Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Turtly awesome
In these lockdown days when all but essential travel is forbidden, Feedback has been fascinated to discover what people in other parts of the world consider essential.
Topping the charts, in our view, is the Italian woman who was fined 400 euros by police in Rome for taking her turtle for a walk. It turns out that exercising your live-in chelonian 鈥� even if it is just for a 3-hour stroll round the block 鈥� doesn鈥檛 qualify as essential in covid-hit Italy.
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What also piqued Feedback鈥檚 interest was news organisation Agence France Presse鈥檚 decision to refer to the turtle as 鈥減izza-sized鈥�. How big is this pizza, we asked our colleagues. Presumably, one replied, turtle-sized.
An aptly circular argument, but not one that takes us very far. Unless, to coin a phrase, it is stuffed-crust turtles all the way down 鈥� hell for logicians but paradise for teenage mutant ninjas.
We鈥檝e cracked it
Scientific terminology, like a good can of air freshener, can make even the most distasteful subjects presentable. Embarrassed to talk about your watery bowel movements? Identify instead as being a type 7 on the Bristol stool scale. Your colleagues don鈥檛 want to hear stories of parasitic wasps whose larva eat their way out of the living bodies of hosts? Refer to the life cycle of Ichneumon eumerus instead and your audience will be rapt.
A co-worker forwarded a particularly good example to Feedback this week, a study taken from a presumably much pored-over medical journal called JAMA Dermatology.
Entitled 鈥淥nabotulinum Toxin A for Sacral and Intergluteal Cleft Hyperhidrosis鈥�, our colleague points out a more accurate summary of its findings would have been that botox injections stop excessive sweating from the butt crack. Doesn鈥檛 have quite the same ring to it, now does it?
If you have spotted any particularly amusing uses of scientific jargon recently, feel free to direct them hither via the medium of electronic mail.
Super savers
The island of Singapore was widely hailed for its swift response to the coronavirus crisis. It is hardly surprising that 鈥� even now, several months into the global pandemic 鈥� the city state is continuing to innovate in its response.
Just the other day, its government released illustrations of five new coronavirus-themed superheroes to be used in official literature.
They are: Dr Disinfector, Circuit Breaker, Fake News Buster (who carries a Mallet of Truth that gives Feedback a serious case of prop-envy), Must Always Walk Alone Man (who 鈥� and this isn鈥檛 a word of a lie 鈥� detests Liverpool Football Club and its chant of 鈥淵ou鈥檒l Never Walk Alone鈥�), and Care-leh Dee (pronounced Care Lady, like some sort of patronising women-only soap range).
If only the UK was willing to do something similar. We can see them now, striding purposefully over the horizon in skin-tight Lycra: Lift The Lockdown Man, But I Want To Go To The Park Kid, Captain Behavioural Science and their fearless commander It鈥檚 Just Like The Flu Lady.
Sadly, the coronavirus-fighting superheroes of Singapore have been withdrawn after falling foul of a force even they couldn鈥檛 defeat: the ire of Liverpool football fans.
Ghosting
Singapore isn鈥檛 alone in taking innovative measures to combat the virus. Nearby Indonesia is also getting in on the act, enlisting the undead to help fight for the living. Or, at least, sort of.
According to the BBC, Kepuh village on the island of Java has drafted volunteers to sit on public benches after dark and pretend to be ghosts. In the photo that accompanies the article, two sorry looking men sit at either end of a bench, swathed in white and looking for all the world like a pair of undrawn curtains.
We applaud the village鈥檚 creativity 鈥� and the villagers鈥� sense of civic duty 鈥� but if you aren鈥檛 scared of a global pandemic then what impact is someone dressed as a roll of toilet paper really likely to have? Now, somebody dressed as a shortage of toilet paper 鈥� that is scary.
Stop starter
The only thing Feedback loves more than pointless technology is the smartwatch app we have developed to track how many times we鈥檝e mentioned pointless technology in our column. As an aside, we have also programmed a smart bulb over our heads to turn purple every time we make a meta-joke, so we are enjoying its aubergine glow right now.
This week鈥檚 addition to the list is a doozy, though. Sourd.io, as an article in The Verge reports, 鈥渋s like a fitness tracker for your sourdough starter鈥�.
A device designed to fit in the lid of your average sourdough starter container, it can measure the temperature, humidity and volumetric increase of your bread-making microbial baby. One thing it can鈥檛 do, though, is track when your nearest and dearest are sick and tired of you wanging on about sourdough starters. Shame 鈥� that could have actually been useful.
Well would you look at that, there goes the purple light bulb again.
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