EXPERIMENTS not working? Guinea pigs on strike? Muons in a mess? Then Barney Gardom may have stumbled across the service you need at . It offers 鈥渉ome and office cleansing鈥� as part of its 鈥渃urse removal and protection鈥� services. We assume they鈥檒l do laboratories too.
Barney is troubled by the discovery, but not for the reason you might think. He wrote to us two days after finding this site. Two days, that is, of having the theme tune to Ghostbusters lodged in his head 鈥� and we believe him when he says 鈥渋t is driving me mad鈥�. He needs this curse removed.
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Which suggests a wonderful scam. First someone plants a tune 鈥� what the Germans charmingly call an Ohrwurm or 鈥渆ar worm鈥�. Then the victim pays them to take it out. Business method patent applied for. Don鈥檛 even think about trying this.
WHEN Gareth Owens walked into his local pub, the barperson looked him in the eye and said: 鈥淎h, you鈥檒l know. What is it in dog poo that makes children go blind?鈥�
Nursing an ego battered by the realisation that he must look like the sort of person you naturally ask questions about dog excrement, he nevertheless visited the UK Department of Health website when he got home to check its information on toxocariasis. Here he learned this: 鈥淓ducating the public about the sources of infection and educating pet owners about worming their animals can help the spread of this disease.鈥�
Why would they want to do that, then?
GO TO and enter your UK postcode in the 鈥淲here to buy?鈥� section, and you can obtain not only the location of shops near you that stock Memory-Map products, but also their distance from your home. For example, Roy Houghton tells us that according to the site there is a stockist in Cardiff and it is 9.71317564206823 miles from where he lives.
This information is very useful, he says. Now he knows that cycling to the shop at an average speed of 15 miles per hour would take him only 38.85270256827292 minutes. Unless it is an unusually dry day for Cardiff, that is. Evaporating a single layer of water molecules from the shop door will put these estimates out by a whole four decimal places.
THE website of the Rayleigh Library at the University of Cambridge鈥檚 physics department warns that 鈥渁ll users should complete a registration form before borrowing books. You may also have to re-register if any of your details alter, such as expiry date.鈥�
Jennifer Boland, who noticed this, wonders whether people will have to re-register if, for example, they quit smoking or, conversely, if they take up cave-diving. Will they need to produce a doctor鈥檚 note certifying their new expiry date, or will an actuary鈥檚 estimate do?
THE occurrence of dishwashers and other human artefacts on Mars, which we noted on 12 November and 3 December 2005, should come as little surprise, suggests John Etherington. They have probably been drifting about the solar system for aeons, he says, pointing to the December 2005 issue of National Geographic, which remarks that a relative of the great white shark called Carcharodon megalodon 鈥渃ould have gulped down a refrigerator鈥�. It has been extinct for a million years.
鈥淎 marketing survey asks James Raymond-Barker whether his local area has: 鈥淚mproved; got worse; stayed the same; recently moved鈥濃��
WITH commendable thoroughness, Lufthansa鈥檚 website lists precisely what you are forbidden to carry onto its planes. Sensibly, the list starts with 鈥渨eapons鈥�. The rest reads: 鈥減ointed and sharp items; blunt items鈥�. Mark Pettigrew wants to know whether there is anything left that he is allowed to carry.
THE web tends to be a very dynamic place, with some websites changing content every few hours. But not all. Back in 1996, David Viner came across a page about turnips and he is glad to report that, 10 years on, it is still available in its original pristine glory at .
True, it is part of a demonstration about coding web pages, but Viner says it is still nice to know that it has withstood the ravages of internet time intact. He wonders if readers know of any other sites or pages that have lasted unchanged for as long, other than archived ones.
Incidentally, the turnip page is also notable for its brevity. It consists simply of a single line of text saying: 鈥淭urnips are not very interesting.鈥�
FINALLY, do you remember the fads and fashions of the last 40 years? An ad in a cancer research charity catalogue asks you this and then invites you to 鈥淭est your memory with the 2600 questions in this fascinating board game for individuals or teams. Age 12+鈥�. Frea Richardson wants to know how 12-year-olds would remember 1966.