Enid Blyton, prodigious polymath
CHILDREN’S writer Enid Blyton has to be admired for her prodigious output. According to the , she wrote around 700 books at a rate of more than one a month.
Andy Boddington, however, has discovered that she appears even more prolific than her fans in the society have recognised. Not only did she write about the Famous Five, the Secret Seven and Naughty Children – according to the Amazon.co.uk website, she also found time for and . The latter is not the only example of her hitherto under-recognised career as a historian: it seems she also wrote ; ; and .
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Nor does Blyton seem to have neglected the sciences, as attested by ; ; and a startling 20 other chemistry-related titles. “Obviously a restless intellect”, as Andy notes, she managed in addition to dash off an and the apparently posthumous . The latter, he suggests, adds a new meaning to the phrase “ghost writer”, given that she died in 1965.
Andy asks whether this reveals a bug in Amazon’s software, perhaps akin to the process that produces the intriguing “also purchased” listings (Feedback, 17 May). Our investigations suggest that the truth is a little more straightforward: all the new Blyton titles thus revealed are for sale second-hand – all but one from the same Australian dealer. Who perhaps employed someone who perhaps had an off day. Or several.
“According to on the BioPortfolio website about AstraZeneca’s Symbicort asthma treatment, asthma attacks can be “fatal and recurrent”. Ruth Hawksley hasn’t yet worked out how”
Bad news for the accident-prone
BELIEVE it or not, there is an organisation called the Bathtub Refinishing Referral Network. And believe it or not, one of the lines on sale on its website at is “Anti Non Slip Bathtub & Shower Treatments”. Renee Colwell feels this sounds like a new and unwelcome development for the accident-prone.
In charge of inaccessible information
THE UK’s Healthcare Commission wrote to Simon Meara inviting him to take part in the 2008 National Health Service staff survey. The letter was signed by Nancy Wolstenholme, the commission’s “head of accessible information”. He was left wondering whether the commission also employs a head of inaccessible information.
But of course, Simon. Most modern, responsible bureaucracies, especially those subject to annoying freedom-of-information requests, require a head of inaccessible information. A report on the activities of this functionary is available to the public between 12 and 12.01 pm in a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of The Leopard”.
HAVING booked his gaff cutter Daisy into the SeaFair Milford Haven, a festival of vintage boats in west Wales, Sam Llewellyn received a confirmation stating its dimensions. Apparently, these are important so the organisers can fit all the boats into the berths provided.
Daisy’s hull, it seems, is 5.7911999999999999 metres long, with a beam (width, to landlubbers) of 2.1844000000000001 metres.
We have to agree with Sam that he needs to be careful not to get the boat wet, since the precision with which these dimensions are quoted suggests that a stray hydrogen atom could make all the difference between fitting and not fitting.
FINALLY, don’t forget to enter our end-of-year competition. Our theme this year is time travel.
When the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was about to go into operation, some physicists speculated that it might attract visitors from the future (51¶ŻÂţ, 9 February, p 32, and Feedback, 5 April). For our competition, we ask you to imagine three such visitors arriving, each bearing glad tidings and a gift from the future. What would the gifts be?
Thanks to the generosity of Doubleday/Allen Lane, we are able to offer an exciting extra prize: 10 lucky winners will each receive a copy of Physics of the Impossible: A scientific exploration into the world of phasers, force fields, teleportation and time travel by Michio Kaku (reviewed 1 March, p 52, and see author’s feature, 6 April, p 36). They will also receive a selection of 51¶ŻÂţ goodies – including books from The Last Word series and a pen drive.
You may enter the competition by email – with “Competition” in the subject field, please – or by fax or post, or by going to www.newscientist.com/article/dn15121.
The competition closes on Monday 1 December and no entries will be accepted after that date. The results will be published in the 20/27 December issue of 51¶ŻÂţ. The editor’s decision is final.
