MANY of Feedbackâs UK readers, it transpires, have their electricity supplied by Southern Electric â and,not being ones to miss a trick, they have been quick to email us about a claim in the companyâs recent customer service leaflet. Here, under the headline âWork wonders in a weekendâ, customers are advised: âUnplug your mobile phone charger. These little black boxes suck 100 kilowatt-hours a day from your socket, even when your phone is fully charged.â
This, Kate Mount points out, means that mobile phone chargers belonging to Southern Electric customers must be rated at over 4 kilowatts â and that, we canât resist adding, is enough to make a slice of toast every 30 seconds, producing a pile of toast equivalent to the length of a blue whale every day. The advice to unplug them seems sound.
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HOW large is large? Australian reader Cathy Watson keeps chickens and thus seldom buys eggs. When she was forced to buy some recently she was puzzled to find that the âlargeâ eggs she had purchased appeared extremely small compared to her usual home-laid eggs.
On closer examination, she noted that: âHunter Valley Free Range Eggs come in three sizes: Large, Extra Large and Jumboâ. Isnât that clever?
IN SIMILAR vein, Graham Clarke writes from Minnesota to tell us that his local gas station does its best to make it seem that customers are getting a good product for their money, by calling the lowest grade it sells âSuper Premier Plusâ. We can only guess what the higher grades are called.
THE latest edition of the University of Birminghamâs magazine for alumni, Neil Holmes tells us, has this useful advice to students who are worried about their weight: âTo calculate your body mass index, divide your weight in kilograms by your height in square metres.â
We wonder what the magazineâs advice would be to students who are worried about their maths.
Whatâs that weight in radios?
THANKS to Roger Calvert for letting us know that the Southern Daily Echo had this to say about the installation of a new crane in Southampton docks on the English south coast: âThe 100-tonne crane on berth 203⊠can lift the equivalent of 1250 large plasma TVs.â
APOLOGIES to readers who have had enough of the Lordâs Prayer and religious mondegreens (18 November), but we canât resist one last outing for the theme. Stefan Bojczuk is another who thought he was hearing âHarold be thy nameâ when the prayer was chanted â and when Christmas came he believed he got independent corroboration of this in the words of the carol âHark! the Harold angels singâ.
Similarly, a friend tells us that his mother believed as a child that God was a priest called Father Harold Witchart (âOur Father Witchart in heaven, Harold be thy nameâ), a belief that was reinforced by the fact that there was a resident of her Dorset village called Mr Witchart.
Steve McGiffin, meanwhile, used to worry what would happen if God ignored his plea to âlead me not into Thames stationâ. He is also one of many readers who reminded us of the old chestnut âGladly, the cross-eyed bearâ: you may guess what this misinterprets. And we are sure readers will also have little difficulty in sorting out the confusion of Adam Hewittâs sister who, as a child, thought Godâs first name was Peter because of the phrase she misheard as âThanks, Peter Godâ.
âA note spotted by Paul Spicker in the window of the Careers Scotland office in Kirkwall, Orkney, advises: âScared of computers? Download an application formââ
To finish on a funereal note, Luela Palmer thought the words she heard as a coffin was lowered into the ground were: âGlory be to the Father and to the Son, into the hole he goes.â
New Year competition: alien txts
FINALLY: donât forget to send in your entries to our New Year competition.
This year you are invited to imagine you are an alien newly arrived on Earth. You are able to send home an interplanetary text message of no more than 160 characters describing what you have found. What would your message be?
You may enter by email, fax or letter. All entries must reach us by Monday 11 December. The results will be published in the first issue of 51¶ŻÂț in 2007 (6 January). Thanks to the generosity of Profile Books, 10 lucky winners will each receive three of its most popular new titles, Four Elements: Water, Air, Fire, Earth by Rebecca Rupp; Gilbert White, a biography of the author of The Natural History of Selborne by Richard Mabey; and The End of the Question Mark, a compilation of questions and answers from the Any Questions Answered text service â plus a copy of 51¶ŻÂțâs very own bestseller Why Donât Penguinsâ Feet Freeze? The Editorâs decision is final.
