Dark times
HAIL to our new cockroach overlords, and to those subscribers eking it out in fortified bunkers. That you received this magazine at all is a testament to the fortitude of your local postal service 鈥� why not thank them with some solid fuel cubes or jewellery fashioned from old soup cans?
Feedback is writing to you from the halcyon days leading up to the total solar eclipse in North America on 21 August, an event that Christian numerologist David Meade tells us will precipitate the end of the world. Specifically, the solar eclipse will encourage the telescope-shy planet Nibiru to appear in the sky, shortly before appearing much closer as it crashes into Earth.
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Feedback has requested time off to clear out the loft, something we promised ourselves we would get round to before the world ended. However, our editor points out that as Meade鈥檚 armageddon only starts with the eclipse, and cites 23 September as the truly last day on Earth, we still have several more columns to file.
鈥溾�滵id you know? 0.12m3 = 3 showers or 209 pints or 698 cups of tea,鈥� Severn Trent tells Perry Bebbington. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know that,鈥� says Perry, nor what he鈥檚 expected to do with this information.鈥�
Love in a time of apocalypse
CELESTIAL events are ripe fodder for conspiracy theorists and other fans of fruitloopery. So too is the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Alaska, variously touted as an alien telephone, weather modification project, or doomsday device.
Those seeking front-row seats to the end of the world might be wise to plump for HAARP, going by the . 鈥淪taff was nice and food was OK,鈥� says one happy doom-watcher, while another thinks that it is a 鈥渨onderful place for a date鈥�, which goes to show that romance isn鈥檛 dead, even if all of us are.
Having some cheek
PREVIOUSLY Alan Davies asked whether the J. P. Joule pub in Manchester ought to be pronounced to rhyme with jewel or jowl, prompting several of you to write in, warming to the topic (29 July).
鈥淟ate last century, our revered and venerable lecturer in first-year physics in Tasmania told us that joule was pronounced jowl, and tugged at his own sagging cheek to make the point,鈥� says Kevon Kenna.
Likewise, Philip Arundel writes that in the 1960s, 鈥渙ur headmaster at Cambridge taught thermodynamics and always pronounced joule to rhyme with jowl.鈥� Philip says that his tutor was from the north of England 鈥渁nd connected joule to the brewery in Manchester鈥�.
Order! Order!
鈥淧ERHAPS it is time that we brought the discussion of that public house and James Prescott Joule under control,鈥� says John Cartmell. 鈥淭o begin with, the pub is not in Manchester as you claimed, but in Sale, where Joule lived. While his neighbours probably called him 鈥榡ewel鈥�, his experiments were conducted in his father鈥檚 brewery in Salford, and goodness knows how the workers there pronounced his name.鈥�
Family Joules
A FINAL word to tie the diverging threads back together comes from David Beauchamp. 鈥淚n connection with your continuing pub crawl, a branch of Joule鈥檚 family brewing business (John Joule & Sons) has a long connection with my hometown of Stone, in north Staffordshire.鈥�
David says that the town is littered with references to 鈥淛oule鈥檚 Stone Ales鈥�: the brewery offices and canal-side warehouses are still standing, and residents do indeed pronounce the name as jowls.
鈥淗owever, I teach physics locally, and always point out the connection to students, and they are happy to accept that although they know the name of the brewery as 鈥榡owls鈥�, the physical unit is pronounced 鈥榡ewel鈥�.鈥�
Reverse engineered
AND the taps are still flowing in our quest to find pubs named after other scientists. 鈥淚 expected to find at least some reference to the engineer Isambard Brunel in Plymouth, considering the proximity to the Royal Albert Bridge over the Tamar,鈥� says Nuria Bonet. 鈥淚t appears that a pub called Brunel did exist, but was destroyed during the second world war.鈥�
Chain pub
NURIA would have had better luck further up the main line, says Barry Cash, where for a long time travellers at Bristol Temple Meads station could quench their thirst at the Isambard Brunel.
Perhaps in reference to the engineer鈥檚 idyllic but perilously located seafront railway stretching from nearby Exeter to Newton Abbot, 鈥渢hey changed the name to 鈥楾he Reckless Engineer鈥�,鈥� says Barry, 鈥渨hich I thought was a bit unfair鈥�.
Barry reports that the pub is currently undergoing refurbishment, and is due to reopen as 鈥淭he Sidings鈥�, perhaps another oblique reference, this time to the abandoned plan to electrify the line to London, 鈥渕eaning that Brunel and his original station are both being sidelined鈥�.
Dilutions on demand
PREVIOUSLY Alan Henness reported that the only way to know what was in a remedy was to look at the label (12 August). 鈥淭his makes me wonder if any fraud would be committed by simply selling identical contents 鈥� sugar pills, say 鈥� and labelling the bottles as requested by the customer,鈥� says John Cartmell. 鈥淚t would make it cheaper to stock such items, with the retailer printing off a specific label only at the point of sale.鈥� Progress!