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Blackout drinking
Nobody can deny that for those in the right place at the right time, solar eclipses are awe-inspiring displays of nature鈥檚 majesty. Getting to that right place at that right time, however, is often easier said than done.
Most of the eclipses that Feedback can remember were obscured either by cloudy skies, excessive concern for retinal integrity or by being in the wrong country. Sometimes, possibly, all three at once.
That鈥檚 why NASA鈥檚 Jet Propulsion Laboratory ambassador Tony Rice () is getting his plans for the 2023 annular and 2024 total eclipse lined up early.
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Observing that the paths of the two eclipses intersected at a spot in Vanderpool, Texas, he dug a little deeper and discovered that the location almost exactly matched that of the Lost Maples Winery 鈥� an ideal oasis to wait out Earth鈥檚 troubles while enjoying the very best that astronomy has to offer.
鈥淛ust pointing this out, for planning purposes,鈥� Rice tweeted. Feedback will see you there.
Honk honk
, you may or may not have come across Untitled Goose Game, the sleeper video game hit of 2019. The premise is simple enough to explain.
To quote the game itself: 鈥淚t鈥檚 a lovely morning in the village, and you are a horrible goose.鈥�
Over the course of various situations, the player is urged to control a malevolent goose as it causes small but keenly felt irritation to a broad range of local residents.
Feedback was reminded of the game when we read a story in the about an electrician who lost his job after accidentally loudly playing the sound of pornography during a council meeting in Worcester, UK.
Modesty forbids us from going too deeply into the details, but suffice it to say that the man in question claimed that the noises originated from a video of a honking goose.
鈥淐ouncil bosses launched an investigation,鈥� reports Mail Online, 鈥渂ut found that no members of staff said it sounded anything like a goose.鈥�
Classic horrible goose behaviour there: making sounds that sound nothing like a goose in order to get somebody into trouble. Disgraceful.
Viva Las Vagus
Feedback is always partial to a good pun. Though let鈥檚 be honest, we aren鈥檛 averse to a bad pun now and again either, so long as it ups the word count and keeps our editor unhappy.
Which is why we are grateful to those colleagues of ours who sent through a recently published article in the Journal of Physiology all about the functioning of the vagal system and the cranial nerve that gives it its name.
If you would like to find out more about it yourself, look up 鈥溾�� by Jordan B. Lee, Lucas J. Omazic and Muhammad Kathia.
Rossy posse
Another week, another chance for some nominative determinism. Come on, we cry, like a desperate parent dragging their child away from their mobile phone for a chance to spend some quality time together. It鈥檒l be fun! Promise!
It鈥檚 off to Scotland this time, where football team Ross County has acquired a new player: goalkeeper Ross Doohan, on loan from Celtic. So far, so mildly mirthful. But, as @G4rve points out on Twitter, this isn鈥檛 the only goalkeeping Ross County Ross.
Doohan looks set to share the space between the uprights with Rosses Laidlaw and Munro 鈥� a 100 per cent Ross rate at the number 1 position.
As if that wasn鈥檛 enough, they will be joined by midfielder Ross Draper and striker Ross Stewart. Never mind their on-pitch exploits 鈥� as far as Feedback鈥檚 concerned, that roster鈥檚 going to take some beating.
Where there鈥檚 a weed
We couldn鈥檛 get through this week鈥檚 Feedback without casting an eye over recent appointments in the world of gardening.
Why, you ask? Because we know our readers. If we didn鈥檛 stop to mention the fact that the new president of the Royal Horticultural Society is Keith Weed, our inbox would undergo some sort of rupture.
The story, as reported in , is a veritable raised bed of nominative determinism. 鈥淢y dad was a Weed but my mother was a Hedges,鈥� he said.
What鈥檚 more, runs the story, 鈥渢wo years ago the organisation discovered that one in eight of its staff had a name associated with nature, the outdoors or horticulture, such as Heather, Berry, Moss, Gardiner or Shears, and various permutations of Rose鈥�.
It鈥檚 hardly surprising to Feedback that the gardening world is such a hotbed of appropriate names: our readers have been pointing this out to us for decades.
Just this week, for example, Peter Slessenger writes in to namecheck Gerard Clover, who is head of plant health at the Royal Horticultural Society, and Dorothy Giacomin points out Guy Shrubsole, a trees campaigner at Friends of the Earth, as well as her old plant sciences lecturer at King鈥檚 College London: Pete Moore.
Got a story for Feedback?
You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week鈥檚 and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.
