth it was talking about, Jim promptly scanned in the letter and sent a copy to Feedback.
READER Paul Spicker draws our attention to a recent advertisement in The Times, London, for 鈥�5 star Luxury European River Cruises鈥� on which 鈥淵our room also includes鈥� a 6 脳 2.5 foot high window that does not go below the water line even when passing under low bridges.鈥�
FINALLY, there seemed to be something wrong with the description Mike Hogan spotted on a shelf of cold meats at his local Asda store. 鈥淎sda Germ Selection鈥� announced the label. Studying the products more closely, Mike noted that those near the offending label all came from Germany. The realisation that an unfortunate truncation had taken place came as something of a relief.