Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Kitchen disaster trumps
PRESSURE cookers: should they be allowed? Feedback mentioned the occasion when 鈥渁n ill-advised release of steam left rice embedded in the kitchen ceiling鈥� (24 May). Just as we were sending that issue to the printers, Bruce Hansche got in touch from his home in New Mexico, topping our experience quite thoroughly.
鈥淲e have cooked many things in our pressure cooker over the years,鈥� he writes, 鈥渂ut the silliest, and most nearly disastrous, came during our artsy-creative years. My wife Chris made handmade paper from various fibres, and she thought perhaps horse manure would work well.鈥�
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Readers may be ahead of us, but the account is well worth finishing: 鈥淪he tried to soften it a bit by cooking in the pressure cooker, but the fibres were just the right size to clog the steam vent. Finally, the overpressure plug blew, coating the entire kitchen ceiling with boiled horse dung.鈥� To make matters worse, 鈥渢he sink in that kitchen was 90 degrees to the right of the stove top. Chris, being left-handed, spun 270 degrees to the left to get the pot to the sink, which at least provided a fairly even coating.鈥�
Ian Turnbull points to that provide 鈥渁 quiet and comfortable ride to passengers with zero gas emissions鈥� and wonders whether they allow old farts on the bus
The origins of petards
AT LEAST five readers have taken the trouble to inform Feedback of the etymology of 鈥減etard鈥� in the old sense of a small explosive set under defences 鈥� as mentioned by Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (17 May) 鈥� or used to blow open castle doors. It is 鈥渓ittle fart鈥�. We hope no sensibilities were harmed in the making of this paragraph.
That making did, however, involve consulting an editorial document on ways of referring to excrement that are neither too rude nor too twee. It contains a 鈥渇aecetious鈥� list of suggestions. (For US readers, a 鈥渇ecetious鈥� list.)
Further adventures of petards
EXPANDING on the etymology of petards, Andy Johnson-Laird reminds us of the great 鈥渇latulist鈥� Joseph Pujol (1857 鈥� 1945), who appeared on the French stage as . His shtick was 鈥渂eing able to fart at will (or in the general direction of Will)鈥�, or at least to appear to do so.
Further, Paddy Shannon observes that 鈥淲hen I was a student living in France, 辫茅迟补谤诲 was also the word for a cannabis joint, suggesting a different kind of lifting operation.鈥�
The American Society for鈥�?
SOME readers of this column aren鈥檛 the only members of the scientific community with a fixation on matters cloacal. Feedback receives a steady stream of notices from the (ASM) highlighting recent publications. On 20 May the day鈥檚 notice was headed 鈥溾��.
Using the methodology known as discourse analysis, this confirmed a pattern of keenness by the ASM on excretion-related research. We are now moving to statistics, giving notices marks out of seven for scatological content. We hope to report results soon.
Latrine duty cycles
TOILET paper, for some reason, has also attracted copious responses following our sceptical inquiry into figures for annual consumption (3 May). John Davies was one to note his father saying that 鈥渋n the British army he was issued only three sheets at a time 鈥� 鈥榦ne to wipe, one to dry, one to polish鈥�.鈥� Indeed we find Lee B. Kennett writing in the book : 鈥淭he British Army stocked toilet paper on the assumption that the soldier would use three sheets per day; the American ration was twenty-two and a half sheets.鈥�
Toilet paper 鈥� from below
CORRESPONDENTS, Juliet Gayton suggests, 鈥渁re taking too literal a view of the use of toilet paper鈥�. Her list of uses includes: 鈥�3 sheets to grab and eject spider; 2 sheets to mop aphids from house plant; 2 sheets to remove hair from plughole; 2 sheets to blow nose; 5 sheets to mop up spilt early morning tea; 2 sheets to blot lipstick; 4 sheets into pocket in case public loos during the day found to be without 鈥� and all this before 8:30am.鈥� We redacted six sheets from Juliet鈥檚 list to avoid making those who read this over breakfast drop the marmalade.
More mapping mysteries
FINALLY, more mapping mysteries. The for 鈥渁chievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think鈥� are getting their own database, complete with a map infographic showing which countries have produced Ig Nobel laureates: see . Feedback has discovered that, according to the markers on this map, the Vatican is now in Nigeria. What鈥檚 more, the Swiss seem to have annexed Denmark and Italy, while Germany鈥檚 taken Sweden.
We note that the Vatican earned its Ig Nobel for outsourcing prayer to India, so was already mobile in Ig Nobel world. We now wonder whether the many locations in which the map places Swiss winners relate to tax evasion, a practice which will cost Credit Suisse, to name but one bank, from the US.