Thought police
Maintaining China鈥檚 73-year ban on pornography is a job of work, but a natty new piece of headgear may help. The government鈥檚 鈥減orn appraisers鈥� have now merely to cast their eyes over suspect material at speed, and their caps 鈥� a sort of wire-covered shower cap developed by researchers at Beijing Jiaotong University 鈥� will read their brainwaves and detect when something catches their salacious interest. wonders why the system is so far only 80 per cent accurate, suspecting it is because the training material comes pre-censored. But what if the erroneous results were false positives? Feedback is reminded of Tom Lehrer: 鈥淲hen correctly viewed, Everything is lewd鈥︹��
More to the point, perhaps the technology could be adapted to expedite Feedback鈥檚 examination of the weekly inbox? One feels the gap between 鈥淧hwoar!鈥� and 鈥淲oah!鈥� must be largely semantic.
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With friends like these鈥�
Spare a thought for Frank Tumwebaze, Uganda鈥檚 minister of agriculture, animal industry and fisheries. His government is trying to encourage the African diaspora to invest, and who better to sing his country鈥檚 praises than Hollywood star Terrence Howard. So Tumwebaze invited him.
Not only did Howard , he also announced he 鈥渨as able to identify the grand unified field equation they鈥檝e been looking for, and put it into geometry鈥�. Goodness! 鈥淲e鈥檙e talking about unlimited bonding, unlimited predictable structures, super symmetry,鈥� he went on. Plenty for Uganda to mull over.
Bad influence
They strike poses, dance to music and trample crops. So far, so like the faerie folk of Feedback鈥檚 childhood (we were young once). But this lot also stirs up unmanageable crowds that block traffic and so, reports tech news site , Nepal鈥檚 tourism authorities have called time on TikTok鈥檚 influencers and banned them from key sites.
鈥淢aking TikTok by playing loud music creates a nuisance for pilgrims from all over the world who come to the birthplace of Gautama Buddha,鈥� says a spokesperson.
It isn鈥檛 just the pilgrimage sites being overrun: chamomile farmers have had to harvest early because TikTokers were gambolling about in their precious crop.
Specious copy
Psychics and tarot readers have been spreading like wildfire across Instagram (a land of faerie and wyrde if ever there was one). Instagramming 鈥渋ntuitives鈥� have found up to 15 copies of themselves on the site, as sprites (or 鈥渟cammers鈥�, as unimaginatively dubs them) copy accounts and try to trick their victims鈥� clients into paying them for services.
For a tarot reader to cry fraud raises a cool smile in these quarters. That said, let us agree that getting between someone and their next meal is Not Cool. Now, @opulentwitch is organising a metaphysical ceremony to protect her colleagues from scammers. More pragmatically, tarot reader Nova Magick has set up a Scammer Alert Page.
Blushes all around
The forces of wyrde are no respecters of intellectual property. Shortly after sunset on 20 July, fans of Stranger Things were disconcerted to find the sky to the west of Mildura, in north-west Victoria, Australia, filled by the TV show鈥檚 signature bilious pink glow.
According to , this harbinger of the Upside Down actually emanated from a nearby medicinal cannabis facility that had omitted to close its blinds. (Pink light encourages cannabis plants to bud.) Which was all a bit embarrassing for the Cann Group, which was supposed to be keeping the location of its facility a secret 鈥� and no comfort at all for fans of the show, for whom talk of secret facilities in rural locations carries a disquieting significance.
Bones to pick
Horror of a more contained sort visited Dudley resident Ann Mathers, according to a . The sudden appearance of a skull in her garden brought the police round, and a steady supply of human remains followed. Badgers have been fetching these unwanted gifts from a nearby cemetery 鈥� but why? There are urgent calls for the alley they have been using to be shut off, before they reveal their darker purpose.
Covid corral
The uncanny continues: reader Richard Hind gets a well-deserved sugar lump for spying an odd entry in the . At number 16: 鈥淗orse voice鈥�. And there we were, thinking the good folk of north-west England had herd immunity.
Ring of fire
Puns like that really ought to trigger some sort of Lloyd鈥檚 of London bell 鈥� and we now know who should ring it. Paul Wood, a resident of Hamilton, New Zealand, writes to tell us that a campanologist at his M膩ori church was one Rongo Bell. This being too good to be true, Paul investigated further: in M膩ori, rongo means 鈥渓isten鈥�. At which point Feedback鈥檚 brainwave-reading shower cap caught fire.
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