A Wolfe at the door
WHAT is round, hails from the Americas and is full of supposedly nutritious gloop that鈥檚 easy to swallow? If you said avocado, you鈥檙e right, but we were thinking of one in particular: David 鈥淎vocado鈥� Wolfe, a US entrepreneur and self-styled nutritionist who has achieved success, notoriety and social-media hegemony with his bizarre mix of dietary advice, cute animal videos, chocolate-box spiritualism and outlandish conspiracy theories.
As well as promoting discredited ideas such as childhood vaccines causing autism, understanding of science is rarely better than sloppy, and he often publishes the sorts of misunderstandings that would embarrass a schoolchild.
Advertisement
This week, for 拢78 apiece, Londoners will be able to attend his masterclass and learn about things such as how a food鈥檚 colour relates to its health-giving properties (it doesn鈥檛) (they don鈥檛 work). Get your tanks off our lawn, Wolfe. If anyone is going to be offering up scientific flimflam in the name of entertainment, it鈥檚 Feedback.
There鈥檚 also a Q&A session with the man himself, and Feedback has prepared some openers, just in case we find 拢78 on the floor. Has he discussed his belief that the world is flat with the pilots flying him to the UK? And is he worried they might lose their way if they navigate according to spherical-Earth theory?
Also, does he still believe it鈥檚 the oceans鈥� salinity that keeps them stuck to Earth, the whole polar ice cap over the Arctic Ocean might lift into space?
鈥淚 am terribly sorry if you don鈥檛 like my harsh honesty,鈥� reads one graphic posted to 奥辞濒蹿别鈥檚 Facebook page, 鈥渂ut I don鈥檛 like your sugar-coated bullshit either.鈥� Finally, something we can all agree on!
鈥淭he blurb on a box of LEON cork place mats bought by Steve James doesn鈥檛 fill him with confidence: 鈥淒id you know that cork grows on trees?鈥� it says. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 until we made these.鈥濃��
A fruitloopery tree
FANS of fruitloopery will find a rich vein to mine from the organisers of 奥辞濒蹿别鈥檚 workshop. Aside from the king avocado, Tree of Life events plays host to the plant whisperer himself, Rupert Sheldrake, as well as a woman who 鈥渉as been teaching people to connect with the angelic realms for over twenty years鈥�, and a workshop on psychic protection. Bring your own tinfoil,
In bad taste
SPEAKING of nutritional fruitloopery, disgraced wellness blogger Belle Gibson has been fined A$410,000 (US$320,000) by Australian authorities after being found guilty of deceptive practices.
Gibson became an international celebrity after chronicling her battles with various cancers, which she claimed to have beaten using a combination of diet and alternative remedies.
But investigations found she never had cancer, and that money raised through selling her app and cookbook was never given to charity as claimed.
A statement released by Cancer Council Victoria said: 鈥淭here have been several high-profile examples of unscrupulous providers charging vulnerable people large sums of money for unproven and even dangerous treatments.鈥� Hopefully this ruling will mean that getting rich quick with a dodgy diet programme becomes a less appetising .
Turn on, tune in
THE latest brainstorm from the head of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ended in tears rather quickly. On 28 September, Ajit Pai called on Apple to activate radio-receiver chips that, in his words, 鈥渁re already installed in almost all smartphones in the United States鈥�.
His idea was to give everyone with a smartphone access to emergency radio broadcasts when wireless networks fail during a disaster. 鈥淎pple is the one major phone manufacturer that has resisted,鈥� he complained.
But there was one small problem. As Apple quickly pointed out, its two most recent phones, the iPhone 7 and 8, contain neither the required chips nor the antennas needed for good reception in the emergency broadcast band. Older iPhones did include such radio chips, but they came embedded in electronic modules bought to use in the phones, and were never connected to anything.
Surely the FCC could have found that information in the documentation supplied by Apple when the mobile devices were approved to operate in the US. But perhaps Pai was more concerned about critics blasting the FCC for the failure of communications systems when hurricanes hit Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the .
Curtain call
WE BID a fond farewell to Monte Halparin, known to the world as Monty Hall, who died last month aged 96. As host of the game show Let鈥檚 Make a Deal, he was responsible for confounding millions with the three-door problem that bears his name. Hopefully, when he finds himself in front of the Pearly Gates, he鈥檒l know whether to stick or switch.