COMMENTING on Feedback’s report on Jonathan Rowles’s attempt to synthesise his reading of 91av and The Psychologist by invoking the concept of “quantum psychology” (28 November), Jon Sutton, editor of The Psychologist, wrote to us (Letters, 9 January, p 27) recalling that he once spent a few weeks on placement in 91av‘s offices.
“I will always remember being told that you experienced a spike in sales each time the word ‘quantum’ appeared on the cover,” he said. He went on to ask if there were any words that may have caused an actual drop in our sales.
Feedback asked 91av editor-in-chief Jeremy Webb. He said: “The only word I can think of is ‘potato’, but I only have a sample of one very poor-selling issue to back that up. There are most definitely images that subdue sales – insects and spiders don’t work for readers, nor do images of fire.”
Advertisement
This led us to wonder – purely in the interests of science, of course – what would happen if 91av put the words “quantum potato” on the cover. But perhaps it wouldn’t be ethical to confuse readers in this way.
“The cooking instructions for Justin Neville-Rolfe’s Christmas turkey from British supermarket Waitrose gave an “approximate cooking time” of “2 hours 60 minutes””
MYSTERY surrounding the golfer Tiger Woods has grown much deeper and considerably more interesting than the speculation over events leading up to his minor car crash in November – at least according to a in the UK tabloid the Daily Mail, forwarded to us by Emily Wright.
“Officers first attempted to interview the golfer, thought to be worth about £500 million,” it says, “when he returned from hospital.” So far, so standard procedure. “They were told he was asleep and to come back yesterday, but were then informed that he would again be unavailable and they should try today.”
Has the case gone quiet because the officers investigating are now trapped in an infinite loop of all their yesterdays, Emily wonders? We can certainly understand that Woods himself would like the ability to come back yesterday… that halcyon day when the ball wasn’t lodged in the branches of that tree, the car was dent-free, and science magazines weren’t indulging in idle celebrity gossip.
LAX regulation of the internet allows companies to register website addresses in foreign countries, so that internet shoppers can be fooled into thinking they are buying locally when in fact they are not. Last year, in the first case of its kind, the US Federal Trade Commission used the US Safe Web Act of 2006 to get heavy with a Californian e-tailer who ran two websites with “co.uk” addresses ( and ).
that British customers thought they were buying consumer electronics from a company operating in the UK, with British warranties and no risk of customs duties. They then found themselves charged unexpected taxes and duties by the postman and received invalid guarantees. And as any traveller knows, DVDs, games and TV equipment sold for use in the US often aren’t compatible with European systems.
We recently checked both sites and found them still up and running and offering deals with prices in pounds sterling – but both do now say clearly that they offer “deals from the USA”. Hopefully, this message will alert would-be customers.
All of which sounds to us like standard internet skullduggery – but there is one other aspect of the story that makes it especially noteworthy, and that is the name of the offending company. With or without the “co.uk”, we wonder how many Feedback readers would want to order goods from a firm called Balls of Kryptonite.
“I SAVED £137.43 on household insurance,” says the woman in the UK TV advertisement for . “The money you can claw back on household insurance is invaluable.”
“Surely,” says David Hewitt, “its value is £137.43 – or am I missing something?”
Raging at the wrap rage beater
OUR colleague Henry Gomm tells us that for Christmas his father brought his grandmother a – a multifunctional tool that claimed to be able to open all types of bottles, lids, boxes and plastic wrappings.
The only problem was that, almost inevitably, it came in vacuum-sealed plastic packaging so impregnably tough that, try as she might, Henry’s grandmother just couldn’t get it open. The only way the family could beat their wrap rage over this was by recourse to a pair of heavy-duty kitchen scissors.
Post-Newtonian station announcement
FINALLY, one from the department of post-Newtonian physics. Edward Roworth was impressed by the combination of relativity and quantum theories implicit in an announcement at Oxford railway station, which urged passengers: “To speed up time, please use all available doors to enter the train.”
