WHEN Don Dennis and family process bookings taken by phone for their guest house on the island of Gigha, off the west coast of Scotland, their Ingenico TT42 credit card machine asks if the card holder is present or not. They answer by hitting the button indicating 鈥渘o鈥�.
The printed slip the machine produces correctly states 鈥淐ustomer Not Present鈥�. Yet a little further down it states 鈥淪ignature Verified鈥�, which it clearly wasn鈥檛.
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The family also runs a small mail-order business. Their orders over the phone usually get paid in this same way, with the same misleading printout. The two businesses between them put through about 3000 payments of this type last year.
鈥淟et鈥檚 imagine there are 10,000 small firms in the UK which operate as we do, with the same equipment 鈥� and I have hardly seen any other hardware in use,鈥� says Don. 鈥淚f, on average, these companies put through the same number of payments each year as we do, then that鈥檚 30 million completely incorrect statements being printed in the UK each year.鈥�
Don wonders whether readers can think of any equally flagrant falsehoods that are being disseminated in such quantity. He also wonders whether equivalent machines around the globe print out similar messages. If they do, the number of such false statements becomes truly vast.
鈥淏eside the Grand Union canal near Tring in southern England there is a sign which, Bieglo Derby tells us, says: 鈥淭ring Angling Club. No Fishing Allowed鈥�
WE EXPRESSED surprise on 2 October that Rentokil thinks it helpful to tell customers that its rat poison 鈥渃ontains natural whole wheat鈥�. Mick Khan thinks we missed a possible explanation. 鈥淚t could be a warning to rats with gluten allergy or intolerance, who would be advised to use an alternative gluten-free poison,鈥� he suggests.
HERE, for a change, is a disclaimer that we rather like. It came with for the solar-powered house-number panel bought by Matthew Hilder in Wentworth Falls, New South Wales, Australia. 鈥淲arning: The warnings, cautions, and instructions discussed in this instruction manual cannot cover all possible conditions and situations that may occur. It must be understood by the operator that common sense and caution are factors which cannot be built into this product, but must be supplied by the operator.鈥�
THE email Roy Wood was sent promoting Binatone satnav systems promised him they feature 鈥淯p to millions* of pre-installed Points of Interest such as parking, hotels, restaurants, petrol stations etc鈥�.
To add to the statement鈥檚 deficiencies in the meaning department, there was no explanation of the asterisk beside 鈥渕illions鈥�. This is a shame, because there could have been a note at the bottom of the message reading: 鈥�
* For example, 3, or 3 million鈥�.
HERE is a strong candidate for the Feedback bad acronym award. A press release from the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council announces nine new projects aimed at uncovering links between diet and health.
Worth a total of 拢4 million, the projects are funded by a public-private partnership of three UK research councils and 13 food and drink companies. And someone has chosen to call the ensemble the Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC).
Cheers, everybody.
TRANSPORT for London, which runs many of the city鈥檚 trains, fills spare advertising poster spots with its 鈥淎rt on the Underground鈥� project. A recent example offers the statement 鈥淚 feel that my sense of self is fluid鈥�. It goes on to state that 鈥�50 per cent of people asked answered either true or false to this question in a recent survey of Jubilee Line customers鈥�.
John Priestland wants to know what the other 50 per cent answered.
THE invitation sent out by Arena International Events Group, reminding recipients of the European Nuclear Supply Chain conference to be held in London next week, includes what Nick Weston describes as 鈥渁n unfortunate turn of phrase鈥�. Headed 鈥淪trategies to maximise your nuclear supply chain鈥�, the invitation begins: 鈥淯tility companies from across Europe are poised for an explosion in new nuclear reactor construction projects.鈥� Now that鈥檚 worrying.
FINALLY, Paul Robinson鈥檚 parents were given a Sharp microwave by a neighbour who had no need for it. It came without a manual, so Paul set about trying to find one online.
He tried the , where the 鈥淣eed Help?鈥� box seemed the place to start. But when he entered what he believed to be the model number, r-249, into the space labelled 鈥渟earch by model no.鈥�, the site told him: 鈥淵our search for 鈥榬-249鈥� returned no results.鈥�
Trying to be helpful, it went on: 鈥淭he closest match was 鈥榬-29鈥� which returned 0 results.鈥�