GILLIAN Coates tells us of the questionnaire she was asked to fill in when she bought a Morphy Richards Turbojet steam iron the other day. Question 10 asked her âWhich factor most influenced your decision to buy a new appliance? (Please tick one)â. Among fairly sensible possibilities such as âExisting appliance brokenâ and âSetting up homeâ was the thoroughly bemusing choice number 8 â âWanting to eat more healthilyâ.
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THIS notice appeared on the University of Newcastle upon Tyne press office website: âA lecture to mark World Mental Health Day: âMalignant sadness â the anatomy of depressionâ, by Professor Lewis Wolpert. Note: This lecture has been cancelled.â
Tony Corless, who came across this, comments: âOne assumes that the very distinguished lecturer thought about the lecture, the likely weather, the train journeyâŠand just couldnât face it.â
WHO would have thought it? In the November issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, researchers have published the first-ever prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-institutional treatment study with multi-dimensional psychometrically valid outcomes and concluded that an effective erectile dysfunction treatment in men also significantly improved sexual function and sexual satisfaction in untreated women partners.
TRUNCATED email subject lines have entertained many readers, but theyâre a bitâŠone-dimensional. Itâs appropriate, then, that it is the cinema that takes us to the next level. Feedback was browsing â one great advantage of this job is that the boss complains if we donât spend enough time randomly surfing at work â and spotted a photo of a movie theatre marquee in Beaverton, Oregon: â40-year-old penguin exorcismâ.
âThe bottle of Ampleforth Abbey cider that Alasdair Rogers bought told him reassuringly that it was âMade from biologically grown applesââ
We think thatâs the truncated titles of three separate films, not a report of the fate of a demonically possessed middle-aged sphenisciform Though perhaps, given the interest shown by the religious in the wildlife documentary March of the Penguins, it would make a decent sequel.
THE door between the canteen and a side room at a readerâs workplace was recently locked, with a note attached to it declaring that it was âtemporally restrictedâ. The reader wonders whether it was being upgraded to remove this restriction and permit time travel. The fact that this canteen is at the UKâs Atomic Weapons Establishment may or may not be relevant.
READING our piece about emordnilap words â words that form a new word when spelt backwards, such as âswapâ and âpawsâ (1 October) â gave Paul Dove the idea that backwardly spelled words could be coined for reversed or inverted actions. For example, levitating an object from the ground into your hand could be to âpordâ it.
Unlike such an improbable event, however, Doveâs favourite word of this type describes something that he says he often finds himself doing. âKnilbâ â pronounced with a silent k â is his word for briefly opening your eyes and then closing them again, maybe to check when you wake if it is time to get up yet.
Leading aircraftmen and patriarchs
FOLLOWING the list of 57 possible titles to put before your name on the BUPA International website (Feedback, 6 August), Mark Cooksey tells us that the âe-taxâ software used to submit an electronic tax return in Australia gives you 116 to choose from, including âCanonâ, âLeading Aircraftmanâ and âPatriarchâ. They must think they have them all covered, Cooksey says, as there is no âOtherâ box. This means, unfortunately, that people whose title is âAmbassadorâ, âPresidentâ, âPrime Ministerâ or âPopeâ will be unable to correctly submit their tax returns by this method.
FINALLY, donât forget to send in your entries to our end-of-year competition. This yearâs theme revolves around current advances in biotechnology. âDesigner bodiesâ are becoming more and more possible, so how would you modify the human body if you were not restricted in any way?
You may send in up to three suggestions by email, post or fax; the ones judged the most witty and original will win. All replies must reach us by Monday 5 December and the results will be published in our end-of-year issue (24 December/31 December). The editorâs decision, as always, is final.
Thanks to the generosity of the Royal Society, 10 lucky winners will each receive copies of all six books shortlisted for the Royal Societyâs Aventis Prize for Science Books 2005.
They are:
The 2005 prize winner:
Critical Mass: How one thing leads to another by Philip Ball (William Heinemann)
The Ancestorâs Tale by Richard Dawkins (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Why Life Speeds Up As You Get Older by Douwe Draaisma (Cambridge University Press)
Matters of Substance: Drugs â and why everyoneâs a user by Griffith Edwards (Penguin/Allen Lane)
The Earth: An intimate history by Richard Fortey (HarperCollins)
The Human Mind by Robert Winston (Bantam Press/Transworld Publishers)
These books were all reviewed by Jon Turney (7 May, p 48). Our thanks go to Akram Najjar for the competition idea.
