Choose your own dates for the dinosaurs
WHEN you are selling education packs for children, some of whose parents might be fervent creationists, one of the options available is to, well, cave in to them and ditch the education part. That seems to be the option chosen by US publisher Live and Learn Press with its .
Wendy Nicholas heard about the pack from another parent who seemed to think that she would be delighted to know about this curriculum resource. She was, until she read the blurb: 鈥淒inosaurs鈥� every child seems to go through a stage of loving them! We鈥檝e made our Dinosaurs Learn 鈥楴 Folder [sic] to take advantage of this love. Your child will learn about these creatures, how they ate, where they lived, how we have come to know about them, and much more. There is no reference to dates so you are free to insert your family鈥檚 personal view of the age of the earth and when dinosaurs roamed it.鈥�
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We wonder if this approach to education will catch on with, for example, packs on the second world war which invite your family鈥檚 personal view on which side won it.
鈥淗air Loss Result Guaranteed!鈥� proclaims an advert for the UK Advanced Hair Studio. Ant Astley suspects it would be cheaper simply to shave it off himself鈥�
WHICH American has spent the longest time in space? In case you haven鈥檛 been paying attention, it鈥檚 Buzz, who quietly returned to Earth on 11 September after more than 15 months on the International Space Station. That鈥檚 Buzz Lightyear, the action figure from the Toy Story movies, not Buzz Aldrin the Apollo astronaut.
Surprise, surprise, Disney has made the most of the event, with a earlier this month for Buzz the action figure at Walt Disney World鈥檚 Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, led by Buzz the Apollo astronaut.
Perhaps, as NASA and Disney claim, this will inspire kids to take an interest in science, but Feedback has reservations about blurring the distinction between space fantasy and space reality in this way. After all, there are already enough people who believe the Apollo 11 moon landings took place in a Hollywood studio.
DON鈥橳 mention the chemicals! Henry Bewley draws our attention to this neat little bit of verbal obfuscation by Nivea. Its Visage range, we are told on the Nivea website 鈥� for example at 鈥� 鈥渦ses ingredients inspired by nature to create high performing products that work in perfect harmony with your skin鈥�.
鈥淭hat would be human-made, chemical ingredients, then,鈥� observes Henry. Yes, but the magic word 鈥渘ature鈥� is there, so everything鈥檚 all right.
Henry has a keen eye for this sort of thing. Back in Feedback on 14 January 2006 he reported that health store Holland & Barrett was using the same trick to avoid admitting that its ABC-plus vitamin range is made of chemicals as opposed to 鈥渘atural鈥� ingredients. It labelled the product 鈥渘aturally inspired鈥�.
AIMING to purchase a bag online, Paul Brown came across a folding rucksack at . Beneath the product description was this warning: 鈥淧lease ensure that you have the correct system requirements as the cost of shipping is non-refundable for items ordered incorrectly.鈥�
Feedback suspects that some boilerplate text has crept erroneously onto the page, and that its intended import is: 鈥淚f you have a Mac and buy a computer program that runs only on the Windows system, don鈥檛 come crying to us.鈥�
For ourselves, we run on DNA version 1.0 with a 1010 neuron memory, whatever that is in bytes. Will that do for the rucksack?
READER Simon Rockett is the nominatively determined head of science at a secondary school in East Anglia, UK. 鈥淧upils joke,鈥� he says, 鈥渢hat they are learning Rockett science. Oh, how I laugh.鈥�
The other day he noticed a pile of recently delivered boxes of supplies in the school corridor. One was a box of Mini Jumbo Toilet Rolls. Intrigued, he wondered if the same company might also sell Jumbo Mini Toilet Rolls.
FINALLY, Jane Dards sends us a photo of a fine example of a self-referencing sign that she saw on the wall outside a shop in Newtown, Powys, UK. The sign, which is fixed at right angles to the building, reads 鈥淐aution, protruding sign鈥�.
Jane finds the fact that the sign is quite battered, presumably by incautious lorry drivers who have ignored its message, particularly appealing. After some thought about why the sign might exist, she reasoned that its other side must have the real message on it, such as 鈥淐aution, pedestrians crossing鈥� or some such warning. So she walked round and had a look, only to find that it had diagonal yellow and black hazard stripes, but no writing on it at all.
