Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Profitable protection
HATS made from tinfoil have become a synonym for paranoia about electromagnetic radiation, spies implanting voices into victim’s brains, and all that. Their linguistic usefulness, however, is not matched by economic potential, because of the ease of making one for yourself. In the UK you can purchase for a mere £1.50.
Feedback is delighted, then, to be alerted by Terry Arnold to which asks: “Are you constantly being: treated like a Targeted Individual? Attacked by Psychotronic Weapons? Subject to Remote Brain Manipulation?” The conventional answer might well be “some of the newer atypical antipsychotic drugs look quite promising, but watch your weight (8 March 2008, p 18)“. These enterprising people have a different answer: “you might need the QuWave Defender.”
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What’s that, then? First, it is $297, plus $39 shipping from the US to our UK address: much better business. Second, it apparently generates a “Scalar Field”: Feedback has noted the growing popularity of these in fruitloop prose (27 February 2010).
Third, not only does this product wonderfully merge the realms of conspiracy theory and nonstandard nostrums, it illuminates both: “Solfeggio Waves,” the website , “convert electronic and psychic attacks to positive energy and strengthen the human Bio-field.”
Keen to expand our vocabulary, we “solfeggio”: among hundreds of results promising was a more : it is a technique to teach singing pitch, commonly using the syllables “do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti”. As in “do, a deer, a female deer”. The hills are alive with the sound of cash.
Linda Kopf sends a photo of a sign seen in the village of Salunga in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, saying: “Private Sign. Do Not Read
Flavour of the unnatural
FEEDBACK was, initially, relieved to read, whiling away a recent tea break, that the flavourings used in chocolate cake slices from UK supermarket Sainsbury’s “are made from natural sources”. But that made us wonder: which cakes use flavourings from unnatural sources? What would those be? Get the behind us, unnatural demon with your Satanic Sauce! Say no to Ghoul Scratchings!
Everything is explained
FREQUENTLY frustrated by the difficulty of finding gadgets with decent instructions, Robin McKellar was delighted by a recently-bought door stop. It came with detailed instructions, in English and French, on how to insert the small end first, “just in case I was confused”.
Extreme care with that battery, please
YOU have been warned. Searching for “lead acid battery thermal runaway” after he had made the mistake of topping up a fully-charged battery that had plates exposed to the air, Steve Collins found an alternative energy website with a section on batteries at .
This told him that “Lots of hoses interconnecting battery cells and batteries can pose a serious safety threat…” Eeek! How? “If one of the cells goes into thermal run-away,” it continues, “ignition from one cell will almost instantaneously result in ignition in all the rest of the cells as the tubes will fill very quickly with hydrogen gas which is extremely combustible and explosive, i.e. like the H bomb!”
“From now on,” says Steve, “I’ll take extra care with the jump leads.”
A revenant singer
WOODY Guthrie lives! Brian Robinson bought a compilation CD of the great folk singer, who was born in 1912 and died in 1967. The CD, available on Amazon, is titled: “Woody Guthrie at 100! Live at the Kennedy Center.”
Official pickpockets, please form a queue
WE SUSPECT that Geoff Mann is not overly fond of politicians and bankers. Commenting on our report (6 July) of an announcement at London’s Victoria main-line station that “unofficial pickpockets are operating,” he suggests that: “Official pickpockets can certainly be found on the Underground, most frequently at the Westminster and Bank stations.” These are respectively the stations closest to the Houses of Parliament and the City financial district.
Tall, grande or giga-coffee?
ACCORDING to Frontier News, a newsletter produced by oil company Total, “The Laggan and Tormore fields hold one trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the same volume as 120 billion cups of coffee.” Thus our catalogue of unusual units is expanded, although we’re not sure how these convert to blue whale units.
Ian Napier is impressed, but he has spotted a flaw in Total’s calculations: “The figures suggest more than eight cubic feet (227 litres) per cup of coffee, which seems on the large side” – even for certain coffee-shop chains.
Job with the boys
FINALLY, Feedback regrets that only now can we tell you of , the closing date for which was 26 August. Judging by your correspondence, a minority of you would have enjoyed working as an “Anti-social behaviour co-ordinator”. Derek Woodroffe comments that “It surely is bad enough having them working alone, without them getting assistance from the Council”.