Pet pendants, possibly
WOULD you like to offer your pet dog or cat some chemical-free flea and tick control? If you're a New Zealander, you're in luck. Just send the Pawtect company NZ$91 for a slim, lightweight protective pendant for your pet.
You may, however, need to suspend your common sense while you read the claims on the Pawtect website that Brian Lehtonen directs us to. This tells us: "The Pawtect pendants use a proprietary bio-energetic process combining quantum physics, homeopathic principles, and advanced computer software technology. The Pawtect pendants work with your pets' unique energy to strengthen their immune system and create a frequency barrier that repels and controls fleas, ticks and mosquito's [sic]."
And so it goes on, for several more pages of nonsense. We especially like the way they've dragged "quantum" in. And did we ever add "bio-energetic" to our list of fruitloopery indicators? No? Well, we are adding it now.
In the car park for Lytham St Anne's police station in Lancashire, UK, two spaces are designated "Unmarked Police Cars Only". David Walesby thinks this is a bit of a giveaway
Veritable vortex vibration
READERS who are taken with the idea of pendants for pets will be thrilled to learn that they can try out such pendants for themselves at nanoageproducts.com, to which Gus McNaughton kindly directs us. The "Quantum Vortex Energy Power Pendants" on sale there are apparently "high vibrational products... Through the intricate energy grids of sacred geometry and Quantum Nano Technology these products are self-adjusting and strive to elevate your vibration and awareness." All this for just $119.99!
Meanwhile, we're beginning to think we should add "nano" to our list of fruitloopery indicators too.
Antifreeze made of what?
AT A very reasonable price of ?2.50 for 750 grams, the Ice Clear that Barry Cash spotted in his local Co-operative store looked just the thing to have ready in case of a return to wintry conditions. A "fast and effective way to clear frost, ice and snow", it is apparently easy to sprinkle, it is less corrosive than salt, it stops refreezing for up to 24 hours, it is biodegradable and it is safe with animals and plants.
But what is it made of? Barry couldn't find any list of ingredients on the container, nor on the website of the supplier, challs.com. He began to wonder if Challs was "taking the piss", only to discover that, in a sense, they are. At the bottom of the Ice Clear web page, in very small type, is a link labelled "Data Sheets". Click on this, and you will discover that Ice Clear has one ingredient: urea.
Tax time-machine turns up
RELAX about getting your tax returns in. British reader Robin Stratford received a letter from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs that read: "Thank you for your letter which we received on 15 December 2010 about your form P800 Tax Calculation for the year ended 5 April 2010, which we sent to you on 14 October 2019."
We can only assume that tax-payers are allowed to use the same time machine.
Lucidly long-lived
THIS week's award for stating the blindingly obvious goes to Science Daily. Neill Jones points us to a statement in a February report on cell ageing that tells us: "The scientists discovered that certain proteins, called extremely long-lived proteins (ELLPs)... have a remarkably long lifespan."
"I think that in this case the clue was in the name," suggests Neill.
Trillions and trillions to one
THANKS to Tom Smith for pointing us to a correction in The New York Times science section on 26 January that he says "made me smile". At the bottom of an article on viruses, we read: "A previous version of this article misstated the probability that all four mutations for lambda viruses would arise at once. It is roughly one in a thousand trillion trillion, not one in a thousand billion billion."
What's that in dog?
STUMBLING to the tram stop after a long day of multilingual diplomatic wrangling at the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, a colleague's bleary eye was caught by a kerbside sign at an entrance to the landscaped grounds: "Acc?s interdit aux chiens". That is: "Access forbidden to dogs." But how will the dogs learn of this ban? Though both UN and Swiss bureaucrats are accustomed to multilingual documentation, this one is in French and pictogrammese only.
Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the bureaucrats' sense of humour did not extend to translating it into dog, unlike the sign in Chiswick Park, London, which says, "Grrr, bark, woof. Good dog" (3 October 2009).
This is not false
FINALLY, do two negatives make a positive? Robin Moorshead was struck by the "Fake Dummy Home SPY Security Surveillance CCTV Camera" on sale on eBay at bit.ly/fakedummy. If it is a fake dummy as advertised, does that make it real?
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