Bad education
THE resignation of David Cameron has seen a fresh batch of candidates vying to become the next leader of the Conservative party and prime minister of the UK.
Following the shock referendum vote to leave the EU, you would be forgiven for thinking that all of the UK’s ballot papers should be placed safely out of reach of British citizens. It seems MPs agreed, as the premiership will almost certainly go to home secretary Theresa May without the need for a vote, a prospect examined in this week’s leader. Below, Feedback looks at the prime ministers we have narrowly avoided.
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Candidates included surprise entry Michael Gove, who ditched his prospective running mate Boris Johnson in a move as wise as a jockey deciding he could win the steeplechase without his horse.
While secretary of state for education, Gove famously demanded that all schoolchildren should achieve above average test scores. Asked by the Education Committee how this was mathematically possible, Gove replied matter-of-factly “by getting better all the time”.
“”The largest international neutrino conference is set to arrive in South Kensington next week,” reports the Institute of Physics. And pass straight through it, we imagine”
A close shave
BEARDED work and pensions secretary Stephen Crabb threw his hat into the ring, too. A strong believer in the power of prayer, the conservative Christian previously got into a hairy situation over his links to a charity that sponsored an event promoting “gay cure” therapies.
Terror toddlers
ANOTHER in the running was former energy secretary Andrea Leadsom, who announced that she had two big questions when she started as head of the Department of Energy and Climate Change: was fracking safe, and was climate change real?
A family values politician with a strong belief in marriage (despite seeking a quick divorce from the EU), she once claimed “science shows that you can predict two thirds of future chronic criminals by behaviour seen in two year olds.”
A moving average
FEEDBACK is not sure which constitutes a greater barrier to becoming prime minister: an ignorance of maths, chemistry, technology, biology, climate science or childhood development. We could find solace in Gove’s insistence that “it is possible to get better all the time”. Britons might be forgiven for thinking that the opposite is also true.
A sinking feeling
ACROSS the pond, US journalists are speculating on the possible break-up of the United Kingdom like sightseers witnessing icebergs calve from a small, xenophobic glacier. The Washington Post proposes that London and Scotland could depart the country all together, leaving “a rump state of Wales and England” that it christens Wangland, the threat of which, Feedback suspects, is enough to keep us all in union.
Dial M for marriage
IN AN exception to the aphorism that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, news trickled out that Los Angeles resident Aaron Chervenak married his smartphone while in the city.
In a video , the newly-wed film-maker admits that “it’s not yet legal to marry a smartphone”, but hopes the ceremony “will act as a symbolical gesture to show how precious our phones are becoming in our daily lives”.
, Kaspersky has a new report out on mobile phones. A marriage of convenience, perhaps?
Lights out
THEY say a stopped clock is still right twice a day; Eric Goodger reports finding an apposite partially illuminated street sign. “Some years ago on a Hampshire road I encountered a broken sign for a bus stop, which instead read ‘BU ST’.”
Rules of attraction
A KIND colleague passes us guidelines from Royal Mail on what can be sent in the post. Some of the proscribed items are self-explanatory: recreational drugs, firearms and highly flammable liquids.
However, Feedback is left puzzled over the specifications for shipping magnets, which are, er, rather specific. of 0.418A/metre or more at a distance of 4.6 metres from the outside of the package” is forbidden.
An online magnet seller notes this “equates to 2° of compass deflection at 4.6m from the outside of the package.” A precaution against the drivers of long-distance mail vans getting lost in their posts?
Postal vote
ON A lesser note, if anyone is tempted to flee the UK to escape the current turmoil, Feedback notes that while the regulations state that human samples and human remains are both forbidden, there’s no mention of a ban on sending whole, functioning humans in the post.
Arresting performance
DAMNING with praise: Peter Rummer points us to a flyer promoting the Watford Colosseum as a hire venue. Clients can expect “a unique setting for an unforgettable event”, we are told, featuring “access to our show-stopping technical team”.
“I wonder what the technical team has done wrong to be described in this way,” .
Trunk tower
FEEDBACK often cocks an eyebrow at unusual units of measurement, but we cannot help but be entertained by one Ian Brown sends. Quoting researcher Fran Bagenal, the BBC at the centre of Jupiter is “like a thousand elephants, one on top of the other, with the bottom elephant standing on a stiletto”.
A lost circus act, perhaps?