A breath of fresh air
FIVE months since the UK voted to leave the European Union, the miasma surrounding Brexit shows no signs of clearing. Readers may recall that environment secretary Andrea Leadsom boasted to party activists in October that Chinese tourists were buying bottled English air for 拢80 a pop. Quite a wheeze 鈥� although we wonder why tourists don鈥檛 simply cap their own empty bottles for free before returning home.
Nonetheless, the market for canned air is ballooning. Colleagues send a flyer for , a tinned variety that offers 150 breaths of 02 in a can, in five exciting flavours: peppermint, pink grapefruit, menthol. a flavour called 鈥渂eauty鈥� and, er, 95 per cent pure natural. Better make that four exciting flavours.
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The promo warns that 鈥渞esearch shows oxygen consumption levels are as low as 21%鈥�, a figure we can only describe as atmospherical. By way of a remedy, Boost promises that huffing on the scented oxygen offers reduced tension, reduced appetite and 鈥渓imitless benefits for body and mind鈥� 鈥� and, Feedback suspects, will leave you positively glowing should there be any naked flames nearby.
鈥淚BM has that a software crash which disrupted the Australian national census could have been easily resolved if the company had 鈥渢urned one of its routers off and on again鈥濃��
Rock philosophy
PREVIOUSLY Feedback discussed the prominent references in scientific literature to musical figures such as reluctant Nobel prizewinner Bob Dylan and mop-topped Scouse quartet The Beatles (29 October).
Crispin Piney tells us that in addition to these examples, we may add the inspiration given by a certain rock star to Management Congress in 2001.
In a paper titled A Philosophy of Project Management According to Meat Loaf, Davis provides a number of lessons, including the dangers of scope creep (鈥淚鈥檇 Do Anything for Love, But I Won鈥檛 Do That鈥�) and methods for balancing cost, time and quality (鈥淭wo Out of Three Ain鈥檛 Bad鈥�).
As Crispin points out, the Bat Out of Hell singer 鈥渃ouldn鈥檛 have said it better鈥�.
Reference test
OTHER artists may find themselves elegantly wasted on new readers. Teresa Gamellaro writes that when teaching high-school chemistry students about the concept of a 鈥溾�� whose exhaustion constrains a reaction, 鈥淚 always go on to state that the other reagent is called 鈥業NXS鈥�. Unfortunately, as time has gone on, fewer of my high-school students seem to appreciate this reference.鈥�
Hot pockets
OUR colleagues have covered the alarming news that Samsung smartphones have been exploding into flames because of the volatility of their lithium batteries (22 October). 鈥淚t is very rare to see an advert for a product coming with as honest a warning as the one for a Samsung smartphone I spotted at the Charles de Gaulle airport,鈥� reports Tadeusz Kawecki. 鈥淚t says 鈥楻ethink what a phone can do鈥�.鈥�
Fruit of our labour
MAYO maker Hellmann鈥檚 markets a tomato ketchup (鈥�14% more tomatoes than the market leader鈥�) that informs Colin Smythe that not only are the tomatoes sun-ripened, but also 鈥渟ustainably grown鈥�.
鈥淭he copywriters are certainly pulling all the stops out,鈥� says Colin, 鈥渂ut what exactly do they mean by it 鈥� can tomatoes be unsustainably grown?鈥� Feedback鈥檚 forays into gardening tell us that any success in our greenhouse has proven to be very unsustainable indeed.
Fatal error
FAMOUS last words: after finding out that scientists were the most likely of any profession to want a postmortem status update to be published, Feedback wondered what posts the greats might have cued up for their deaths (5 November).
Tony Lang thinks that Erwin Schr枚dinger鈥檚 last tweet would have asked his followers: 鈥淏efore you lower my coffin into the ground, please open it to make sure I鈥檓 dead.鈥�
Dead reckoning
MORE posthumous papers: Mike Mellor writes in with the news that a reviewer of the new collection of Isaac Newton鈥檚 correspondence warns that most prospective readers 鈥渨ill not want to read Volume VI, as it contains a decline in Newton鈥檚 vigorous intellectual activity and a private dispute between himself and [Gottfried] Leibniz from 1713鈥�1718鈥�. Mike says: 鈥淭he fact that he was still arguing with Leibniz two years after Leibniz鈥檚 death in 1716 suggests Newton鈥檚 vigorous intellectual activity may indeed have declined quite considerably.鈥�
I see no sea
BARRY CASH is a reader well-seasoned in the mystery of Himalayan pink 鈥渟ea salt鈥� (5 November). He shares a letter he sent to supermarket Waitrose questioning the origin of the substance, found in the store鈥檚 Ultimate Chocolate Collection.
Customer-service rep Viv Arnold replied with remarkable specificity about the origin of the salt: the Khewra salt mine in Punjab, Pakistan, 鈥�310 km from the Himalayas, 260 km from Lahore, and 298 km from Amritsar, India鈥�.
However, Arnold did not share with Cash which sea can be found at this location.
HTML tables
SOME assembly required? Flat-packed furniture store IKEA hosts an online library of guidebooks, from which users can download a digital version of the assembly instructions for their many thousands of products.
Brian Reffin Smith reports a prominent and alarming warning on informing any visitors: 鈥淧lease note! This page is under construction.鈥�