WISHING to make use of a Transport for London (TfL) cycle hire docking station, Michael Berkson discovered that he was required to accept on-screen both the privacy rules and the terms and conditions before cycling away. 鈥淔air enough,鈥� he comments, 鈥渆xcept that the terms and conditions are 39 pages. I am a reasonably fast reader but I suspect that the terminal would time out before I finished reading.鈥�
This appears to introduce a new twist to a perennial question: when it is raining, does one get less wet by walking, by running 鈥� or by reading the legalese and then cycling?
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To begin to answer this question, Feedback subcontracted the reading of the TfL document to a colleague who is quite fluent in contract-speak. The colleague emerged, spluttering, after 47 minutes (excluding a very necessary coffee break).
Having dealt with 1147 words on privacy, the colleague turned to the 4827 words of 鈥� and found that they reference five further policies totalling 4248 words. One of these requires 鈥渁ll users to read the terms of public liability insurance policy before using a cycle鈥� 鈥� that鈥檚 a , which the colleague estimates is an unusually brief 1500 words. And we still haven鈥檛 found the schedule, which is integral to the insurance policy.
Taxi!
The safety booklet with Melissa Hards鈥檚 new phone warns: 鈥淒o not insert phone or supplied accessories into mouth, ears or eyes.鈥� So how do we use the in-ear headphones?
鈥淎ged鈥� wine tastes no different
HAVE any readers tried ageing wine using electric or magnetic fields, we asked (23 February). Peter Watson from Ottawa, Canada, recalls seeing local advertisements for a 鈥渕agnetic accelerator鈥� that claimed to age a bottle of red wine in 20 minutes. So he gathered up two bottles each of three different wines, which ranged from the cheap to the moderately expensive, plus the wine correspondent of a local newspaper, and they headed for the winter party at his university鈥檚 medical physics department 鈥� which had a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine.
They proceeded to 鈥渁ge鈥� one bottle of each pair in the MRI scanner鈥檚 rather strong (1.5 Tesla) magnetic field. Volunteers were then offered the wines, double-blind as to which was which. The wine correspondent wrongly identified the 鈥渁ged鈥� wine in all three pairs, while a colleague who Peter had predicted would be the least discriminating got all three right. Peter just drank the wine, which may explain the lack of further statistical tests in his account.
THE announcement that the US National Nuclear Security Administration will build five 2.3-megawatt wind turbines in Texas sounds like good news. The wind farm will save the government nearly $3 million a year, and will help the agency meet 鈥渁lmost all of its renewable energy goals鈥� by supplying 60 per cent of the electricity used each year by the Pantex plant.
But a closer look induces a dash of cognitive dissonance. The Pantex plant powered by that clean, green, carbon-free energy is dedicated to the manufacture and maintenance of nuclear weapons. Feedback can鈥檛 help feeling this seems a tad ironic.
NICE to see some concern for users鈥� well-being from the purveyors of fringe 鈥渉ealth鈥� products. Take wheatgrass juice. Feedback makes an informed guess that it鈥檚 not as magic as many claim: it is probably about as good for you as celery, albeit with a nastier taste, taken by mouth.
Ken McLeod alerts us to a site called that wants to 鈥� in truth, from the picture, more like the air-puffer bulb of the photographic darkrooms of yore 鈥� to administer the green gunk internally. This, the site says, 鈥渕ay be used for vagina or rectum, but not both鈥�.
EXTRAVAGANT claim of the week: reader Chris Aspin wrote to tell us about , a site where the world was informed that 鈥淐arolyn Cooper is a gifted energy healer who can locate flaws in people鈥檚 ancestral-emotional DNA and repair wounds from their past (some of which have been in their lineage for untold generations).鈥�
The site also informed any who might want to know that by listening on the phone to a recording of Cooper talking, they would discover 鈥渉ow energy is not limited by distance and why healing work is just as powerful over the phone as in person.鈥�
That 鈥渃all Carolyn Cooper鈥� page is no longer 鈥渙n air鈥� at yourlifewithoutlimits 鈥� but exactly the same claims about DNA are made on Cooper鈥檚 own website at .
FINALLY, mixed marketing messages seem to be at work on the chalkboard Perry Bebbington saw outside a shop called Nowt-Added in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire: 鈥淣o calorie lemon meringue soap鈥�.
Trying to imagine whether this was merely a spelling mistake, Feedback came up with 鈥渓emon meringue soup鈥�, which put us right off our lunch and therefore qualifies as a slimming aid.