Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Mega devaluation
“MEGA” as a prefix seems to be suffering devaluation. James Kennedy saw a sign at a BP outlet offering “50 million megapoints” on the Nectar scheme. We find the same incentive on a website called – though not on the official Nectar site.
James points out that because these “points” are redeemable in a major supermarket chain for £0.005, the alleged offer is worth £250 billion. That’s enough to run the UK National Health Service for two-and-a-half years, so “perhaps government ministers should all pop out to fill their tanks,” he says.
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Belatedly, the Mediterranean Wetlands newsletter alerted Chris Feare to a “European Otter Training Course” that took place in March. “What,” he asks, “would they have learned?”
Magnetic repulsion
READER Paul Brown sends us a quote from a website he came across. “You need a blueprint, an architecture designed for greatness,” we are told at . “Meet Magnetic Pill,” it continues, “the most well designed, technologically advanced, scientifically proven, compilation of forward-thinking ingredients strategically built into the shape of a pill.”
“There’s lots more,” Paul assures us. A quick read confirms that, and shows that here we are dealing with an advanced case of fruitloopery.
“Magnetic Therapy has far reaching benefits that have been proven to heal, rejuvenate, and expand potential of the human body and mind,” the website proclaims. “And now you can easily benefit from several of these same benefits… The Magnetitum Extract in conjunction with Magnesium dial into your body’s magnetic fields providing an amazingly simple solution to several complex problems.”
And so on. We remain puzzled by “magnetitum extract”, having discovered that “magnetitum” is . So is the extract iron, or oxygen, then? We would recommend you have a read, but after a point nonsense becomes depressing – especially when it is trying to sell something.
New dimensions of heritage
THE National Trust in the UK exists to “look after places of historic beauty permanently”. Member and Feedback reader Jonathon Loose was therefore a little startled to see the Trust’s director-general, Helen Ghosh, declare in the Autumn 2013 edition of the members’ bulletin that “the year has also taught me that the Trust works in two time dimensions”.
Feedback is tempted to introduce Helen to , a physicist at the University of Southern California and one of those who has been working on just that kind of universe. But… how much historic impact would such a meeting have – and would it be beautiful?
Physics in pink
ON THE topic of dimensions, Danny Davis asks: “Who says you can’t get leading edge physics toys for girls?” He produces a photo of a “Rhinestone rings” kit that promises the proud owners can “make 6 dimensional, layered flower rings”.
Wood, you believe it?
SEVERAL readers think they understand the sign reported by Stephen Stent from New Zealand, reading “DRY T-TREE FIREWOOD NZ$100 CM2” (Feedback, 12 October). “What can that possibly mean?” we asked – which we now realise was tempting fate.
Yes, Feedback was aware that it probably referred to wood from the tea tree, Melaleuca alternifolia, having encountered people who swear by its oil as a “natural” – if, to some, nasally corrosive – antiseptic. And, possibly, the sign was advertising the wood by the cubic metre, as suggested by Anthony Battersby, but that would either make “CM2” a six-dimensional measure, or make the wood rather cheap, or both.
Frog Twissell ingeniously suggests that the seller envisages the wood being burned and appreciates that burning happens on the surface, so is selling it by the square centimetre. At NZ$100 per unit, this would make it rather expensive, except that deep thought about the mathematics of the sign reveals that the sellers are “thoughtfully making the price inversely proportional to the area purchased” – since the price as written implies NZ$100 times CM2, not per CM2.
Matter in a jar
DARK matter is an enduring mystery, regularly discussed in these pages (31 August, p 36, for example). David Levien thinks he may be able to explain where some of it is lurking – and suggests that it is orange, not black. He sends a photo of a jar of marmalade “handmade… on a farm in Oxfordshire”. The label lists the ingredients as “Fruit 45g/100g, Sugar 65g/100g.” This seems to mean that every jar contains an extra 10 grams of matter jammed into our universe.
Before you write in: yes, it has occurred to us that the mechanism by which the extra matter is apparently crammed into the jar may involve the evaporation of water. Have any puzzled cosmologists thought of looking on the kitchen ceiling?
Signed and delivered
FINALLY, the membership renewal form for a local UK family history society that we discussed on 12 October asked: “Have you signed the ?”
Andy Ball observes that only one person has signed this Act “and it’s unlikely that Her Majesty has anything more to learn about her family history”.