Surely youâre gherkin?
HAVING been forced to digest a yearâs worth of political turmoil in just five weeks, British citizens will welcome Parliamentâs summer recess â traditionally a period when newspapers struggle to fill their pages and lightweight stories dominate the headlines. In the UK, this is known as the âsilly seasonâ, but Feedback notes that many countries â among them Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Poland and Norway â refer to it as ââ.
Although the UK has certainly been left in a pickle this summer, we canât help but wonder about the provenance of this phrase. Can any of our readers enlighten us?
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ââMultiverse theory is a lot like the national anthem,â writes Carl Zetie. âIn theory there are many âverses, but in practice we only ever experience one.ââ
Stop thief!
HOLLYWOOD hippy hang-out Moon Juice is appealing for help to recover a piece of rock stolen from the premises. The smoothie and âsex dustâ store beloved of New Agers such as Gwyneth Paltrow issued for the return of a paperweight-sized lump of rose quartz, insisting that âthis loving rock has given so much to an entire community and has much more to shareâ.
Consulting Crystal Energy, our go-to guide for such matters (29 August 2015), we learn that any guilt the thief harbours is likely to be alleviated by the rose quartz itself, given that this gem ââ.
Feedback recommends that Moon Juice contacts experienced stone-hunters, such as those who re-located Scotlandâs Stone of Scone (). BBC News that âthough itâs difficult to put a monetary value on such an object, a similar looking crystal on the CWS Healing site costs ÂŁ2.50.â
Room with a vu
PROMPTED by Ian Napierâs question on the correct name for recursive dĂ©jĂ vu (9 July), Dave Rogerson thinks that âDĂ©jĂ View would be a good name for a guest house â but it might leave residents wondering if theyâd been there before.â
FURTHER to previous examples of scientific prescience in literature, Jocelyn Penington asks what the Bard knew about astronomy. In Hamletâs love letter to Ophelia, the prince exclaims: âDoubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.â
Could either of those opening astronomical statements be in doubt in Shakespeareâs time, wonders Jocelyn. For the answer, look no further than our own feature that examines the influence of radical astronomy on Shakespeare (19 April 2014, p 40).
Starry-eyed
ALSO mining the vein of literary foreshadowing, John Courcier reveals that quantum theory was well described by E. M. Forster in 1924, when he wrote in A Passage to India that ânothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge into something elseâ.
Attack of the drones
THE parents of 16-month-old Harwin Cheng say he was knocked down and injured by a patrolling security robot at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California, .
The Dalek-sized drone boasts a suite of sensors, but apparently not enough to avoid running over young Cheng. His parents want other families to know about the threat posed to young people in malls by belligerent 300-pound security guards⊠and presumably by robots as well.
Tree of temptation
OUR readers continue to sniff out examples of incongruous scents in nature. To complement the cream-soda-smelling Jeffrey pine (28 May), Meg Wilkinson suggests another pine, the ponderosa, which sounds mouth-watering: âSome friends and I decided its scent was of coconut-vanilla cookies fresh from the oven whilst drinking hot buttered rum.â
The thick bark has deep furrows filled with this intoxicating scent, writes Meg, inviting people to press their faces against the tree to catch a whiff. âThose of us who live here and love the natural environment are often called âtree huggersâ,â says Meg. âPerhaps this comes from the uninitiated visitor observing us not hugging, but sniffing the trees.â
Shrew pyoo
FURTHER to the strange smells of dogs (popcorn) and tigers (chocolate, peanuts), Heikki Henttonen reveals that the male Laxmannâs shrew has a strong musk that resembles âcheap perfume or soapâ, distinctive enough that âone can identify the species even with eyes closedâ.
He recalls once sitting on a train in Helsinki, Finland, when he caught a whiff of the rodent.
âI started to look around to see if someone had forgotten any Laxmannâs shrews in his pocket,â Heikki says. âTo my disappointment, I realised the fellow next to me had used a popular new deodorant that smelled very similar.â
Double note
AS ANY brass player knows, âa crook is a metal tube used to alter the pitch of brass instrumentsâ, writes Andrew Talbot. This suggests that Major Crook, the band conductor and policeman recalled by Crispian Strachan (9 July), âis a case of nominative quantum superposition, being both determinative and anti-determinative at the same timeâ.
