Line of duty
Last week, Wimbledon reached its climax, and with this came the annual high point of a sport at which the British are acknowledged world-beaters: queuing. A timely moment for a collective of researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London, to examination of the phenomenon seen through the prism of another great UK institution.
The focus of the GEARS collective (Goldsmiths Ethnography of the Antiques Roadshow) is the televised valuation of the contents of the UK鈥檚 attics, brought along en masse to a salubrious location such as a stately home. This format gives participants a pleasing wealth of queuing options, the researchers note. There are queues for the car park, the sorting of antiques and their valuation, as well as extra lines for food and drinks, the toilets and the gift shop.
Here, researchers could observe the strategies of seasoned queuers and the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable queuing behaviour. Approved tactics included the use of folding chairs and mixed doubles 鈥� partnering with friends or even strangers who could hold your place in a queue. With the help of such proxies, one enterprising woman managed to create a macroscopic quantum queuing effect, saving spots in two lines simultaneously.
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Filmed for the BBC, the event was held at a National Trust property on a summer鈥檚 day (it rained) when there was also a Euro 2016 football match between England and Wales, a week before the referendum on leaving the EU. While questions of British identity were therefore a hot topic, the researchers note that nearly everyone considered queues to be 鈥渧ery British鈥�.
Yet the authors also reveal that the provenance of this belief is as questionable as some of the antiques brought for appraisal. For mid-century Brits, queuing was a social malaise better suited to Soviet states. Britain during its postwar period of austerity, , was 鈥渜ueuetopia鈥�.
Perhaps a love of queuing is just another form of nostalgia, a yearning for simpler, more ordered times when everyone had a place 鈥� or, at least, had someone holding it for them.
Liquid assets
No need to queue at the Westfield shopping centre in White City, where west London鈥檚 private doctors are hard at work ridding customers of what ails them most, namely an excess of disposable income. At an establishment calling itself Get a Drip, customers can, for a cool 拢75, dispense with the plebeian act of drinking water and instead be cannulated with a bag of saline labelled Basic Hydration.
From there, the promises 鈥� and prices 鈥� increase. A 鈥減arty鈥� drip (consisting of saline, potassium, calcium and bicarbonate) costs 拢125 and an 鈥渁nti-ageing鈥� drip is 拢200, while the 拢3000 price tag for a certainly left us blanched.
Get a Drip says it is bringing high-end beauty therapies to the high street at 鈥渁ffordable prices鈥�. If Feedback feels the need to sample a bag of vitamin C-infused fluids, we might just content ourselves with a Capri Sun.
Grave consequences
Prescribed the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, Brian King finds himself reading the accompanying notes. He is warned that the drug may increase psychosis, the effects of which 鈥渃an progress to thoughts of suicide, suicide attempts or completed suicide. If this happens, contact your doctor immediately.鈥� By Ouija board, he presumes.
To infinity, not beyond
At first, Feedback shared a colleague鈥檚 puzzlement at UK telecoms firm Vodafone鈥檚 new range of tariffs, Unlimited Lite, Unlimited and Unlimited Max. But, invoking the spirit of the father of set theory Georg Cantor, we are reminded that the infinite does indeed come in different sizes. Which leads us to question why Vodafone only offers a measly three: the number of possible sizes of infinity, Cantor showed, is itself unlimited.
All of this bamboozlement reminds us of perhaps our favourite academic put-down of all time: Swedish mathematician G枚sta Mittag-Leffler once blocked the publication of one of Cantor鈥檚 papers, on the basis that the work had come 鈥�100 years too soon鈥�. Do submit your own contenders to the usual address.
Pitch perfect
鈥淢y destiny was linked to a ball.鈥� So says Javi Poves, president of the football club formerly known as M贸stoles Balompi茅, in a portentous video on YouTube , Spanish football鈥檚 confusingly named fourth tier. The real news was that Poves鈥檚 team will henceforth be known as Flat Earth FC.
The team is 鈥渢he first football club whose followers are united by the most important thing, which is an idea鈥� 鈥� namely, that it鈥檚 turtles all the way down. Poves calls himself 鈥渁 nonconformist who does not accept the imperatives of the system鈥�. Imperatives such as logic and good sense, we take it.
Perhaps his team鈥檚 new standing will offer Poves the sort of semi-visibility he craves in order to further the cause of geodesics denial. Feedback previously noted that basketball players in the US including Shaquille O鈥橬eal had decided the world couldn鈥檛 possibly be ball-shaped (1 April 2017). Could it be that athletes subconsciously seek out the ultimate level playing field?
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