THE county of Norfolk in eastern England is noted, in Noel Coward’s words, for being “very flat”. But could it really be the hottest place in the world too? When James Brown tried out Microsoft’s new search engine, MSN Search, earlier this month, he was intrigued by the claim that by using information in Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia it could answer questions as well as search by keywords. So, after confirming that the normal human body temperature is 37 °C and that Ouagadougou is still the capital of Burkina Faso, he asked it to tell him the “hottest place in the world”.
The first item gave him in response to this was another world, “Venus (planet)”. This was followed by two plants, “pomegranate” and “camellia”, and then a genus of birds, “Anhinga“. The fifth item was finally something that actually was a place and was in this world: “Norfolk (county, England)”. “Norfolk,” it went on to explain helpfully, “is particularly famous for turkey and geese.”
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Brown, who happens to live in Norfolk, acknowledges that the winter has been very mild and the daffodils are coming out unusually early this year, but is thinking that perhaps he should replant his garden with sagebrush and cactus. And he looks forward to camels grazing in the field next to his house instead of the geese for which Norfolk is indeed famous – about the only thing that MSN Search got right.
“If you do a Google search for “free CDs”, one of the results that appears is an advertisement that reads: “Free CDs. Huge selection of free CDs in stock at discount prices!””
WE have believed for some time now that the music industry has been wasting its time and money on the new “super hi-fi” disc systems DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD. However good they may be, most music lovers are perfectly happy with the already super sound of CD and ordinary DVD. And the record companies have hardly done themselves any favours by promoting the new discs as being harder to copy.
So it was with special pleasure that we read a press release from Japanese hi-fi company Denon: “The Denon DVD-1910 DVD Player eschews SACD & DVD-A,” writes the company’s spokesman. “In a practical move designed to benefit the average user, the 1910 deliberately does NOT have unnecessary SACD or DVD-A circuitry. These formats are being totally ignored by general consumers and at this price point their inclusion is a waste of time and money.”
When it does because it doesn’t
BACK in the 25 December 2004 issue, we reported on Mark Hodson’s belief that he had come across the only example of a recursive malapropism, when a colleague who found herself supernumerary to a task commented “I think I’m erroneous here” – which she wasn’t until she said it, but then she was, so she wasn’t.
Nobody has yet been able to supply another example of this that meets the full criteria, but we still like the one sent in by Mark Appleby, even though no malapropism is involved. His partner, he says, complaining about their vacuum cleaner’s woefully limited ability to pick up dust, commented, “This vacuum cleaner really sucks.” Which, Appleby points out, it did, because it didn’t. So it did.
EMAILS with truncated subject lines continue to bemuse readers. Peter Bleackley got one saying: “Fluconazole is an azole antifungal used to treat or prevent fun.” Could this be useful for puritans with athlete’s foot, he wondered. Meanwhile, Tom Baring wondered if the spammers had turned soft when he received one saying: “Have you ever wanted to impress your girl with a hug…” He realised they hadn’t when he read the rest of the subject line, but we’ll leave it to you to guess what that said.
JOHN Wooller had to ring his bank to give his new address. When he got through, he was treated by way of on-hold music to a Ronan Keating song with a chorus that goes: “You say it best when you say nothing at all.” Whereupon the line went dead before he had been connected to anybody. Just a coincidence, of course.
DUNCAN Simpson is amazed at what you can find on these days – like packs of 12,000 eggs of the parasitic Trichogramma pretiosum wasp for biological control of garden pests: “Trichogramma wasps are tiny parasites that attack the eggs of over 200 species of moths and caterpillars,” Amazon explains. “They are extremely small.”
Along with this surprising product Amazon gives us some surprising comments from customer reviewers, including a recipe for a T. pretiosum omelette. It begins: “Carefully crack 12,000 Trichogramma pretiosum eggs into pan over medium heat…” Apparently, 19 out of 28 people who read this review found it “useful”.
FINALLY, the walls of London’s underground stations were plastered not so long ago with ads for a horror movie declaring, “Thirteen ghosts. Terror has multiplied.” Greg Roughan tells us how much he regrets not decorating them with graffiti saying: “Multiplied by what, dumb-ass? Thirteen is a prime number.”
