91av

Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

Amazing miracle water

SEVERAL readers have written to us about astonishing claims in an on 25 August. Headlined “Wave goodbye to global warming, GM and pesticides”, it extols the alleged virtues of a horticultural water-treatment technique the inventors call Vi-Aqua.

According to the newspaper: “The technology – radio wave energised water – massively increases the output of vegetables and fruit…” It also makes plants “largely disease resistant”, renders genetic modification “obsolete” and addresses the global warming problem by “converting excess CO₂ into edible plant mass”.

How does it do all this? The explains: “For the Technically Minded, Vi-Aqua continuously applies electromagnetic radio signal to the water via either a submersed, inline or hollow antennae [sic].” The water is then used to irrigate crops.

There is a certain scientific backing for the idea that treating water in this way might affect its properties (see ) – but we could find no published evidence that this includes enhancing the growth of plants. The scepticism of Feedback’s readers about the claims for Vi-Aqua in the Irish Independent seems fully justified.

Reader Martin McCann was even more sceptical than most – but he was thrown by a statement in the “Testimonials” section of the Vi-Aqua website, which is echoed in the newspaper. This says that “Kew have granted exclusive permission to Vi-Aqua the use of The Royal Botanic Gardens trademark in the promotion of its products highlighting the immense scientific importance of the technology to horticulture at this level.”

So maybe there’s something in these claims after all?

91av contacted Kew in London for verification. The answer that came back was: “The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has not endorsed the Vi-Aqua products since 2009. A recent press article in the Irish Independent that mentioned this endorsement and activities by Kew around it was inaccurate.”

What surprises Feedback about this is that in 2009 Kew appeared to be taking this product so seriously. Our readers will note that it has now changed its mind.

Jim Jobe was intrigued by an offer in Morrisons supermarket for “Mini Man-Sized Tissues”: “These were for mini-men, no doubt… and of course they were offered at a reduced price.”

Reboot the toilet

THE minutes of the meetings of the Parish Council of Arnside, Cumbria, UK, are posted on a village noticeboard and . Colin Jex draws our attention to item 11788 in the 8 July minutes, entitled “Ongoing Maintenance and Upkeep of Toilets”. This includes the following: “(1) a lady and two young children were recently locked in the toilets for over an hour, (2) a meeting with the engineer has taken place which identified that the software needs to be updated…”

Approximate precision

HOPING to go for a walk along the coast of Northumberland in north-east England, Alan Robinson checked out the “Walking Britain” website. The description of the scenic there gives the starting point of the walk as “OS grid reference NU256197 Lat 55.4704199170077 + Long -1.59455186840724 Postcode NE 66 3TW”.

Alan reckons this corresponds to a precision of something like ±0.1 micrometres – but the site adds that this is the “approx. location only”. Alan wants to know: “What would they regard as sufficiently precise?”

6 billion sandwiches

SEVERAL Australian readers have gleefully told us about what Neil Speirs calls “a major attempt to boost your catalogue of unusual units”. A press release from the country’s Clean Energy Council on 3 September celebrates . It tells us: “Australia’s wind farms generated 1024 gigawatt-hours in August, enough to make more than 6 billion (6,144,000,000) toasted sandwiches using an average sandwich press.”

A stack of these sandwiches, the press release goes on, “would go around the Earth more than three times”. What’s that in blue whales?

Hot or cold?

THE Tesco voucher that Flavio Antonietti sent to us promised him “£2 off when you spend £5 or more on hot pies in chilled ready meals”.

This set off an argument between Flavio and his 6-year-old son Andrew over whether this food would be hot or cold.

Spooky ice cream

WHEN Richard King visited the ruins of Hailes Abbey in Gloucestershire, UK, the shop there was selling “Supernatural Ice Cream”. He tried to work out how you would make this, and came up with an answer involving seances and frozen ectoplasm that we would rather not dwell on. “Maybe other readers can work out a better way,” he concludes hopefully.

Warm and sunny night

FINALLY, Rachel Burton sends us a screenshot of a BBC weather page during the first week of August. The forecast for the night ahead on the first day of the week reads: “UK overnight. Very warm and sunny for many. Cloudier in northern Scotland.”

“Do they know something we don’t?” asks Rachel.